The Denver Broncos locker room is replete with tone-setting players, perhaps none more popular than superstar cornerback Patrick Surtain II, who might be poised to walk away with the NFL’s Defensive Player of the Year award.

In the most respectful terms possible, Surtain joked that old-timers like Buffalo Bills edge rusher Von Miller need to step aside and let the young bucks on the Broncos get their shine.

“I know Von holds a special place in his heart for Broncos Country. Because he won his Super Bowls here, all his accolades come from Broncos Country,” Surtain said. “So, it’s going to be a huge game for him, I believe. But, I’ll tell him, I’ll tell him this now like—it’s our time to shine now. He had his time, earlier back in his days, but it’s our time now. But it’s going to be good catching up with him, seeing him, too.”

Maybe Miller will be put out to pasture by the youth movement that replaced him in Denver, but irrespective of that, the Bills head into this Wildcard matchup as a heavy eight-point favorite. Having made the playoffs against the odds anyway, it’s no surprise that some within the Broncos locker room, like quarterback Bo Nix, are happy to play along with being the underdog.

“The advantage of being an underdog is the element of playing loose,” Nix said on Wednesday. “In a way, you don’t have anything to lose. Nobody’s got all this pressure on you, so you can go out there and play your best because nobody expects you to do well anyway. It’s cliche and it sounds cheesy, but most people, they literally didn’t expect us to be here, so we might as well continue to not worry about those things. [We have to] do what we can do and just worry about ourselves. When we’ve done that this year, we’ve had good success, but it’s definitely not going to be easy.”

Beyond the common perception that the Broncos are playing with house money, Surtain holds the alternative belief that the underdog tag really doesn’t mean that much to him.

“I wouldn’t necessarily say that,” Surtain said of the Broncos underdog tag. “I think it’s any given Sunday at the end of the day. It’s playoff football. Everybody’s 0-0. I don’t think there’s any true meaning of underdog, especially in this atmosphere that’s coming up. We have a great opportunity in our sights, and we’re just going to go out there and play our brand of football.”

It would be easy for the young Broncos to be content with just making it to the postseason party. That might work for other teams, but you get the distinct vibe that the Broncos are too well-drilled to let their standards drop at this late juncture of the season.

Creating classic sports upsets almost always boils down to hitting on the perfect combination of ambition and execution at the most opportune moment.