The Broncos don’t have the luxury of sitting around and stewing over Monday night for long.
After getting thumped by the Kansas City Chiefs in a game head coach Sean Payton described by saying, “there was dirt on a ton of people’s hands,” Denver has to turn right around and get ready for its first home game of the season. Waiting in Week 2 is the Jacksonville Jaguars, the same team that handed the Broncos their only home loss in the regular season last year.
That makes the setup tricky enough on its own, and the short week only sharpens the edge. Jacksonville is coming off a strong Week 1 win over Cleveland, though that result comes with a small asterisk considering how rough the Browns looked. Even so, this doesn’t shape up as an easy bounce-back spot for Denver.
Still, there are reasons to think the Broncos can steady themselves fast.
Bo Nix has not won a season opener as Denver’s starter, but once the first week passes, he’s stacked up the kind of results that make people take notice. He also played well against Jacksonville last season.
On top of that, Davis Webb is getting his second crack at calling the offense, and that alone should help the unit clean up some of the rust from Week 1. The running game should be in better shape now that the Broncos have a full week of film to sort through, and the new wide receiver pairing should see more work than it did against Kansas City.
The defense has its own point to prove. Denver’s roster looked like one that should not have been gashed for all those yards in Week 1, and the tackling was a major problem - 28 missed tackles in all.
That kind of performance usually leaves a mark, and by the sound of things, the Broncos’ defensive players have been carrying that frustration through practice all week. They’ve looked angry, and they sound ready to take it out on somebody.
So while the Broncos opened the year on the wrong side of things, they still have a chance to get back to .500 quickly. Doing it against a tough opponent on a short week would go a long way toward calming the nerves that have already started creeping in around the fan base.
The turnaround is fast. Denver has to be faster.
In Other News...
Broncos Facing Early Pressure After Brutal Week 2 Forecast
Denvers opening loss to Kansas City already put the Broncos in an uneasy spot, and the offenses rough showing did little to calm concerns about how quickly this season can get away from them. Now the conversation has shifted to Week 2, where the Jacksonville Jaguars come in after a convincing win over the Cleveland Browns and with enough momentum to make an early-season trip to Denver feel like a far tougher test than the schedule might suggest.
ESPN analyst Pamela Maldonado has already added to the pressure by projecting another Broncos loss, a forecast that would send Denver to 0-2 and turn the first two weeks into an urgent reset point. For a team trying to avoid digging too deep a hole this early, the matchup suddenly carries more weight than a typical September game, with the Broncos left to answer whether last week was a bad start or a warning sign. [Read more 🡒]
Broncos Have No Excuse To Let This Home Bounce-Back Spot Slip
After a Week 1 loss, Denver gets a quick chance to steady itself at home against a Jacksonville team that arrives with some momentum but also the early uncertainty that comes with a new regime. On paper, this is the kind of matchup the Broncos should be able to lean into. Their roster looks stronger overall, and a home opener after an opening-week setback is the sort of spot good teams use to get back on track.
The Jaguars have played well enough recently to make this more than a layup, so Denver cannot treat it like a routine rebound. Still, if the Broncos are going to live up to the talent on the roster, this is exactly the sort of game they need to handle. The opportunity is there, the setting is favorable, and the pressure now is on Denver to make sure a winnable home game does not turn into an early-season missed chance. [Read more 🡒]
Broncos Week 1 Mess Leaves One Big Question For Jaguars
Denvers Week 1 showing against Kansas City left plenty for Sean Payton to clean up before the Broncos turn to Jacksonville in Week 2. The defense missed too many tackles, and the offense had its own problems under new coordinator Davis Webb, making the opener look more like a rough first draft than a finished product. Even so, there is still a belief around the league that Payton can steer this group back into form, especially with his track record as a play-caller and an early schedule that does the Broncos no favors.
Jacksonville is preparing for a version of Denver that should look sharper than the one that stumbled out of the gate Sunday. The Jaguars do not expect the tackling to stay that poor, which is part of what makes the matchup interesting: Denver has clear room to improve, and the urgency is already obvious. The bigger question is how quickly Webb can settle his unit down while Payton tries to keep the Broncos from letting one bad opener turn into an early-season trend. [Read more 🡒]