The Jaguars are back at Mile High, and this time they’re carrying a little more swagger with them.
Jacksonville walked into Denver in Week 15 last season and put up 34 points. Now the Jaguars return at 1-0, with the Broncos sitting at 0-1 and FanDuel listing Jacksonville as a 2.5-point underdog. That number might not last long if the Jaguars keep playing the way they have since last season’s midyear surge.
Since starting their nine-game regular season win streak in Week 11 last year, Jacksonville has led the league in wins (9), points per game (33.7), points scored (303), and total touchdowns (36). The small sample size and the schedule arguments are easy to make. The tape still says the same thing: the Jaguars can flat-out move the ball.
Trevor Lawrence and the passing game have been humming, but Sunday also looks like a chance for the run game to make a statement. Bhayshul Tuten has the look of a player ready for a breakout, especially against a Denver defense that just got shredded by Kenneth Walker III.
Walker went for 173 rushing yards in his Kansas City Chiefs debut, the most by a Chief since Jamaal Charles in 2012, according to Ben Solak. A huge chunk of that damage came from under center runs, the kind of plays that are becoming more common across the league.
That trend matters here. Bill Barnwell noted that shotgun run looks are easier to diagnose and limit, while pass snaps from under center have been more efficient than those from shotgun or pistol since 2021. Denver got hammered by that style of offense in Week 1, and Jacksonville should see that as an opening.
The Jaguars have plenty of pieces to make it work. Tight ends Nate Boerkircher and Quintin Morris were “absolute dogs” in the run game last week.
Rookie guard Emmanuel Pregnong is already being framed as an early breakout candidate for 2026. Anton Harrison is holding down the blindside with inspiring play.
And Tuten looks good enough to make the Broncos pay if they lose track of him.
Lawrence and the Jaguars’ deep receiving group will still attack weak spots in coverage, just like they did against Cleveland and last season in Denver. But the feeling here is that this becomes Tuten’s kind of game. He was one of the few players in Week 1 who could consistently avoid negative plays, and while the explosive runs haven’t fully shown up yet, this matchup could change that.
The more specific call, though, is that Chris Rodriguez Jr. has the biggest day on the ground.
He’s the back built for the type of game Jacksonville is likely to get in Denver: a road fight where every yard counts. Tuten may get the more visible workload, but Rodriguez is the one the Jaguars seem most likely to trust in the tight spots.
Last week, Tuten played 28 snaps to Rodriguez’s 23 and handled 15 carries to Rodriguez’s 6. Even so, Rodriguez was the only Jaguar with multiple carries in short-yardage situations, and he was the only one to get a carry in the red zone.
That makes him a strong touchdown candidate at +350 on FanDuel, with +3500 odds to score twice. The expectation here is that Jacksonville uses both backs, but Rodriguez is the one who can cash in when the field shrinks.
Lawrence also gets a touchdown pick on the ground at +350. He made it clear after Week 1 that “scrambles lead the league in touchdowns every year,” and he has the kind of red-zone running ability that can tilt a game. Since entering the league in 2021, only Jalen Hurts and Josh Allen have more rushing touchdowns than Lawrence.
The other side of this matchup is even uglier for Denver after what happened Monday night.
The Broncos were a mess against the Chiefs. Bo Nix finished with 131 passing yards and a career-high four sacks, the offensive line got exposed, the operation under Davis Webb was slow, and the running backs were shaky in pass protection.
Jaylen Waddle also dropped what should’ve been a huge catch-and-run play. Jaguars defensive coordinator Anthony Campanile blitzed Nix on just 14.3% of dropbacks in their last meeting, the second-lowest rate for Jacksonville in 2025, but after that Week 1 collapse, he may have every reason to turn up the pressure.
That leads to the boldest prediction of the day: Sean Payton takes over playcalling at halftime.
Payton’s offseason addition of Waddle looked like a smart one on paper, even with the first-round pick attached to it. The Broncos had the pieces to build something dangerous, and the expectation was that Payton would still steer the offensive plan even if Webb handled the calls.
But after one week, the whole setup already looks shaky. The guess here is that Payton won’t sit through much more of it before grabbing the sheet back himself and making a show of it.
That’s where the story sits entering Sunday: a Jaguars offense that looks ready to score, a Broncos defense that just got rocked, and a Denver sideline that may already be bracing for a change.
In Other News...
Jaguars Defense Gets An Early Chance To Expose Denvers Biggest Problem
The Broncos left their season opener with plenty to sort through after a 31-10 loss to the Chiefs, and much of the postgame attention centered on how quickly the offense has to steady itself. Bo Nix acknowledged the rough start but framed it as a problem to fix rather than a reason to panic, while Sean Payton took responsibility and pointed to the teams overall shortcomings as the bigger issue.
For Jacksonville, that makes this coming matchup feel like an early measuring stick for a defense looking to take advantage of a team still searching for answers. The Jaguars will get a look at a Denver group that knows it has to play cleaner and more complete football in a hurry, and the pressure is already on Paytons side to show the opener was a stumble, not a sign of a deeper problem. [Read more 🡒]
Travis Hunter Just Gave Jaguars Fans A Big New Reason To Watch
Travis Hunter is back on the field for Jacksonville after a long recovery from an LCL tear that kept him out for 318 days, and his first game back offered the Jaguars a fresh glimpse of why they were so eager to get him involved again. He worked mostly on defense, mixed in a few snaps on offense and finished with one catch and one carry, a small but meaningful step in reintroducing a player the team plans to use in more than one way.
Hunter and the Jaguars defensive coordinator both sounded encouraged by what they saw, which matters because this is still the start of figuring out how far his workload can go. Special teams could be next on the list, adding another layer to a role that already asks plenty of him and giving Jacksonville even more reason to keep watching how the plan unfolds. [Read more 🡒]
Jaguars Face A Mile High Problem After A Shaky Week 1
The Jaguars spent the early part of the week looking hard at the kicking game as they get ready for Denver, where the elevation at Mile High Stadium can change the way kickoffs play out. Jacksonvilles special teams had a rough opening weekend, giving up more than 200 kick return yards and producing only one touchback on seven kickoffs, leaving field position as an immediate concern heading into Week 2.
Heath Farwell and Doug Pederson are weighing game-management adjustments to help limit damage and create better starting spots for the defense. With the Broncos waiting and the altitude factor in play, the Jaguars know this is more than a routine special-teams cleanup job - it may shape how they choose to attack kickoffs and control the game flow on Sunday. [Read more 🡒]