Strike 2: Most in Broncos Country were hyped by the solid performance of rookie quarterback Bo Nix in the preseason opening win over Indianapolis. Nix dominated the postgame chatter, with nearly everyone who watched offering glowing reviews. The Denver offense as a whole performed well beyond expectation, racking up more than 400 yards and 34 points.
But there was even more to be happy about when you took a deeper dive.
Remember, this was a preseason opener, so you take everything with a grain of salt as they say. But in that setting the Broncos bucked a trend in a very positive way.
Typical preseason openers are flag fests, especially late in games. Penalty after penalty. The refs getting as much air time as the game broadcasters. Games that take three and a half hours to finish.
That didn’t happen this time around.
For the game, Denver committed just six penalties for 60 yards, including an early “taunting” call against receiver Tim Patrick, who caught his first pass in two and half years (following a pair of season ending training camp injuries) and felt the need to celebrate a bit. There was no reason for the officials to even touch his flag on that one. Six should have been just five.
For comparison, go back to Nathaniel Hackett’s first preseason game as head coach of the Broncos in 2022. In that game, Denver committed 17 penalties. A sign of things to come? We all saw what an undisciplined mess that team – especially on offense – was when the regular season came around.
In Payton’s second season (Denver also committed just six penalties in last year’s preseason opener) most of the flags came early, which is also unusual for a preseason game. So after a few first game jitters were calmed, the Broncos played a pretty clean football game (aside from three turnovers) regardless of who was under center. The fumbles absolutely need to be fixed, and that will be a focus when practice resumes. What’s most important is that the signs are there that this team will at the very least play disciplined football this season.
Bad teams beat themselves with penalties and turnovers. So far, this team doesn’t look like they’re going to beat themselves very often.
And that’s important as Payton sets the course for the Broncos rebuild. After the Hackett fiasco, Denver needed “an adult in the room” as the head coach, not another first year guy feeling his way around. Sure, some of those guys are successful too, but with Payton at least Broncos Country knows that the group making the football decisions has a track record of long term success. There’s a winning formula to follow.
The roster as a whole isn’t among the upper half of the league in terms of raw talent. But it’s fair to believe that part will come in due time.
As a Broncos follower, you should want this year’s final record to be a reflection of the talent level on this roster, and not the result of a more talented team making a bunch of needless and preventable mistakes. This is the group that’s setting the proper course.
If the Broncos go 7-10 this season, you want it to be because they have 7-10 talent.
So far, so good.