ENGLEWOOD, Colo. — Twelve years before Matthew Stafford became a Super Bowl champion, he was a 21-year-old quarterback whose chest was rattled by the roar of the Superdome.

Stafford’s first regular-season start came on the road against a Sean Payton-coached New Orleans Saints team that would go on to win the franchise’s first championship that season. An experienced, champing-at-the-bit defense promptly showered the Detroit Lions’ rookie quarterback in welcome-to-the-NFL moments. The Saints intercepted that year’s No. 1 pick three times and harassed him constantly as he cobbled together a 27.4 passer rating. That mark remains the lowest of Stafford’s distinguished career.

“It was tough,” Stafford summarized after that Week 1 walloping. “I wish I could have played better.”

The thing is, rookies who make their first career starts on the road seldom do. Since 2020, first-year quarterbacks who make their NFL debuts away from home are 2-15. Those 17 passers have thrown only eight touchdown passes during that stretch. No rookie QB has won a Week 1 road start since 2018.

Now, 16 years after the Saints bottled up Stafford, Payton will try to add to that tortured history when his Denver Broncos open the 2025 season at home Sunday against the Tennessee Titans and quarterback Cam Ward. The No. 1 pick in April’s draft may become one of the league’s best at the position in due time, just as Stafford did in the years that followed his nightmare debut. On Sunday, though, it’s the job of the Broncos’ highly regarded defense — and their amped-up fans at Empower Field at Mile High — to make Ward look like what he is: a rookie quarterback making his first start in a hostile house of horrors.

“It’s going to be a stiff test. It’ll be a hell of an opening environment,” said Titans coach Brian Callahan, who was a Broncos assistant from 2010 to 2015. “I spent a lot of years in Denver, I know exactly what that feels like, and it will be all of that. They’re excited about their football team, and they should be. So we’re walking into a pretty adverse environment for Week 1.”

Ward faces a task Sunday that is not all that dissimilar from what greeted Broncos quarterback Bo Nix last season when he made his first start at Lumen Field in Seattle. The Broncos did their best to make things loud for Nix leading up to his starting debut against the Seahawks, similar to how the Titans “have turned up the music as loud as you can” while preparing Ward for his debut.

However, there is no simulating the noise created by “The 12s,” a fan base that famously made the needle of a seismograph dance during Marshawn Lynch’s “Beastquake” run in the playoffs against Payton’s Saints. Nix threw two interceptions and averaged only 3.3 yards per attempt in a 26-20 loss. The turnaround came swiftly for Nix, who ultimately accounted for 33 touchdowns as a rookie, but he was overwhelmed by Seattle’s defense and play-caller Mike Macdonald in Week 1. The 47.5 passer rating held up as the worst of Nix’s rookie season.

“A tough day,” he said afterward.

Ward will face an even more ferocious defense than the unit Nix encountered in Seattle last season. The Broncos finished first last season in defensive EPA (expected points added) per snap and first in sacks (63). They ranked third in red-zone efficiency (46.9 percent opponent TD rate), 11th in third-down efficiency (37.3 percent) and ninth in takeaways (24). Denver, now in its third season under defensive coordinator Vance Joseph, brought back every key member of that group this offseason. It also added physical veterans in safety Talanoa Hufanga and linebacker Dre Greenlaw, who did not play a snap in the preseason but is expected to make his Broncos debut in Week 1.

“You can see their continuity show up,” Callahan said. “Their front kind of sets the tone, which allows them to cover really well.”

Payton has preached a “sense of urgency” for his team as he tries to overcome slow starts that plagued him during his first two seasons in Denver. The Broncos dropped their first three games in 2023 and lost their first two last season before rallying to make the playoffs at 10-7. After the opener and a Week 2 trip to face the Indianapolis Colts, the Broncos have three straight games against playoff-caliber teams: at the Chargers in Week 3; against the Bengals on Monday Night Football in Week 4; and on the road against the defending Super Bowl champion Eagles in Week 5. It’s a slate that leaves little margin at the start. That makes jumping on Ward early imperative for Denver’s defense. Veteran nose tackle D.J. Jones said there’s an easy-to-follow formula that will determine whether the Broncos can reverse their recent slow-starting trend.

“The defensive line dominates their offensive line,” he said. “Simple.”

Despite the struggles for quarterbacks during their debuts on the road — the mark is 17-49 when dialing the clock back to the 2000 season — there are still challenging elements when it comes to game-planning for a rookie in Week 1. The Broncos are trying to create a defensive game plan by hodge-podging together Ward film from college and his brief stint with the Titans in the preseason, when he completed 10 of 19 passes for 145 yards with no touchdowns and no interceptions.

“We do all of it,” Payton said. “You have a limited exposure in the preseason with him. Then, you would go back and look at his college tape at Miami just to get a feel for not only arm strength, but how does he handle pressure? How does he handle his own? We do a pretty in-depth study. It’s pretty normal when you play teams early in the season, maybe, to not have all the information you might have when you play a team Week 8 or 9.”

Rookie quarterbacks who begin their careers on the road haven’t enjoyed much success recently, but surprise debuts aren’t unprecedented. In 2015, Marcus Mariota, the No. 2 pick by the Titans, completed 13 of 15 passes for 209 yards, four touchdowns and a perfect 158.3 passer rating during a victory in Tampa Bay. In 2012, Washington rookie Robert Griffin III put up 362 total yards and two touchdowns in a 40-32 win at New Orleans.

The bottom line, though, is that making your first NFL start on the road is generally a difficult task. If the Broncos want to give this season with major expectations a promising start, they can’t let Ward be an exception to the rule.

Footnotes

• Broncos wide receiver Marvin Mims returned to practice Monday after missing most of the last two team workouts with a groin injury. The only player on the team’s active roster who did not participate was tight end Nate Adkins, who continues to recover from a minor ankle surgery he underwent last month.

• Rookie cornerback Jahdae Barron is now wearing No. 23 after playing in No. 12 threads during training camp and the preseason.

(Photo: Todd Kirkland / Getty Images)