{"id":838924,"date":"2026-09-19T11:30:18","date_gmt":"2026-09-19T11:30:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/838924\/"},"modified":"2026-09-19T11:30:18","modified_gmt":"2026-09-19T11:30:18","slug":"how-denver-broncos-can-bounce-back-vs-jacksonville","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/838924\/","title":{"rendered":"How Denver Broncos can bounce back vs. Jacksonville"},"content":{"rendered":"

Sunday afternoon can\u2019t come fast enough for the Broncos<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Week 1 was a dud<\/a>. A blowout loss at Arrowhead Stadium.<\/a> The kind of game that can make even a short week to the home opener against Jacksonville feel long.<\/p>\n

Nothing went particularly well<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat game didn\u2019t go for any of us as we would\u2019ve hoped,\u201d head coach Sean Payton said Thursday when asked in particular about Davis Webb\u2019s play-calling debut. \u201cI said in the meeting this morning, there was dirt on a ton of people\u2019s hands. Starting with me. We have to learn from that. It\u2019s a quick turnaround.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou can\u2019t get to the next game quick enough, and I\u2019m sure it\u2019s the same way for him.\u201d<\/p>\n

Of course, Denver\u2019s next game is anything but easy. The Broncos host Jacksonville, a team that came to the Front Range in December last year and thumped Payton\u2019s group.<\/p>\n

So, it\u2019s not just getting to the next game. It\u2019s also playing a whole lot better.<\/p>\n

Here\u2019s a five-point checklist for a better Broncos outing in Week 2.<\/p>\n

\"BoBo Nix (10) of the Denver Broncos scrambles as R. Mason Thomas (51) of the Kansas City Chiefs pursues during the second quarter at Arrowhead Stadium in Kansas City, Missouri on Monday, September 14, 2026. (Photo by AAron Ontiveroz\/The Denver Post)
\nBo Nix must play more assertively and with more timing and rhythm<\/p>\n

Denver\u2019s first offensive snap of Monday night set the tone. The Chiefs brought a corner blitz from both sides and forced Nix into quick-decision mode. He saw the back-side blitzer lurking pre-snap, but the front-side appeared to surprise Nix and the rest of the offense. He perhaps could have thrown into the pressure immediately and had Jaylen Waddle one-on-one with a closing defensive back. Out ahead was a ton of green grass if Waddle made the first man miss. More difficult, Courtland Sutton had a good matchup on a deeper crossing route, but Nix was sacked as he tried to elude pressure.<\/p>\n

Overall, of course, not all of Denver\u2019s offensive woes fall to the quarterback. Waddle, though, didn\u2019t finish with one catch for two yards because he wasn\u2019t open. He was multiple times. Nix missed some chances to get the ball to him, particularly when he would have had to anticipate Waddle coming free. That\u2019ll be a learning curve with a player of Waddle\u2019s caliber.<\/p>\n

Nix said Thursday it\u2019s not time to panic<\/a> and that\u2019s true. The offense will find itself in a better gear, though, if he does the things coaches talked about this offseason: Play with calm feet, hang on his first read a beat longer and trust Waddle, in particular, to separate where and when he\u2019s supposed to.<\/p>\n

\"DrueDrue Tranquill (23) of the Kansas City Chiefs brings down J.K. Dobbins (27) of the Denver Broncos during the first quarter at Arrowhead Stadium in Kansas City, Missouri on Monday, September 14, 2026. (Photo by AAron Ontiveroz\/The Denver Post)
\nCommitting to the run game doesn\u2019t mean just blindly handing the ball off<\/p>\n

It\u2019s easy to say the Broncos need to run the football more and indeed, they should. Payton, though, painted a picture of why that\u2019s sometimes easier said than done.<\/p>\n

\u201cI remember playing Pittsburgh one year and we were going to establish the run. The first three plays of the game, the offensive line was going to be in charge of the first down. Play one, first-and-10. Play two was second-and-10. Play three was third-and-10. Then it was like, \u2018All right, enough with that.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

Point taken, but the Broncos clearly didn\u2019t have enough of an emphasis in their plan against Kansas City. Either that or Webb and company got away from the plan.<\/p>\n

Payton often talks about play sequencing and the four ways to sequence first and second downs. In the first half Monday, the Broncos passed on nine of the 13 first-down snaps they had in the first half and went pass-pass on first and second down four times in seven first downs after their lone touchdown drive of the night. By contrast, they ran six times in eight first-down snaps in the second half despite trailing the entire time. Their only run-run first and second-down sequence of the game came on their second and third plays of the half after J.K. Dobbins opened the third quarter with a 17-yard rush.<\/p>\n

Overall, on the night, Denver generated only three first downs on first down.<\/p>\n

Another stat here: Last year against Jacksonville, both RJ Harvey and Jaleel McLaughlin averaged better than 7 yards per carry.\u00a0 But Denver ran the ball 19 times against 49 drop-backs<\/p>\n

Vance Joseph\u2019s front seven has to win on first down<\/p>\n

Conversely, Kansas City\u2019s running game consistently kept the Chiefs in good down-and-distance situations. This was one of Joseph\u2019s primary points of emphasis in the run-up to the opener: Teams would be willing to plod a bit, he thought, in order to stay out of situations in which the Broncos\u2019 defensive front could pin their ears back.<\/p>\n

The Chiefs did it well. Only four of their 17 third-down attempts came from 7 yards or longer. Denver\u2019s pressure rate of 34.4%, according to Next Gen Stats, was solid, but the group overall just didn\u2019t have a ton of prime chances. And, of course, Nik Bonitto has to be more effective than he was Monday. That part will happen. He\u2019s got too long a track record for the pass-rush juice to disappear. But if the chances decrease, so will everybody\u2019s production.<\/p>\n

Save the clearest for last: Denver\u2019s tackling must be radically improved.<\/p>\n

Yeah, uh, duh.<\/p>\n

Want more Broncos news? Sign up for the Broncos Insider to get all our NFL analysis.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Sunday afternoon can\u2019t come fast enough for the Broncos. Week 1 was a dud. A blowout loss at…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":838925,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3781],"tags":[7,10148,2858,2864,86641,301,2863,187,3943,34717,19555,34671,165,6324,6,9,19559,302,43282,8131,66,10154],"class_list":["post-838924","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-denver-nuggets","tag-basketball","tag-bo-nix","tag-broncos","tag-courtland-sutton","tag-davis-webb","tag-denver","tag-denver-broncos","tag-denver-nuggets","tag-denvernuggets","tag-j-k-dobbins","tag-jaleel-mclaughlin","tag-jaylen-waddle","tag-latest-headlines","tag-more-broncos-news","tag-nba","tag-nfl","tag-nik-bonitto","tag-nuggets","tag-rj-harvey","tag-sean-payton","tag-sports","tag-vance-joseph"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/117297481632695023","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/838924","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=838924"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/838924\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/838925"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=838924"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=838924"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=838924"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}