The Denver Broncos were unmercifully flogged in their opener.<\/p>\n
What makes it even tougher is that it came against a hated rival. Now the Broncos have to learn from this, improve, and get ready for another tough matchup this Sunday.<\/p>\n
Teams face adversity, and Denver has that in spades early in the season. How do the Broncos respond? What improvements do they make against the Jacksonville Jaguars?<\/p>\n
To add a little flavor to the mix, you have the result from last season\u2019s game between these two teams when Denver got whopped by the Jaguars in Week 16, 34-20.<\/p>\n
FanDuel Sportsbook currently has the Broncos as the -2.5-point home favorites on Sunday. The total sits at 45.5, with a lean towards the under at -115.<\/p>\n
Jacksonville: Fourteenth in total offense (360 yards per game), 11th in rushing offense (126 YPG), 10th in passing offense (234 YPG), sixth in scoring offense (34 points per game).<\/p>\n
Denver: Thirty-second in total offense (176 yards per game), 31st in rushing offense (61 YPG), 32nd in passing offense (115 YPG), tied for 28th in scoring offense (10 points per game).<\/p>\n
Jacksonville: Tenth in total defense (272 yards per game), ninth in rushing defense (87 YPG), tied for 13th in passing defense (185 YPG), tied for second in scoring defense (10 points per game).<\/p>\n
Denver: Twenty-fourth in total defense (392 yards per game), 31st in rushing defense (220 YPG), 10th in passing defense (172 YPG), tied for 23rd in scoring defense (31 points per game).<\/p>\n
Here are the MHR staff\u2019s keys to Sunday\u2019s game.<\/p>\n
Do the opposite of whatever Denver just did<\/p>\n
Whatever the hell we witnessed in Kansas City, the Broncos must do the complete opposite against Jacksonville. That starts by looking and playing like an NFL team. For Denver to do that, it needs to really hammer down the preparation this week. Bo Nix called the loss to the Chiefs \u201can ugly wake-up call.\u201d Here\u2019s hoping the Broncos got the message and don\u2019t hit the snooze button. Come together as a team, do the little things, limit the costly mistakes, and execute. \u2014 Ian St. Clair<\/p>\n
Watching Kenneth Walker embarrass the Broncos defense was eye-opening. Patrick Mahomes constantly escaping on that reconstructed knee was baffling. It wasn\u2019t that the defense played horribly; it just found ways to miss tackles, making it impossible to win. If Denver can\u2019t wrap up the Jaguars, mark down 0-2 and a major uphill climb to the playoffs. \u2014 Adam Malnati<\/p>\n
Better play on third down<\/p>\n
The Broncos struggled to stop the Chiefs on third down on Monday Night Football. Moreover, they kept shooting themselves in the foot on offense and were dreadful in that aspect. This was also an issue for them last December, when they lost to the Jacksonville Jaguars. If they can\u2019t do better at extending drives or getting off the field in key situations, they\u2019ll continue to be their own worst enemies. Their performance in these situations has to get better to be successful. \u2014 Christopher Hart<\/p>\n
Better offensive game plan<\/p>\n
We need to make sure the Jaguars don\u2019t coat themselves in oil, making it impossible for our defenders to tackle them as the Chiefs did. Seriously, though, we need a better offensive game plan to counter what the Jags will do on defense. The Bronco offense looked completely unprepared for the funky blitz packages that Spags always uses. Also, the Broncos need to do a better job of convincing the refs not to call holding on them when they are blatantly holding. The Broncos should ask the Chiefs what their secret is. \u2014 Joe Mahoney<\/p>\n
Score more points than the other team<\/p>\n
Data and analytics tell you that the Broncos are winless when they score less than their opponent and are undefeated when they score more. So, the game plan is simple! Score more points than the Jaguars. You didn\u2019t do that against the Chiefs, and we\u2019re all angry and disappointed. Do that vs. the small-market Jags, and we\u2019ll be happy again. \u2014 Scotty Payne<\/p>\n
What are your keys to Sunday\u2019s game?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Denver Broncos were unmercifully flogged in their opener. What makes it even tougher is that it came…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1002440,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2062],"tags":[232,231,258,61708,1151,2426,7,6],"class_list":["post-1002439","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-denver-broncos","tag-broncos","tag-denver","tag-denver-broncos","tag-denver-broncos-game-information","tag-denver-broncos-news","tag-denverbroncos","tag-football","tag-nfl"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/117281217823118197","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1002439","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1002439"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1002439\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1002440"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1002439"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1002439"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1002439"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}