In a game filled with silver-platter mistakes, Broncos return man Marvin Mims Jr. served up control of Sunday’s season-opener as if he were wearing white satin gloves rather than a sticky pair of Nikes.
Tennessee rookie quarterback Cam Ward and his Titans offense hadn’t moved the ball at all, but now they found themselves set up 24 yards from the end zone and trailing 13-12. The lead seemed a given. A touchdown? Opportunities don’t get presented more perfectly.
Zach Allen and Denver’s defense had other ideas.
Not only did the Titans fail to find the end zone, but they also got pushed back.
Way back.
Well out of field goal range.
PHOTOS: Denver Broncos top Tennessee Titans 20-12 in Week 1 of NFL football
Second-year outside linebacker Jonah Elliss followed Tony Pollard’s 2-yard run with a 16-yard sack. Then Allen wrestled Ward down for a loss of 11.
Three plays run, a quarter of the field length lost.
Instead of grabbing the lead, Tennessee punted.
That the Broncos finally busted through with an ensuing 80-yard touchdown drive coaxed relief from the 73,747 on hand.
That the Broncos were still in enough control of the game to do so running the football is a testament to just how dominant Denver’s defense played from start to finish in a 20-12 win.
“They were outstanding,” head coach Sean Payton surmised.
A golden era of quarterback play in the NFL may eventually render the adage about defense and championships obsolete, but coordinator Vance Joseph’s group showed at least this much at Empower Field: Defenses can win season-openers.
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The Broncos believe this group can take them much further than that, and it came out of the gates looking every bit the elite unit that’s drawn so much attention and expectation.
“It just shows the maturity of our team,” inside linebacker Alex Singleton said. “In years past, we’ve had high-paid guys and guys defensively that, you think you’re going to be good, and guys would do too much or go out of their way.
“Today, we really saw everybody play in their role. When we were dealt a bad hand on a drive, we were able to come together and know it’s our job to push them out. And we were able to do that.”
They faced six of those bad hands Sunday and never cracked.
Before Mims’ muff, second-year quarterback Bo Nix turned the ball over three times.
Each set Tennessee up in terrific position -- at its own 46, and at Denver’s 38 and 26, respectively.
The Titans on those possessions managed just 49 yards on 16 plays and turned them into just six points.
“Our goal, every time, is to limit them to no points,” defensive lineman John Franklin-Myers said.
They did it two more times down the stretch, too.
Payton, searching for an offensive spark and a put-away punch, got ultra-aggressive by going for it twice on fourth down in the final 5:09.
The offense failed both times -- each gave Ward the ball back in a one-possession game -- and Denver walked off the field 1-0 anyway after the defense yielded minus-2 yards on seven snaps in that closing stretch.
Tennessee finished with 133 offensive yards and 131 penalty yards.
What the Titans didn’t give -- on top of the penalties, coach Brian Callahan’s bewildering clock management at the end of the first half handed Denver an extra possession, which it turned into a Nix touchdown pass to Courtland Sutton -- Denver’s defense took.
The Titans didn’t have a drive longer than seven plays, didn’t muster more than two first downs on a possession and only moved the chains twice in the second half. Their only three points over the final 30 minutes came after Nix’s second interception of the afternoon -- a bad ball into bracket coverage on the second half’s second snap -- set them up in field goal range.
Even that wasn’t enough when Mims coughed up the fourth-quarter punt.
“You ask anybody on this defense, and every one of them is going to be ready to play football, whether it’s on the 1 or the 99-yard line,” Franklin-Myers said. “It don’t matter.”
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Denver’s pass-rush roared out of the gates, led by outside linebacker Nik Bonitto, the newly minted $106 million man.
The Broncos racked up six sacks on Ward -- the rookie finished 12-of-28 passing for 112 yards in his debut -- and were generating pressure almost at will by the fourth quarter.
Justin Strnad (40) of the Denver Broncos kneels over Cam Ward (1) of the Tennessee Titans after knocking him down during the fourth quarter of the Broncos' 20-12 win at Empower Field at Mile High on Sunday, Sept. 7, 2025. (Photo by AAron Ontiveroz/The Denver Post)
Justin Strnad (40) of the Denver Broncos kneels over Cam Ward (1) of the Tennessee Titans after knocking him down during the fourth quarter of the Broncos’ 20-12 win at Empower Field at Mile High on Sunday, Sept. 7, 2025. (Photo by AAron Ontiveroz/The Denver Post)
Bonitto himself logged one sack and, according to Next Gen Stats, tallied nine pressures on Ward despite just 22 pass-rushes. That to cap a work week in which he signed a four-year extension that comes with $70 million guaranteed, and announced a multi-year marketing deal with Nike.
“I don't know if that one's been done before,” Franklin-Myers said. “But Nik is a hell of a player. He makes everybody's job easy. …
“Shoot man, Nik is good.”
So, too, is the collective unit. This is what the Broncos defense expected of itself, and it was impressive all the same.
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Virtually every other facet for both teams on Sunday took a big, ugly set of Week 1 trips and falls.
Not Joseph's group. They gave up a 29-yard completion on third-and-10 on the game’s third snap and from there allowed 101 yards and exactly one more conversion on 14 Tennessee third and fourth downs.
They didn't allow a touchdown at all and in the process powered the first 1-0 start for this club since 2021.
“It’s a good start, but 'start' is the key word,” Franklin-Myers said. “It’s a week-to-week league, and if you come out there and you don’t do your thing next week, then the conversation is completely different.”
Broncos pass rush starts off strong
A year after leading the NFL with a franchise-record 63 sacks, the Broncos pass rush picked up right where it left off Sunday against the Titans as six players registered a sack. While the Broncos didn't set a new Week 1 record with their six sacks, they weren't far off. Mobile users, tap here to see the chart.
Date Opp Starting QB Sacks C-A-INT Yards Result
Sept. 1, 1996 N.Y. Jets Neil O'Donnell 9 11-25-1 72 W, 31-6
Comment: Eight different Broncos got sacks to jumpstart 13-3 campaign.
Sept. 17, 1972 Houston Dan Pastorini 7 14-33-1 142 W, 30-17
Comment: High point of relatively forgettable debut season for John Ralston.
Sept. 9, 2018 Seattle Russell Wilson 6 19-33-2 242 W, 27-24
Comment: Von Miller-Bradley Chubb pairing's best game might've been their first.
Sunday Tennessee Cam Ward 6 12-28-0 112 W, 20-12
Comment: How does a team turn the ball over four times and win? With a pass rush like this.
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Originally Published: September 7, 2025 at 8:30 PM MDT