Not only did the Broncos lose the game, they were spectacularly awful in all phases.
“Obviously not a good evening,” said Sean Payton, stating the obvious after the game. “Didn’t do a lot well at all in the game.”
Tackling was abominable; pass pro was suspect; the run game was absent; Bo Nix looked no better than a JV quarterback; and Davis Webb left us wondering what all the offseason hype over his play-calling genius was actually about.
And all that on national, prime-time TV.
It’s hard to imagine a worse Week 1 game.
Payton offered the expected, “it starts with me, it starts with the coaches” as some attempt at accountability, but that’s not even close to enough.
There was no reason for the 2025 AFC champions to look so inept in a Week 1 matchup against their most-hated division rival for a decade.
And that is 100 percent on Payton. His offensive coordinator was pathetic, and his defensive coordinator was humiliated. The players did not execute, but the coaches clearly did not have a game plan proving any serious preparation for the Chiefs.
It was no secret that the Chiefs were going to run the ball. After all, they went out and got a Super Bowl-winning running back to pair with a three-time Super Bowl MVP coming back from a season-ending injury last year.
Of course, they were going to run the ball.
But somehow our (previously) top-ranked defense could not find a way for 173 yards to bring down Kenneth Walker III. In fact, the yards given up on missed tackles all game (248) were the Broncos’ third-most since 2018.
And of course the Chiefs defense was going to pressure Nix. So instead of establishing the run, or using the “secret weapon” talked about all offseason in Jaylen Waddle, what did the Broncos’ offense do? Bubble screens.
“There are a number of places we have to look,” Payton said of the horrendous performance. “Our third-down numbers weren’t good. Our rushing numbers weren’t good. Pick your spot.
“We didn’t tackle well enough then the game became one-dimensional,” the head coach added. “Really, the antithesis of how you beat a good team on the road.”
“We literally gave ourselves no chance to succeed today and made it easier for them. Just a nasty wake-up call today.”
— BO Nix
“When you give a good team too many chances, they’re going to exploit it,” he said. “Honestly from just a whole offense, whole team perspective, we just really didn’t play very good.”
The QB also believes the play-calling wasn’t the issue, just the execution.
“We just didn’t put anybody in a good spot today,“ Nix said, adding that the penalties and negative plays didn’t allow the offense to take advantage of most of the planned play calls. ”The players did not make it easy on \[Webb\] today. We just didn’t execute and then we were behind and then we didn’t do a whole lot of good consistently enough to win the game at all.“
Nix added that the loss was more disappointing than frustrating, but ownership of the poor play will get them back on track.
“We literally gave ourselves no chance to succeed today and made it easier for them,” Nix said. “We know we need to be better. We don’t have a choice. Just a nasty wake-up call today. We know this is not going to be the whole season.”
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