Denver Broncos: 5 takeaways from Week 1 win over Giants
The Denver Broncos have started 1-0 for the first time since the 2018 season following a 27-13 win over the New York Giants on the road. What were the most important things to take from this game?
The Broncos didn’t play a perfect game, but no one expected them to either. What they did was go on the road and defeat an inferior opponent, executing the type of game plan we will likely see the team employ in most of their games this season.
What is that recipe? For Teddy Bridgewater to play mistake-free football and put enough points on the board for the defense to protect and head coach Vic Fangio likely believes that will translate to double-digit wins.
And he might be right.
Now, naysayers are going to talk about the fact that it was against the Giants and things will be different against better teams. Perhaps. But the fact is, these are still professional teams with professional athletes and you in the NFL, you take things one game at a time.
The Broncos didn’t lay an egg in Week 1 the way the Green Bay Packers and Buffalo Bills did. Both of those teams reached the conference championship round last year.
Instead, the Broncos took care of their opponents rather easily and though we can nitpick at certain things and say it was against one of the worst teams in the NFL, it’s certainly something to build on.
Here are some of the other takeaways from the victory.
Teddy Bridgewater did what is being asked of him
If this is the kind of performance you’re going to see out of Teddy Bridgewater on a regular basis, you can’t really complain. This is exactly what the Broncos needed him to be and this is why he was chosen as the team’s starting quarterback.
Bridgewater was in total command of the offense and he distributed the ball perfectly, facilitating the offense and helping set up big plays.
He even made the type of play you don’t expect to see him make on his third-quarter touchdown pass to Albert Okwuegbunam. On that play, he took the snap and faced immediate pressure but he used great footwork and a nice fake to juke the defender and find his tight end for a 4-yard touchdown pass.
Bridgewater likely won’t play this well when the competition gets stiffer, but this is the type of quarterback play the coaching staff was looking for and they have to be happy.