Denver Broncos: Grading week one game versus New York
Starting the season on the right foot has been hard to come by for the Denver Broncos, but against the Giants, they put an end to the madness.
Starting the season on the right foot has been hard to come by for the Denver Broncos, but against the Giants, they put an end to the madness.
The Denver Broncos beat the New York Giants in a rather convincing fashion on Sunday showing the league they might be one of the surprising teams in the NFL in 2021. In a season of returning to normalcy, the Broncos showed how potentially dominant they can be on defense and an offense that will put up points with steady quarterback play.
There’s still some hesitation in it being week one of the season. However to quote new General Manager George Paton, “Winning is contagious,” and affects the entire team.
It was an impressive showing for the offense against the Giants. For the offense to be successful it will start with the play of the quarterback. While Denver can be a playoff team regardless of its quarterback, it’s still predicated on potentially how far the team could go in this new season.
With the number of weapons Denver has at its disposal the quarterback does not need to be the guy for the team making all the plays. In a whole off-season filled with the drama surrounding the position, it was great to see this type of performance from a quarterback who seemed to not be much of a playmaker since leaving his original team. Teddy Bridgewater opened a lot of eyes with his performance.
Defensively the Broncos started slow but finished well in its secondary. There was plenty to be excited about regarding this side of the ball. In his return to football, Von Miller’s expectations were in the middle. There is a lot of unexpected for a player returning to full game action since 2019.
The most important thing to occur on Sunday was a Denver Broncos victory without Bradley Chubb.
Chubb was inactive due to an ankle injury. My guess overall is it was precautionary and with the way the front seven played it was an amazing sight to behold. It was a true test of how good the depth could be for the pass rush as a unit. With the loss of Chubb Sunday, Denver saw good snaps from Jonathon Cooper, Malik Reed, and Andre Mintez. A mark of a great defense is seeing a good portion of your depth do well without a star player.
Lastly, special teams remain a mystery for this team. Diontae Spencer had some solid returns and Brandon McManus had a perfect day, but the kick coverage on kickoffs was still suspect. For Tom McMahon to get on the good graces of the fans, they will have too much better performance in this area consistently for it to be solid.
Another area of concern was Sam Martin, the punter, who didn’t see a ton of work (thankfully).
Where does that leave the grades for each of these units? Let us take a look.