The Denver Broncos started what is supposed to be a promising 2022 season with a terrible loss against the Seattle Seahawks.
Broncos fans were eager to get the Russell Wilson era started out with a bang and the excitement was at the kind of high we haven’t seen since Peyton Manning joined the team. But instead, the team laid a major egg at Lumen Field.
This is not to take anything away from the Seahawks, because they played a great game, specifically their quarterback Geno Smith. But the Broncos had way too many errors to beat any team on this night and that could be cause for concern going forward.
I will save the obvious for last here, but here are some major concerns that Broncos Country has to have coming out of this defeat.
Broncos had way too many penalties
The Broncos hurt themselves on numerous occasions in this game, backing themselves up with false start penalties due to the crowd noise and also having multiple delay of game calls (more on that later).
In total, the Broncos were penalized 12 times for 106 yards in this game. That makes it difficult to win any week.
This is something the Broncos are going to have to clean up. Despite having Wilson, it is a young team with a young coaching staff. But some discipline must be instilled going forward to avoid a penalty fest such as this one, particularly on the road in a tough environment.
The Broncos will learn from this loss but not committing so many self-inflicted wounds will have to be the first lesson.