There’s a lot to criticize about the early start for the Broncos. It’s easier, at this point, to worry about our chances to retake the AFC West and make a Super Bowl run. The heartbreak of the two close losses is real, but so are the reasons for optimism.
There’s still a lot of season left, with 14 games remaining. The Broncos have a lot of mistakes to learn from, and time will tell whether they’re able to make the adjustments and grow stronger through the early conflict.
Sometimes, to escape the clouds of doom, it’s important to look at the silver linings and grasp onto the positives despite the failures. Here are five reasons to step away from the ledge and have faith in the 2025 Broncos.
5 reasons for Broncos fans to be optimistic about 2025 season
Dobbins hitting stride
Though two of our big four free agent signings are injured and yet to make an impact, Dobbins has shined through the first three games. He’s averaging 5.4 yards a carry, good for sixth best in the league, and his 222 yards is ninth best. He’s one of 4 non-QBs to have a touchdown in every game. It’s obvious our running back room is much improved from 2024, led by Dobbins and backed up by rookie RJ Harvey. The pass run balance is off, but we have the guys in place to feature the run game when the flow is tuned in.
Remaining schedule
There’s a lot of season left, and ten of our fourteen remaining opponents currently have a losing record. One of the four with a winning record is the Bengals, who just got smoked by the Vikings without Burrow. Three of our next four opponents look beatable. We’re not the only team struggling early, and we face-off against a lot of those underperforming teams. If we can make better corrections and right the ship faster, we could find our path to Super Bowl 60.
Close losses
The back-to-back walk-off losses are demoralizing, but it’s also simultaneously encouraging that we didn’t get blown out by these two undefeated teams. A couple of plays going in our favor would’ve won each. Broncos fans are tired of losing this way, but we’re staying competitive, and we could be a couple of tune-ups away from coming out on the right side of these games.
Elite pass rush
Recently extended Nik Bonitto has already been a major highlight thus far, with the fifth-best win rate (25%). But ahead of him at fourth-best is Jonathon Cooper. The Broncos are tied for first in team sacks with 12. The defense is on pace right now for 68 sacks, which would be even better than last year when they led the league and close to an NFL record. Jonah Elliss has also been impressive, leading some to suggest trading Cooper for help at inside linebacker. We’d like them to get some more sacks of the game-closing variety, but overall this unit looks poised to dominate the league once more.
Better than last year’s 1-2
We were 1-2 at the same point last year, but it’s clear this is a much-improved team despite the record. Bo Nix hadn’t thrown a touchdown pass. We had no running game. The team made a playoff run after that start, so they know they can turn it around and make a run. We had hoped not to encounter some of the same problems we faced a year ago, but it’s clear that we’re a better team and have more pieces in place to finish even stronger than we did in 2024.