Broncos' preseason loss vs. Packers exposed their riskiest move in 2026

The preseason may be inconsequential, but what we see on the field still matters. The Denver Broncos took a big loss on their home field to the Green Bay Packers, losing 33-13, but it wasn't the final score that was the most disturbing from this game.

The Broncos' starting defense gave up a touchdown on its first drive of the game. It was a long drive by the Packers' offense with third-down conversions, a fourth-down conversion, a couple of breakdowns in coverage, and a touchdown given up by the Denver defense in the tight red zone. Those are all things the team simply didn't do last season, but the touchdown the Packers scored was the most disappointing play of them all.

And it may have exposed the Broncos' riskiest move in the entire offseason. Did the Broncos make the right move simply running it back with their linebackers from last season? We're going to dive into this ugly play and talk about it.

Denver Broncos might be regretting their plan at the linebacker position already

The irony of this clip is that play-by-play announcer Steve Levy calls out -- as the play is happening -- that Alex Singleton is changing the defense for the Broncos, and then he ends up being the player significantly out of position.

This clip has been going somewhat viral among Broncos Country since it happened, and understandably so.

Heading into the offseason, one of the primary areas of need for this team -- from the outside looking in -- was at the linebacker position. The Broncos felt like they needed a significant talent upgrade just one offseason ago when they signed veteran Dre Greenlaw in free agency. But just one year into that experiment, the Broncos let Greenlaw go.

The only justifiable course of action after moving on from a high-priced free agent would be adding another big-time free agent or going after a top NFL Draft prospect, right?

Wrong.

The Broncos must have really liked what they saw down the stretch last season from both Singleton and Justin Strnad, because the primary moves they made at linebacker this offseason were simply bringing those two guys back. And that felt like a questionable move in the moment, but it feels even more questionable now.

Whatever defense Singleton is trying to get everybody in before this play begins, it's far too late. The Packers catch the Broncos in such a vulnerable position here, and there's a lot going on when you really slow this play down.

Green Bay has somehow found a way to isolate Dondrea Tillman in coverage on running back MarShawn Lloyd, which is a huge matchup win for them. The Broncos have multiple players trying to play zone coverage and others playing man coverage, leaving multiple Packers receivers completely wide open, even if they would have gone away from Lloyd as the top option.

And then you have Singleton on this play. Singleton drops to the deep middle of the field, where he ends up going to nearly the same spot as safety Brandon Jones.

Nobody is 100 percent sure what Singleton was doing on this play, because it feels like he just keeps dropping with no end in sight. Whatever he was trying to do here, he leaves the entire middle of the field wide open and Lloyd scores an easy touchdown. And reading body language after the play, you can see how visibly confused everybody on the Broncos' defense is.

It may just be one preseason rep, but this is a defense that has been together for a long time, and Singleton himself talked about their continuity being such an advantage earlier in training camp:

“Yeah, I think it's (continuity) huge. You're not coming into camp kind of stressed about learning. That's the hardest thing when you go to a new team or have new guys where you're teaching guys, ‘Hey, this is our check in this situation.’ No, instead it's all 11 guys know. So, we're one step ahead of where we would've been last year or the year before that at this time of the year.”

- Alex Singleton (via Broncos PR on July 31)

The Broncos could have gone after guys like Devin Lloyd or Kaden Elliss in free agency. Even without a 1st-round pick, they were not too far away from players like Anthony Hill Jr. in the 2026 NFL Draft. There were talent upgrades available to them, but they opted to run it back.

The on-field result against the Packers is making that risk of passing on talent upgrades look like a rough one, but they still have time to fix it.

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