Broncos' Week 7 result may influence actions for the rest of the 2024 season

The Denver Broncos play a football game on Thursday against the New Orleans Saints, and the result of this game could influence their plans in 2024. The team has a short week but gets to play a horribly banged-up Saints' team that is without several starters. Most notably, QB Derek Carr won't be playing in this game.

Somehow, Carr was seemingly always able to carve up the Broncos' defense when he was with the Raiders. Rookie QB Spencer Rattler is getting the start on Thursday Night Football. It's an insanely quick turnaround for any team to go from playing a Sunday game to then having another game four days later.

And this is especially true for Denver, who not only played in the late window on Sunday, but is also traveling quite a ways for this game. It feels like the NFL schedule-makers did them no favor with this game, but to me, this Week 7 game is massive for at least one big reason.

The Broncos' actions the rest of the way may be heavily influenced by Week 7 result

It's not the end of the world nor was it unexpected for the team to lose in Week 6 against the Los Angeles Chargers. LA is a well-coached team coming off of their bye week, so the Broncos losing was probably expected. And if anything, any game in October that they should have lost was that one.

Them still being 3-3 after six games is a miracle, especially given they started 1-5 in 2023 and are also starting a rookie QB this year. Well, there is still a feasible path to 5-3, which would probably have them in a playoff spot at the haflway point of the season, and it would also get them right near the NFL Trade Deadline.

To me, a loss on Thursday would signal that Denver not only won't make some sort of deadline move to acquire a playmaker, but they may actually trade a player or two for the right price. A win would get them to 4-3 on the season with 10 days off before their Week 8 home game against the lowly Carolina Panthers.

It'd be huge for the team to get win and could give them a slight reason to go grab a playmaking tight end at the deadline like David Njoku or Evan Engram. It's not hard to see just how important Week 7 is for the Denver Broncos.