3 reasons the Broncos will beat the Seahawks in Week 1 of the 2024 season
The Denver Broncos may be underdogs, but that surely won't stop them from beating the Seattle Seahawks in Week 1 of the 2024 NFL Season. We are inching closer to the start of the 2024 NFL Season. The Broncos will travel to Seattle to face the Seahawks in what could be a very competitive matchup.
Does Denver have enough to go into a hostile environment and come out with a victory? Let's dive into three reasons why they can, in fact, win this game.
3 reasons the Broncos will beat the Seahawks in Week 1 of the 2024 season
Seattle has a new coaching staff
Their head coach, Mike Macdonald, is in year one of his head coaching tenure in the NFL. He was previously the defensive coordinator of the Baltimore Ravens. Both their offensive and defensive coordinators, Ryan Grubb and Aden Durde, are also in year one as a coordinator in the NFL. In fact, this is the first year Grubb is coaching in the NFL.
Listen, I'm not saying that the Seahawks won't ever be a good team under the Macdonald era, but the Broncos come in with a much more battle-tested coaching staff and a more experienced one. At some point, having this much more experience over the opponent has to benefit them, and I am willing to bet Denver ends up out-coaching Seattle in certain aspects on Sunday.
Seattle doesn't have a very good quarterback
Geno Smith regressed across the board for the Seattle Seahawks in the 2024 NFL Season, and I am just lower on him than most. He threw just 20 touchdown passes in 15 games, took 31 sacks, and saw his completion percentage drop five points. He just wasn't uber efficient in 2023, and perhaps that's because NFL teams finally had some film on him from his breakout season in 2022.
Smith is going to take some sacks and may again see his production dip, as he's got a new offensive coordinator heading into 2024 and a likely new system he's had to learn. I do not envision Geno Smith being a huge threat to the Denver Broncos defense in Week 1, but they do have a nice WR room led by DK Metcalf, the most physically-imposing WR in the NFL.
Sean Payton can out-coach most opponents
The Broncos started out 1-5, but somehow ripped off five wins in a row after that. They had to beat some quality head coaches like Sean McDermott, Andy Reid, Kevin Stefanski, and Kevin O'Connell. It's not much of a shock or surprise to say that Sean Payton is among the best head coaches in the NFL, period.
He proved that in 2023, as Denver was a much more disciplined and better team than they were at any point in 2022. Just think to yourself; if you had to choose, would you pick Sean Payton or a first-year head coach to win a given matchup? Most of the time, the veteran head coach is going to win in these circumstances.
Payton and the Broncos may very well make me and a lot of us look bad and lose on Sunday, but Sean Payton gives the Denver Broncos a huge advantage nearly every week. He's been a head coach of an up-and-coming team before and has also been at the helm of a Super Bowl-winning team.
Sean Payton being in the Broncos corner is a huge advantage.