Denver Broncos first-quarter report card: Solid start sets up bright future

Areas for Improvement

The biggest and most obvious area for improvement is the offense, but as we have said before, the offense has played a brutal schedule of opposing defenses in Seattle, Pittsburgh, Tampa Bay, and New York. Four easier defenses are coming up in Las Vegas, Los Angeles, New Orleans, and Carolina.

This has also just been four games for Bo Nix, so he is still very early in his development in the NFL. I just do not think it's fair at all to have a radical opinion one way or another with this QB. There has been some good and bad and it's been about what you'd expect from a rookie QB.

The offense should progress nicely as the season goes on. It wasn't reasonable to hope for immediate offensive production with a rookie QB and below-average skill players. The 2023 rookie season of CJ Stroud definitely seemed to skew how we view rookie QBs.

That's been especially true for a guy like Caleb Williams, who was seen as a generational prospect and went to the Chicago Bears. The main area of improvement is clearly the offense.

Standout Players

On offense, it's hard to pick a standout player, but the entire offensive line has been very good through four games. That's really it for that side of the ball.

Both Riley Dixon and Wil Lutz have had above-average seasons thus far on special teams, so they get some credit too.

Defensively, there are a ton of players who have stood out through four games, but the main ones are Zach Allen, Jonathon Cooper, Patrick Surtain II, Riley Moss, and Brandon Jones. They've been the primary players who have helped anchor perhaps the best defense in football.

It's not crazy to think that Denver could have three, maybe even four players on defense make the Pro Bowl this year. Hopefully when we do this report card again in a month, Bo Nix is among the standout players.