Locked On Broncos - Daily Podcast On The Denver Broncos - Denver Broncos Defensive DOMINANCE Saves Bo Nix vs. Titans
Episode Date: September 8, 2025Nik Bonitto, Pat Surtain, and the Denver Broncos defense were DOMINANT in the team's season-opening win vs. the Titans. The offense and Bo Nix got off to a concerning start. Cody Roark is a credentia...led beat reporter for Mile High Sports and covers the Broncos daily in person. Sayre Bedinger is the site expert for Predominantly Orange. Both bring Broncos Country the most in-depth and objective coverage of the Denver Broncos. WANT MORE DAILY DENVER BRONCOS CONTENT?For all of the latest Denver Broncos news today -- Follow & Subscribe on all Podcast platforms…🎧 https://link.chtbl.com/LOBroncos?sid=YouTube Locked On NFL League-Wide: Every Team, Fantasy, Draft & More🎧 https://linktr.ee/LockedOnNFL Follow on Twitter: @CodyRoarkNFL and @SayreBedingerFollow the show on Twitter: @LockedOnBroncos Support Us By Supporting Our Sponsors!5-Hour ENERGYTee up that trip! Enter for a chance to win a dream golf trip for two to any golf tournament* in the USA. Visit https://5HEWIN.com for full rules and entry. No purchase necessary. Excludes the Master’s tournament. Ends October 31, 2025. DoorDashWith DoorDash Streaks, you save every Saturday you order — stack it up all season and you could save up to $250. Order this Saturday. Keep the streak alive. Fuel your gameday — only with DoorDash. Terms apply. Promo period through 11/18. Monarch MoneyTake control of your finances with Monarch Money. Use code LOCKEDONNFL at monarchmoney.com/lockedonnfl for 50% off your first year. UpsideDon’t let this offer drive on by, download the free Upside app now using my limited time promo code TOUCHDOWN for a limited time 25 cent per gallon bonus! Offers vary by user and location, Go to upside.com for terms and conditions.Click Here to download the app: https://getupside.onelink.me/zlLr?af_xp=custom&pid=barrington&c=barrington_lockedon25&deep_link_value=promo&deep_link_sub1=lockedon25&af_dp=upsideapp%3A%2F%2F Yahoo FantasyPresented by YahooFantasy #YahooPartner. Draft now at https://yahoofantasy.com/lockedonnfl. PrizePicksDownload the PrizePicks app today and use code LOCKEDONNFL to get $50 in lineups after you play your first $5 lineup. GametimeDownload the Gametime app, create an account, and use code LOCKEDONNFL for $20 off your first purchase. Terms apply. Download Gametime today. What time is it? Gametime. FanDuelRight now, new customers can bet just FIVE dollars and if your bet wins—you’ll get THREE HUNDRED dollars in bonus bets to use across the app. FANDUEL DISCLAIMER: 21+ in select states. First online real money wager only. Bonus issued as nonwithdrawable free bets that expires in 14 days. Restrictions apply. See terms at sportsbook.fanduel.com. Gambling Problem? Call 1-800-GAMBLER or visit FanDuel.com/RG (CO, IA, MD, MI, NJ, PA, IL, VA, WV), 1-800-NEXT-STEP or text NEXTSTEP to 53342 (AZ), 1-888-789-7777 or visit ccpg.org/chat (CT), 1-800-9-WITH-IT (IN), 1-800-522-4700 (WY, KS) or visit ksgamblinghelp.com (KS), 1-877-770-STOP (LA), 1-877-8-HOPENY or text HOPENY (467369) (NY), TN REDLINE 1-800-889-9789 (TN) Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.
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Everybody on the Denver Broncos defense was eating free against rookie quarterback, Cam Ward,
and the defense saved the day after an abysmal offensive performance by the Broncos.
We'll break it all down here on today's episode, Locked on Broncos.
You are Locked on Broncos, your daily Denver Broncos podcast, part of the Locked On Podcast Network,
your team every day.
The Denver Broncos are one and old, but it wasn't the fast start that Sean Payton was hoping for.
Welcome into another episode, Lockdown Broncos.
daily Denver Broncos podcast, part of the Lockdown podcast network.
We know it's your team every day.
Today's post game report is brought to our friends over there at the GameTime app.
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first purchase.
I'm Cody Roark, Broncos reporter from Mile High Sports.
Join as always by Sarah Beninger, side expert over there, predominantly orange.com.
We got a lot to break down here, Broncos country.
A special shout out to all the everydayers out there.
Thanks for tuning in making us your first listen every single day, especially on these post
game reports.
where we're going to go through Nick Benito and the Denver Broncos defensive dominance
against rookie quarterback Cam Ward and the Titans and how they really saved the day.
No one's remembering the Titans because of that.
And then we'll go through the struggles of Bow Nix and the Broncos offense.
And when we say struggle, we're putting that lightly.
Plus we'll hand out our game balls to some players who stood out,
had some extra grit to push the Broncos forward to a one and oh start here all in today's
episode of show.
Sarah, I mean, look, the Broncos finally get off to a, you know, a win in the Sean Payton era
in week one of the regular season.
And the one thing I just can't help but kind of pinpoint here is he's got to be
thinking his lucky stars that he has a defense as dominant as the one that the Broncos
have.
They were the reason that the Broncos were able to win this game.
100%.
They finished this game with six sacks, 12 quarterback hits.
And obviously the play that sealed the game at the very end,
J-Quan McMillan coming through with a strip sack of Cam Ward on fourth down.
But it was truly dominance from the very start of this game.
Of course, the Broncos defense gave up.
up their share of plays in this one, but you're never going to complain about a defensive unit
that gave up 12 points and had six sacks and held a team to two out of 14 on third downs.
I mean, the defense was unreal out there, a number of players within that really standing out,
Cody, obviously the defensive player of the year, Pat Sertan out there doing his thing.
But man, I think the biggest story from this game was the dominance of Nick Benito.
We talk about the dominance of the defense.
when you can filter your entire defense through the play of one guy.
Everybody else benefits from number 15 right now.
Cody,
nobody could block him.
Nobody could block him in this game.
And when they tried,
they should have been penalized for it because he got held the number of times.
They put him out there.
He was dominating so much.
I don't even know if he plays punt return all that often or punt block.
I have no idea if he regularly plays there.
But he was so dominant that they throw him out there for the punt,
to block a punt, and he probably got held on that place.
So Nick Benito, man, I mean, he signs the contract, and he's out here hitting the ground running.
Can we talk about him setting the tone from the very first snap?
I'll tell you, it was the loudest I've experienced in Powerfield to start a season.
That very first snap, the Broncos defense is on the field.
Benito just bows around the edge for a tackle for a loss behind the line of scrimmage.
I mean, this guy, I think it's safe to say that he is the energizer bunny of this defense.
You know, he starts it up front.
It trickles down to the second level with the lineback.
backer position. And then those guys on the back in, Riley Moss, Pat Sertan, J. Kwan, Macmillan,
Brandon Jones, Talanoa, Hufanga. Then these guys all feed off of that. He's the tone setter.
He and Jonathan Cooper, man. And Jonah Ellis, too? Can we factor in? Everybody really getting the
mix. Like I said earlier, said nobody in the Broncos defense. I mean, I mean, everybody ate
for free against Cam Ward. We can talk about the amount of sacks that you got. Sternod had a sack.
Cooper had a sack. Bonito had a sack. Jay Mack had a sack as well. Jonah Ellis had a sack.
Everybody was eating. It was like Oprah. You get one.
one, you get one, you get one.
That was the, I would say that was the key positive here of this game, right?
And certainly there was a lot in week one.
I think when we can compact everything down.
There was a lot of good.
There was a lot of bad.
There wasn't a lot of bad on the defense.
There was a lot of good there.
That's the highlight here.
And look, I even think we give a shout to Pat Sertan, once again, really limiting Calvin
Ridley, the best offensive receiver, I think you can make the argument for here for Tennessee.
And they did a really good job, but that clock of Cam Ward got sped up a little bit
because of Benito and company, I thought Pat did a really good job in coverage.
I thought Riley Moss had a terrific day in coverage as well.
Yeah, and we got a forced fumble from Talanoa Hufanga in his first game with Denver Broncos.
So it really was an all-around effort.
That fumble was recovered by Brandon Jones.
The forced fumble from Jayquan Macmillan was recovered by Jada Barron.
So, I mean, like you said, Cody, truly everybody got involved in this game for Denver.
It was like if you spread the ball around to 15 different receivers offensively,
everybody made a play.
Everybody out there was doing their part,
and they came through in clutch moments for this team,
even though, I mean,
we'll talk about it throughout the course of the show,
but talk about losing the turnover battle.
You talk about a defense being put in a compromising position.
Man, they were put in such a tough spot.
I saw your posts on Twitter during the game where you're like,
hey, the offense owes the defense dinner all week.
Shoot, they owe them breakfast, lunch, dinner, ice cream.
I don't care what they got to do to make up for this bowl that we saw.
offense, but the defense, I mean, dude, they, they were as good as everybody had hoped.
I know there was some talking to preseason, like, where's the number one defense?
I thought this defense was supposed to be the best in the league.
This was exactly what you wanted to see out of that unit that's going to have to carry this
team at times.
It's still a young offense.
It's still an experience in so many ways.
They still struggle in so many ways.
This defense, though, is something that you can lean on just like that Super Bowl 50,
team did. But unlike that Super Bowl 50 team, this offense has a chance to catch up and get to
the point that, hey, we're playing on a top level. The defense, though, they hit the ground running.
They were as advertised. We talk about the offseason noise, the hype surrounding this team.
The defense, as billed, as advertised, we loved everything that we saw because, I mean,
there was one point two, and this was an offense. This was the special team's bluff.
You know, Marvin Mims muffed the punt. And all of a sudden, the Titans are down in the red zone.
And then all of a sudden, Jonah Ellis and the Broncos defense, they get after Cam Ward.
They'd knock them out of field goal range, even though they were on like the 25 yard line.
That right there shows that this defense has the ability to buckle down and really kind of turn it up when needed.
But, I mean, you're right.
There's going to be moments this season, say, where the defense might struggle a little bit.
That's where the offense needs to reward them.
I felt like the offense took a massive step back.
We'll talk about that a little bit later on the show.
But obviously, the biggest story here is the defensive surge and the dominance that we saw from these guys,
a hundred and thirty four total yards of offense allowed against cam mort and this titan's team.
And look, they had a couple of chunk plays, you know, broken off on terrific plays.
I thought Cam Moore found Pollard for a fantastic find on that first series where he was able to get 29 yards downfield.
But aside from that, there really was nothing.
This is a team and a defensive unit that forced to turn over when you needed to.
They got stops on third down when you needed to.
We talk so much and Sean talks about, you know, I think the perception of Sean is like,
oh, you know, he's always chewing out Vance Joseph.
Vance Joseph in the defense, I think, had every right.
They should.
They should be chewing out Sean Payton in the offense.
The defense came up as advertised in this game.
This was an all-out effort, a Super Bowl caliber performance by this defense.
The offense has to find a way to help them out and look Broncos country.
It was ugly here in this game for the Broncos offensively.
Bo Nix took a massive step backward.
How concerning is this?
This is something that Sarah and I.
We're going to break down here on today's episode of
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It was a rough start for the Denver Broncos offense in week one of the 20-25 season.
But all is well that ends well.
The team is one and oh, what do they got to work on, though, this coming week?
I don't think they should have a day off on Monday.
I think they should be out there doing whatever they got to do to get better as quickly as possible.
Broncos country, we're going to break down the myriad of woes for the offensive side of the ball from this game.
A lot to get back to the drawing board for on today's episode, Lockdown Broncos.
but want to quickly say, we appreciate you all so much for making us your first listen of the day every single day.
Happy Victory Monday to all of you out there in Broncos Country.
We appreciate you so much for tuning in.
Hit subscribe if you haven't done so already.
Cody, let's talk about this offense because it was not the fast start, like you mentioned.
Sean Payton was asking for.
We did not see the top five quarterback that he said he thinks Bow Nix can become.
we did not see even, I think, a real tip of the iceberg of what we hope this offense can become.
It was a rough start for Bo Nixon company.
What offense is the question here?
And look, I feel like we've been very fair and objective.
And certainly we have talked about the hype surrounding Bo Nixon's in this offense.
This was not what we expected to see in week one.
If anything, I think this was a very, very concerning performance.
And granted, here's what I'm going to preface everything by saying, this is week one.
We watched all the other games throughout the days and throughout week one.
I'd say that a lot of teams look sluggish.
They looked rough offensively.
We knew the defense was going to be ahead.
But this was not the offense that we saw last year, Sarah.
This wasn't the offense that we saw established confidence and rhythm.
Even though they didn't have a run game last year, they had some rhythm and flow in the passing game.
There were a lot of differences.
I feel like that we saw in this game here with Bo, specifically, and this offense was Sean.
It has me scratching my head a little bit because, granted, we saw a little bit in the preseason where Boe was.
rolling out to his left and throwing, but that seemed to be a little bit of an emphasis in
this game here, rolling out left. We understood that coming into this matchup, the Titans
defense was much better than people give them credit for. That front was good. But for me, I was just
Nixon set his feet enough. He was throwing on the run quite a bit. A couple of his passes sailed
on him. He did not look like the comfortable in-command quarterback that we saw last year as a rookie.
He looked a lot like week one Bo Nix that we saw last year against Seattle and also the Boe-Nix that we
saw struggle against the Indianapolis Colts late down the season.
This was a massive surprise and not in a good way.
This was a disappointing performance by Bow and the offense.
Yeah, it was very reminiscent of that game that you mentioned there.
The Colts game last year where he had three picks and I think three touchdowns,
you know, it just kind of felt like Bo giveeth, bow taketh.
And there were a couple of drives in this game that, man, he did look really good.
And then the offense stalled when they got close enough.
So it was really tough to watch.
It was tough to stomach.
By no means are we sitting here hitting the panic button either?
By no means are we sitting here saying second year regression for Bo Nix?
There's going to be plenty of people out there with hot takes that are going to say,
Bo Nix is done.
I'm done with Bo Nix.
I was right about Bo Nix.
It's the first game of the season.
And we saw last year just how quickly he can turn things around.
And I don't think that this game was all bad from him.
However, it's unmet expectations in the worst possible way because we did expect him to take a big leap.
John Peyton talked about him taking a big leap.
His teammates talked about him taking a big leap.
All we heard about throughout the off season,
how much more in command he is of this offense, this, that, and the other.
Like, Beau should be,
bow should be ticked off.
Bow should be more ticked off than anybody after this kind of a game.
Not because we're entitled to him being upset about playing poorly,
but because we know that he's reset a different standard for himself
based on the way that he played last year.
I feel like we're going to see a ticked off and motivated.
to Bo Nix coming up against the Indianapolis Colts.
But ultimately, we have to evaluate what we just saw.
I mean, we can't just wipe that, wipe the everything that we just saw away and just say,
well, it's the first game of the season.
You can't overreact.
We're literally, we got to talk about what we just saw happen in a regular season game.
And it wasn't good enough.
And it won't be good enough if it continues.
Yeah, we won't overreact.
But I think anyone's saying that this game wasn't concerning is lying to themselves.
This was definitely a concerning way to start your second season.
And to your point, it doesn't mean that Bo can't get better and Bo is not going to play better.
We hope that Bo is going to play better.
But I also feel like the team, I feel like Sean Payton could do a lot more to help out Bo.
I feel like the offensive line at times can do a lot more to help out.
And I think there were just so many times in examples early on, especially in the first half,
where it didn't seem like the Broncos had their operation in command at all, right?
You're talking about breaking the huddle.
And it's like, okay, now you've got a delay of game penalty.
Oh, you got to call a time out.
You're not lined up correctly after calling the play and guys don't know where to go.
there was all this confusion and dysfunction early on in the first half for this offense.
That attributes to it.
You know, thankfully the defense stepped up.
I mean, like I said, the Broncos offense handed, like on a platter, said,
hey, we're doing a free giveaway.
Here you go.
Great field position.
If you just kick a field goal now, you can take points.
But the Broncos defense said, no, we're not going to let you do that.
This is just something, Bow has got to play better.
His decision making has got to be better.
I felt like at times he locked into Cortland Sutton sometimes evidently.
Now, granted, we're reacting to this live or reacting to this after the fact of the game.
We're going to go back and watch the L-22, but it did seem like at times,
Bo would kind of fixate on Cortland a little bit, which we talked about in the offseason.
Cortland is Bo's easy button.
However, in this came against Tennessee, Sarah, the offense, it didn't have an easy button,
and that was concerning.
But I was a little baffled to Sean Payton some of the play calling.
And some of the things that Sean, the decision-making by Sean, on certain things.
Well, you talk about decision-making in a clutch situation.
I mean, I think you've got to point to a couple of different scenarios, in particular, the end of the game when it's fourth and eight.
You're already well into Titans territory in field goal range.
And you have an opportunity there to kick.
It would have been a long field goal, no doubt, but at least you would have had potential of three points on the board versus zero.
And you threw a pass that ended up hitting the ground.
Cortland Sutton's running wide open.
Everybody sees it.
You can see Sean Payton mouth on the sideline.
Sutton was wide open.
I mean, it's a disaster.
You're setting yourself up to fail there.
And that was one of seven plays, Cody, that I noted.
And that's just the seven that I noted watching the game live.
You got the fourth and eight that you failed.
You got the fourth and inches that you failed on a quarterback sneak,
the muffed punt by Marvin Mims,
three turnover turnovers from your quarterback.
And then obviously you've got the whole situation there with,
I'm blanking on the seventh one.
Oh, the kick before the end of the first half is the seventh situation.
You gave the Titans three points.
So seven situations that had nothing to do, zero to do with defense, zero to do with it.
It's everything else on this team that ultimately put them in a compromising position.
I just don't understand why.
I don't get it.
I know that you're still maybe figuring things out, getting your feet underneath you,
but yeah, it was rough.
The lack of commitment to the run game as well.
And look, they're still trying to figure out this wide zone scheme.
I understand that.
But the run game, before RJ Harvey broke off a 50-yard run, it was averaging 3.3 yards per carry at that point.
But my frustration early on, after the first quarter, Sear, the Broncos offense had, what, 14 passing attempts to only three rushing attempts.
That's inexcusable.
We've been talking so much about get the run game going.
If you can get the run game going, you're gashing the defense.
Okay, then you can set up to play action.
I mean, the Broncos are running play action on, you know, 13 straight plays essentially is what it felt like watching this game.
and it's like you don't have anything that's setting up the play action.
I thought Bo early on, his first few throws, I felt like, okay, the Broncos'
offense is in rhythm.
Then they couldn't run the ball.
Then you have a penalty.
And you just, once again, you're just making these mistakes, self-inflicted wounds
that are setting the offense back.
And I'll tell you this, you can't make these types of mistakes against the Indianapolis
Colts who dominated the Miami Dolphins and we want to play Lou Anorumo.
He's got some guys over there defensively.
And I imagine the last time the Broncos played the Colts,
Bo really struggled against a lot of the same personnel.
There's new faces, obviously, offensively, defensively there.
But that's stuff that we'll set the table for later on this week here on lockdown Broncos.
But with that said, Broncos country, share with us your thoughts on the Broncos' offensive struggles.
It wasn't pretty, a lot to clean up.
And it needs to be cleaned up very quickly if this team is going to hope to get off to a fast start because the schedule's only going to get tougher.
The offense simply has to play better.
Bow has to play better.
We'll see if they can rise to the challenge here this week here.
But Broncos Country coming up next, we're going to hand out our game balls from Sundays,
one and oh start here for the Broncos,
20 to 12 victory over the Tennessee Titans.
And I have a feeling.
A handful of defensive players are going to come away with the game ball.
We'll break it down here on today's episode of the show.
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The Broncos defense was handing out Cam Ward sacks like Oprah hands out gifts,
and we're going to be handing out game balls just like her.
You know, on today's episode of show.
Thanks to all the everydayers first listeners out there.
country for tuning in as always making the show exactly what it is. Sarah, I would be remiss if we
don't start off by handing out a game ball to the reigning, defending, undisputed NFL defensive
player of the year. Patrick Sertan, according to our friends over there at NFL, next gen stats,
Pat Sertan did not allow a catch as the nearest defender on his 34 coverage snaps for the
eighth time in his career. He was targeted only once breaking up his lone target.
Sertan lined up against Calvin Ridley on 27 of his 32 routes.
That's over 84% in this game.
Seat belt emoji, strap it in, lock it in.
You let me know what it is.
Pat Sertan, easy game ball to give to.
They used to say with Chant Bailey that like 75% of the earth is covered by water
and the rest is covered by Chant Bailey.
And the same is true about Pat Sartan nowadays, right?
He's just passed the torch down to the next generation here.
Pat Sartan is awesome.
I mean, one of my, I think one of the biggest compliments you can give a guy is, I think we talked about it during the game on Twitter.
It's funny, like, Pat Sertan never sees the ball come his way throughout a game.
And yet he's never not ready when the ball comes his way.
I absolutely love that part of his game that he's always just locked in.
He's never taking plays off.
He's always ready, even though the ball rarely comes his way.
So huge game ball to Pat Sartan, who obviously,
the announcers were talking about it during the game, Cody.
He makes it like 10 on 10 out there football.
It's like there's something else going on with whatever Pat's doing,
and you got 10 guys going against 10 when the Broncos defense is on the field.
So I love that.
I'm giving a game ball to Nick Benito as well.
If Pat Sertan doesn't repeat as defensive player of the year,
shoot, Nick Benito might give him a run for his money.
They might have a little in-house competition again this year
because Nick Benito was dominant in this game.
I can't wait to see the advanced metrics.
I can't wait to watch the tape.
I can't wait.
Let's hear it.
Give me the numbers because I want to hear just how good this was.
Nick Benito, according to NFL next gen stats, generate a career high.
Nine pressures on 22 rushes, including five quick pressures, which is under 2.5 seconds
at a sack in the Broncos week one win.
The newly extended edge rusher generated seven of his pressures against Titans left tackle Dan Moore.
This is a chaching.
That man earned his paycheck, which on our players to watch,
you mentioned it. The guys that got paid, you wanted to see something out. I thought all three of
those guys did something, Cortland. Zach Allen had a big sack, and then Nick Benito,
obviously, had an impact play. So three for three for Sarah Bediger. Look at that.
I guess, hey, you take the low hanging fruit and the guys who get paid, they come through.
I absolutely love it. Cody, that paints the picture perfectly. I mean, and he was just downright
dominant. And I can't wait to watch the All-22 get a chance to see just how, you know,
technically he's advanced and the ways that he was dominating.
I know the Titans had questions about their tackle.
Dan Moore going into this game is a free agent pickup,
kind of a lottery ticket for them.
I think they might be going back to the well pretty soon after what they just saw against
Nick Benito.
What do you think about a game ball for this guy?
Justin Sternard.
You and I talked about him on Friday, Cody.
I know you love Justin.
You guys have a good relationship there.
I'm interested to hear you talk about him because he was kind of our honorary
player to watch on Friday.
Let's have the numbers here on Justin Sarnat,
who filled in great for Drey Greenlaw.
I mean, you talk about needing someone to step up defensively
and make play Sternard.
He had five tackles and one sack in this game.
I felt like when it came to like the coverage dynamic of him dropping back,
I thought he did a really good job of getting in those passing windows.
But it seems like once again,
the comfortability level from Vance Joseph of saying,
hey, Justin is the guy that we're going to blitz quite a bit.
We feel comfortable about it.
I think against the run,
takes great angles. He's very quick to fill his gap. And we saw the Broncos overcome some of the
things that maybe we were worried about with the loss of Malcolm Roach and the depth that behind
DJ Jones defensively, you know, Sternaud did a really good job. And I think those guys filling
in for Malcolm Roach, the Jordan Jackson's and Yomo Wazerica, they did a really good job of
being able to open up lanes for Sternade that blitz through and obviously make plays against, you know,
Tony Pollard, but even Cam Ward as well. Once again, just the guy I think who is, he understands
he's so comfortable now in this defense.
I truly feel it.
And yes, it's week one.
I do feel like Sternaud.
If Dre has to miss any more time,
I'm very comfortable with Sternaud being that guy back there.
I think he's earned his stripes.
He really has.
It's exciting to see because last year he got the opportunity.
He made more splash plays last year than anybody else at linebacker for the Broncos.
And I know that may not be saying much because they rotated a lot of guys due to injury.
But when I say a lot of splash plays,
I mean, he had eight tackles for loss last.
season and he's just started off the year with two quarterback hits, another tackle for loss.
We talked about on Friday how we would expect to see him blitzing, attacking the line of
scrimmage because he's so good at it. And he did exactly that in this game. I've got another
game ball to give out here, Cody. I know not many players on the offense are necessarily deserving
after this one. But how about the rookie R.J. Harvey in this game, providing the biggest spark on
offense when the Broncos needed it the most. He flips the field with a 50-yard run.
absolutely game-changing play.
Even if it was just for that one play, Cody,
I'm giving R.J. Harvey a game ball because when you can deliver in the clutch,
when you can deliver on exactly what everybody said you were drafted for,
the vision, the burst, the change of direction,
the ability to hit home runs in the running game.
That run by R.J. Harvey was the best run that I've seen from the Denver Broncos
in probably two plus years at least, I think, since Javante's rookie year.
I mean, tell me if I'm wrong.
No, no, you're right. I feel like that's very accurate in terms of length.
Obviously, Badee had a 43-yard run last year for the Broncos against Tampa Bay,
but this was a momentum changer here.
And then you followed up a couple of plays later.
J.K. Dobbins, rattling off contact, 19 yards, touchdown.
That's what helped the Broncos get ahead.
And so to me, it's like the commitment to the run game, it was not there early on.
You rattle off a couple of plays.
And all of a sudden, now two plays later, boom, J.K. Dobbins finishes the job.
And now you have that dynamic at running back.
which we're going to talk about that, I think, a little bit more
in tomorrow's episode of the show here.
But I would give, yeah, RJ Harvey one.
I would give J.K. Dobbins one for being able to score a touchdown there.
Defensively, I'm going to hand one out here as well to Tala Noah Hufanga,
who I felt like.
I mean, he was everywhere.
Anywhere the ball was, you saw number nine flying in.
You mentioned the force fumble that he had.
That came up at a very crucial moment here for the Broncos defense on Sunday.
But, man, I think at half time, he had nine tackles.
This dude was everywhere.
He was every bit as advertised here.
I'm going to give him a game ball.
Absolutely.
The newest captain of the team, right?
I mean, Talaoufonga is exactly what the Broncos signed him to be in free agency.
You bring this guy in because he's everywhere all at once.
What's the name of that movie?
Everything Everywhere All at Once.
That's Talano Hufanga as a football player.
He's everything everywhere all at once.
And that's exactly what the Broncos needed was another tone setter on the back end.
Somebody who makes it feel like you've got 12 guys out there.
So really with the whole, if I'm doing the math right here, Cody,
if it's like you're playing 10 on 10 with Pat Sertan on one side of the field,
and Tala Noah, Hufanga makes it feel like you've got an extra guy out there.
The Broncos are kind of playing like 11 on 10 out there.
And it feels like that.
Does it not when they're out there, that defense,
it feels like they've got an extra guy by comparison to the other team
because they're just, they're faster, they're instinctive,
they are on the spot.
I know that they gave up some plays,
but nobody's ever going to be perfect in the NFL.
You're going up against other pros.
So I love the addition of Hufanga, a huge move by this team.
Talk to a few Broncos defenders in the locker room after the game.
And they said, you know, hey, Cam War, like, that man can throw the football.
You got some zip on his passes.
He's going to be good.
I mean, there were a couple moments where Cam, I thought, did a good job.
And Broncos defense was able to counteract some of the things that he was able to do.
And ultimately, I think that's where the experience factor and just the aggressive
nature of this defense comes through.
I think what helps when we have guys like Sartan, Hufanga,
that can kind of help solidify that the return of Alex Singleton,
the leadership that those guys all bring to the table, it is big here.
So Broncos Country, make sure you hand us your game balls.
Choose someone on offense, defense.
And if there's a special teams one, put it out there as well.
Make sure you let us know here.
But Broncos Country, tomorrow's episode of the show, it is a big one here.
Sarah and I, we're going to sit down and discuss whether or not Sean Payton,
the Broncos got it right by making Jeluma McLaughlin in favor of Tyler Bade.
We're going to take a look at the Broncos running back rotation on tomorrow's episode,
Locked on Broncos.
