Around the AFC West, Week 1: Denver Broncos are embarrassing
By Ellen Mathis
Let’s take a look around the AFC West battles as we wrap up Week 1 of the 2019 NFL season and look ahead at an important Week 2.
Welcome Addicts of all things related to the Kansas City Chiefs!
Last season, I had the distinct honor of providing you with a weekly review of our AFC West foes and a preview as we looked ahead at the next week. Believe it or not, they brought me back to do it again.
So, here we go – let’s dive in and recap the first week of real football (thank the Lord) and preview Week 2 of the 2019 NFL season!
Denver Broncos
The Denver Broncos traveled to beautiful Oakland to take on the Raiders in the first divisional matchup for AFC West teams. In the late slot for the Monday Night Football double header (why so late?), the Broncos looked to kick off their season with a win against the headline-grabbing Raiders. One can only assume the Broncos spent a good portion of the week planning for an offense that included Antonio Brown, only to have that change on Saturday when after a bizarre sequence, he was released and signed by (of course) the New England Patriots.
The suspicion was that the Denver Broncos, led by Joe Flacco, would come into this season as a team looking to be mediocre. Boy, was that prediction wrong.
Denver was held scoreless in the first half on a baseball diamond and the once vaunted Broncos defense looked to be a shell of its former self. Flacco looked uncomfortable all night often and held onto the ball for too long, which allowed the Raiders to sack the former MVP multiple times.
Flacco finished 21 of 31 for 268 yards. Additionally, there were drives that stalled in the red zone and dropped passes at inopportune times. Flacco and the Broncos were held out of the red zone until 2 minutes and 15 seconds were left in the game. Flacco threw a one yard touchdown pass to Emmanuel Sanders to make the loss look less embarrassing.
In the end, theBroncos fell to the Raiders 24-16. Vic Fangio’s head coach debut was one he will want to forget.
The Broncos did not fare well on the injury front either. If Flacco looked uncomfortable from the outset, he is potentially in for a long season. Right tackle Ja’Wuan James left the game in the first half with a right knee injury. No word yet on the severity. Additionally, wide receiver Tim Patrick left in the second half with a hand injury. On a more positive front, Emmanual Sanders looked good coming back from his torn Achilles so maybe all is not lost. (I kid. All is lost and the Broncos are bad.)
The Broncos play host to the Chicago Bears next week. The Bears are coming off a quasi-bye week having hosted the Green Bay Packers on Thursday night. While the offense for the Bears was outright terrible, their defense is another story.
With Khalil Mack leading the charge, they have shown that they are a formidable force that will likely give trouble to a weak Broncos offense led by the aging ghost of Joe Flacco. This will likely be a low scoring battle of the defenses with the Bears coming out on top. Game time is 3:25 p.m.