Denver Broncos go back to basics after their big flop in season opener

ENGLEWOOD, Colo. (AP) — Sean Payton's coordinators had their work cut out for them this week after the Denver Broncos ' tough start to the season.

The offense struggled in Davis Webb’s play-calling debut, and Vance Joseph’s defense had trouble containing Kenneth Walker III. The Broncos missed 28 tackles in their opening loss to Kansas City.

Half of them came when Walker, the reigning Super Bowl MVP, was running roughshod over, around and through a defense that was one of the league's best last season.

For once, it wasn't star quarterback Patrick Mahomes handing it to the Broncos (0-1).

“Well, they ran 38 times and that’s never happened against the Chiefs,” Joseph said Friday in his first public comments about the Week 1 letdown. "Obviously, the back they signed is a special back but it was a good plan. I thought we did well against their passing game.

"Aside from a missed tackle, their passing game didn’t hurt us at all. I wish he would have thrown more. But 38 runs and the missed tackles and the lack of block destruction, it hurt us and it burned clock. That wasn’t good for the Broncos.”

So the focus this week was on fundamentals.

“Obviously, leaving camp you would think those things would be fixed,” Joseph said.

Joseph said it was a quick fix and suggested that back-to-basics reminders this week will lead to a better showing Sunday when the Broncos host the Jacksonville Jaguars (1-0), the only team that beat Denver at Empower Field during the 2025 regular season.

All but 29 of Walker's 173 yards rushing came after contact as Denver's 29.8% missed tackle rate marked the third-worst in an NFL game since 2018, and their 247 missed tackle yards allowed were the most by any defense in that same span, according to Next Gen Stats.

“It's correctible. We've reset. We're moving forward to the Jags, which is a great offense, a similar running back, they have great receivers, their tight end's a player, their quarterback's playing at a high level, so it's going to be a challenge again,” Joseph said.

Denver's offense was also missing in action at Kansas City as Bo Nix fumbled three times, got sacked on his first snap and intercepted on his first pass. The Broncos didn't run the ball much — they had just five handoffs in the first half compared to 19 pass plays — and newcomer Jaylen Waddle caught a single pass.

“Yeah, obviously not good enough,” said Webb, who took over play-calling duties from Payton this season. "... I have probably five play calls I would love to have back, execution, penalties, just not what you wanted to start with considering we had a good camp, we felt we had a good plan going in. And it just didn’t time up well.

“We’re looking forward to this week, though, We know it’s uncharacteristic of our guys. We’ve made a big emphasis on starting faster this year, and we kind of missed the first opportunity. But luckily, we’ve got another one this week."

Webb said the opener held many lessons for him personally.

“The one thing that sticks out: if you’ve got a play that you like, don’t wait, just shoot it,” he said. “And I think there was a couple of opportunities throughout the game where it definitely happened, waiting until later in the game as opposed to being aggressive and really shooting that early.

“We’re looking forward to this week hopefully taking better advantage of opportunities, they’ve got a really good defense in Jacksonville, so it’ll be very, very tough.”

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