Mile High Report
The Denver Broncos decided to play their starters for 8-10 plays against the New Orleans Saints, but it turned into three full drives after looking pretty sloppy on both drives. The only successful plays came on a third and fourth down to keep the second drive alive long enough for a field goal attempt. Outside of those two plays, they did not gain more than a few yards on any play called.
It looked like their third drive would end in much the same way after an offensive holding call on the first play set them back, but a personal foul call on the Saints sparked the offense. Well, sparked the Bo Nix and Courtland Sutton connection. A 43-yard deep ball and a 19-yard touchdown strike capped an excellent third drive for the first-teamers.
Meanwhile, the New Orleans Saints were playing good football on offense and defense to start the game with their starting group. However, once the Nix-Sutton connection got hot they got burned.
The countdown to Week 1 begins now.
Bo Nix and the Broncos’ starters had the ball to start the game and they looked awful. Nix was incomplete on two passes and they had a delay of game penalty for a quick three and out. Another terrible punt by rookie Jeremy Crawshaw set the Saints up with excellent field position to start their drive.
After a couple of first downs, the Saints beat themselves with a holding call and back-to-back passes towards Pat Surtain resulted in predictable incompletions. The first-team defense saved the day, but the Saints still went for and made a 56-yard field goal attempt to take the early lead.
Tyler Badie continued to make his case for the final 53 with a big 46-yard return on the ensuing kickoff to give Bo Nix and the first-team another shot to get a drive going.
The offense continued to look out of sync and off kilter. However, on fourth and four, Nix was able to throw a back shoulder ball to Courtland Sutton for a 14-yard first down reception to keep their drive alive.
Three ugly plays later, they were again faced with a third and long. Nix was nearly sacked, but squeezed through and found Badie for a big gain to the Saints 16-yard line. They would again go nowhere and on third and long could not convert to bring Wil Lutz out to tie the game up.
The first-team defense for Denver would give up another field goal drive. It seemed like the starters would be done, but the offense was so sluggish that they were sent out for a third drive.
Things looked pretty bad to start that third drive after a holding call pushed them into a 1st and 20. However, a personal foul call on the Saints sparked the offense finally. Two plays later Nix found a wide open Sutton for a 43-yard gain into Saints territory to end the first quarter.
Nix and Sutton both decided...
