Mile High Report
The Denver Broncos opened up the preseason against the San Francisco 49ers tonight, and after some early struggles, went on to dominate the game and come away with the victory. The Broncos’ defense gave up an early touchdown to the 49ers, and the Broncos’ offensive starters looked shaky, but their reserves outplayed the 49ers, and they came away with the 30-9 victory.
It wasn’t a perfect game, but plenty of players stood out while others will leave this game as losers. With all that said, here are your winners and losers from the Broncos’ 30-9 victory over the 49ers.
It’s way too early to be hitting the panic button, but the Broncos’ starting offense did not look great tonight. The protection wasn’t great, Bo Nix’s accuracy wasn’t there tonight, and they struggled to do much of anything against the 49ers’ backup defense.
Certainly not what you want to see from a unit that has had its struggles during camp, but it’s still early. This was just the preseason opener; there likely was little to no game-planning, and they have about a month to week one of the season. We know Bo Nix is better than this, Sean Payton will get this offense going, and it’s way too early to be hitting the panic button.
With that said, they leave this game on the loser list.
The opening drive sucked and featured a 50+ yard pass play on third down with Ja’Quan McMillian in coverage. It wasn’t great from a defense that has been hyped up all offseason. However, after this score, the defense (1st, 2nd, and 3rd team defenses) did not give up a single point the rest of the game.
We saw the pass rush step up (More on that later), we saw multiple turnovers, forced fumbles, and key plays to stop the 49ers’ offense. It should be noted that the 49ers’ 3rd and 4th string quarterbacks are not very good, but it was still a good showing by the Broncos’ defense.
I came into this game excited to see our Aussie rookie punter boom some punts.
That never happened.
Crawshaw’s punts were not great. He failed to pin the 49ers inside the 20-yard line at one point, didn’t have great hang time, and just didn’t look like the punter we were promised. It was noted that he has been inconsistent during camp, but we also heard how he was booming punts and downing them inside the 20-yard line.
Hopefully, it was just some rookie jitters, but it was not a great showing for the Broncos’ rookie punter.
Is Troy Franklin a starter?
It might be a tad early to read into things, but Franklin saw a ton of time with the Broncos’ starting offense tonight. He was targeted a bit by Bo Nix and finished the...
