A ROCKY START
After more of the same, can Payton write different story this season?
Broncos fans are no strangers to watching the Rocky Mountain Horror Picture Show in recent years, but even the sturdiest might have wondered if they had stumbled into a Time Warp Dance on Sunday afternoon at Empower Field.
What year is it, again?
The parallels between Denver’s 2022 and 2023 season openers are downright scary.
New coach making an anticipated debut. An actually pretty efficient Russell Wilson-led offense. Red zone failures. Double-digit penalties. A defense that wilted one too many times. A pesky opposing quarterback new to his West-division team picked to finish at the bottom of the barrel.
Even the final score — 17-16 for the other guys, 363 days ago in sunny Seattle, and again on a cool, rainy Denver afternoon — fits snugly in this Broncos bizarro world.
Make it seven straight for those Raiders against these Broncos.
Make it three straight wins for Raiders Josh Mcdaniels over the team he once coached.
Make it another game that easily could have served as a jumping-off point for Denver and now threatens to become an anchor.
Make it another year of heading into Week 2 not with a tailwind but instead with one body blow already landed and more accomplished punchers ahead.
Denver head coach Sean Payton has spent the past seven months changing everything about this franchise he could possibly think of, hoping to change the Broncos’ fortunes by sheer force of will. Instead, more of the same. “Look, our plate is going to be full every weekend,” Payton said after he watched his offense go three-and-out with a chance to recapture a fourth-quarter lead and his defense allow the Raiders to bleed the game’s final 5 minutes, 8 seconds off the clock.
“The exceptions are the games that aren’t close, really. Playing
in these one-score games, in the end trying to get a stop and use the time, obviously it was frustrating they were able to run the clock out. … And offensively we had our opportunities as well.
“Those close games aren’t going away. That’s kind of our league.”
Schematics? Talent? Yeah, they’ll matter over the next 17 weeks. But what Payton has on his hands now is a test fit for a psychologist: Convince this Broncos team, which looked a lot like past Broncos teams over a seven-year playoff drought Sunday, that this time is different.
“We’ve been in this situation too many times, so for us it’s all about finishing,” safety Kareem Jackson said. “Like I said, they finished and we didn’t do enough. We have to be better.”
If that sounds like something that’s been said in the past, check any of the nine one-score losses from last year.
Here’s the thing about parallel tracks, though: They’re not destined to run side-by-side forever. Divergence is possible.
A Week 1 result doesn’t have to preordain what comes next.
“It’s a new year and it’s Week 1,” inside linebacker Alex Singleton said after starting his own season with a team-high eight tackles, a pressure and a third-quarter tip that led to a Kareem Jackson interception.
“At the end of the day, we’ve got 16 more. It’s not college. You don’t have to go undefeated to make the playoffs. We’ve just got to learn from it, take these early ones and not treat it like the end of a season. It’s not Week 10, not Week 12.
“Every team has to get better. Whoever gets better the fastest will be the best team.”
Denver looked like it had a chance to best the Raiders when Jackson came down with that interception with 2:01 remaining in the third quarter, thwarting a 13-play drive.
Russell Wilson (27-of-34 passing for 177 yards, two touchdowns) then guided the Broncos to a first-andgoal at the 8-yard line, but three straight passes from there netted only three yards and Denver settled for a 24-yard Wil Lutz field goal and 16-10 lead.
Instead of vanquishing demons and a losing streak against the silver and black that dates to Oakland, Vance Joseph’s defense allowed Jimmy Garoppolo to complete four straight passes for 60 yards and put his team right back on top.
From there: a three-andout and Vegas’ put-away drive. See you Week 18 for a rematch in the desert.