UPDATE: The Broncos lost 24-16 to the Raiders.
The Denver Broncos open the 2019 regular season on the road against the Oakland Raiders in an AFC West showdown on Monday Night Football.
In many ways, the Broncos and Raiders are two teams that could be looking in a mirror at each other. There will be a lot of new faces on both sides of the ball when they take the field as they look to recover from double-digit loss seasons a year ago. The Broncos had wholesale change from the top down with a new head coach, new quarterback, and many others.
Speaking of new head coaches, Vic Fangio alluded to the challenges of game planning a team with so many new faces on September 2, 2019 when asked about the Raiders game.
“This one provides more challenges in that usually when you have a coaching change at a team, you’re never quite sure what you’re going to get,” Fangio said. “Their offensive coaching staff stayed the same, but they have a lot of new players. Most of those players didn’t play in the preseason very much, so all this Raiders that we’re watching—[WR] Antonio Brown is not on it, [RB Josh] Jacobs isn’t on it, the receiver from the Chargers (Tyrell Williams) isn’t on it. There are a lot of guys that you know you’re going to be playing against that aren’t on the tape, so that makes it challenging.”
If that is true, then Raiders’ Jon Gruden will be faced with the same challenges with a little more given all of the coaching and scheme changes Denver has made since January. It would be nice to make him and all of Raider Nation sad in this game.
Game time is on Monday, September 9, 2019 at 8:20 p.m. Mile High time at Oakland-Alameda County Coliseum in Oakland, California. Here is everything we know: