Why it might be too early to panic over Broncos Week 1 loss to Raiders

In the midst of our almost universal negative reaction to the Denver Broncos losing another home game to the hapless Las Vegas Raiders, there was a comment of reason dropped in one of our post game comment threads by Topher Doll in response to another comment by OMySouL while discussing Sean Payton’s record during the months of September and October.

The fact is, Payton’s teams never played well in September. His record in September now stands at 27-28 through his career as a head coach with the New Orleans Saints and now Broncos. That sub-.500 record fits well with this frustrating and annoying 17-16 loss to the Raiders.

The reason why we should do our best to maintain patience before flushing this team down the toilet is because Payton’s teams in October were elite as hell. Through his 16 seasons in New Orleans, his teams were 46-15 during the month of October.

If the Broncos come out of September with a 1-2 record, but follow up with a 4-1 record in October then this early panic will look pretty silly in hindsight. I think we’re all frustrated with the losing. Maybe they’ll turn the corner in October, maybe they won’t. I felt the team played much better in this game than they did in Week 1 in 2022 despite the final score being exactly the same.

While I’m trying to find a positive here, that doesn’t mean I don’t have a lot of concerns about this team right now. They were sloppy, with way to many dumb penalties. There was zero pass rush on Sunday, which will only cause more problems when they face elite quarterbacks. And the team still lacks any sense of a ‘killer instinct’ that playoff teams usually possess. All those things frustrate us and will likely continue to frustrate in the coming weeks.

But the sky isn’t falling... yet.