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.
First Half
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 to put the offense on their back on this drive and would cap the drive with a 19-yard strike to the end zone for the touchdown and the lead.
The Broncos defense did not need a third series and the backups came in from there, but it was clear Sean Payton was not happy with the first-team offense after those first two drives. Bo Nix went 4/4 for 71 yards and a touchdown on that last drive. His day was finally done after that.
Surprisingly, Sam Ehlinger entered the game after Nix — not Jarrett Stidham. He would lead the Broncos to a nice drive and go to the Saints 10-yard line, but a sack and a delay of game ended the momentum. Still, the Broncos were able to add another field goal in the half. The Saints would add another field at the two minute mark to bring out the hurry-up offense for Denver.
After two big gains, the Saints defense tried to hold the Broncos up around midfield. On third and nine, Ehlinger dodged a missile of a pass rusher to fire a first down pass to Lucas Krull into field goal range. Another huge pass play to the one to Krull got them inside the 10 yard line.
Ehlinger would cap the two-minute drive with a third and goal throw away as he was getting laid out in the pocket. The field would put the Broncos back up by a touchdown at halftime.
Second Half
After stuffing the Saints opening second half drive, the Broncos came out and ran the ball seven straight times with Audric Estime getting 21 yards on three of those carries. The drive would end in disaster with the pass rush causing an Ehlinger pass attempt to be tipped and intercepted by the Saints defense.
The good news for Denver is that Que Robinson would come around the edge and force a stripe-sack where Karene Reid would recover to give the ball right back to the Broncos.
The turnover would make things easy. Ehlinger got an excellent pass to Pat Bryant down to the 5 yard line where Estime would power his way into the end zone for a Broncos touchdown. They’d go for two, but failed on the conversion attempt, but remained well ahead of the Saints late in the third quarter by a score of 22-9.
The Saints would answer with a touchdown of their own in the fourth quarter and add another field goal to cut the lead to 22-19. The Broncos would then suffer an injury to running back Blake Watson who left to the sidelines with a left leg injury of some kind.
Denver would come out with a strong focus on the run game with the clock winding down below five minutes as they crossed midfield. Ehlinger would fire a deep ball from there to Courtney Jackson for a big chunk to the Saints 30-yard line. Estime added another nice gain on a screen pass, but a false start penalty put Denver into a third and six. Ehlinger found Kyrese Rowan for another first down just outside of the 10 yard line.
On fourth down, Ehlinger extended the play for it seemed like forever and just heaved the ball up into the endzone where Rowan was in position to make a play on the ball for the touchdown.
Denver would go on to close out the preseason with a perfect 3-0 record thanks in large part to the outstanding play of Jarrett Stidham and the depth performing all the way down the line in these games.
Broncos 28, Saints 19.
