The Broncos’ preseason loss to the Packers was the wake-up call they needed

Winning streaks are nice. But sometimes the most valuable thing a team can experience before the real games begin isn’t another victory, it’s a punch in the mouth.

The Denver Broncos got exactly that on Saturday night, falling 33-13 to the Green Bay Packers in their second preseason game of the year. The streak is over. The scoreboard was ugly.

And Brandon Stokley thinks it might be the best thing that could have happened.

On a recent edition of “Stokley and Evans, with Mark Schlereth” on 104.3 The Fan, Stokley walked through why the loss, as uncomfortable as it looked in the moment, could serve a purpose that eight more preseason wins never would have.

He started with the side of the ball that needed the reality check most.

“The defense got humbled, which they needed to be,” Stokley said.

That’s a significant statement about a unit that has operated as one of the best in the NFL for the better part of three seasons. But elite defenses aren’t immune to complacency, and Stokley saw the seeds of it taking root before Saturday night’s collapse.

“I mean they were riding high. The way they played last year, then you beat up on Atlanta, play great. And then you got punched in the mouth a little bit,” Stokley said.

A dominant 2025 season. A 27-7 dismantling of the Falcons in preseason Week 1. The defense was feeling itself, and when a defense starts feeling invincible, it stops doing the small things that made it elite in the first place. Green Bay exploited that.

Stokley was careful to keep the loss in perspective, noting that the performance wasn’t catastrophic, it was careless.

“It wasn’t the worst I’ve ever seen. But if you’re not on top of your game, you got penalties, blown assignments, et cetera, et cetera. Then you’re gonna look like an average defense,” Stokley said.

The Broncos didn’t get beaten by a superior team. They beat themselves with the kind of mental lapses that championship-caliber defenses cannot afford, especially with a regular-season opener against the Kansas City Chiefs looming on the horizon.

Penalties. Blown assignments. The kind of mistakes that are fixable, but only if someone forces the conversation.

That someone is Vance Joseph. And Stokley believes the defensive coordinator just received the best coaching tool a preseason game can offer.

“So great coaching points and talking points for Vance Joseph,” Stokley said.

That’s the silver lining buried inside the loss. Joseph now has fresh, undeniable film to point to when he walks into the meeting room this week. Not film from last season that feels distant. Not hypothetical breakdowns on the whiteboard. Real, current, this-just-happened-to-us film that shows exactly what happens when discipline slips and preparation takes a back seat to reputation.

The timing matters too. The Broncos open the regular season with one of the most demanding six-week stretches in the league – Kansas City, Jacksonville, the Rams, the 49ers, the Chargers, and the Seahawks. There’s no room for a slow start. There’s no room for the kind of blown assignments and sloppy penalties that defined Saturday night. If those mistakes were going to surface, better they surface now, in a game that doesn’t count, than in Week 1 under the “Monday Night Football” lights at Arrowhead.

The preseason streak was fun while it lasted. But Stokley would rather have a defense that got humbled in August and came out sharper in September than one that cruised through the exhibition schedule believing it had nothing left to prove. The loss stings. The lesson it provides could be worth far more than another meaningless win.

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