Sunday’s Jaguars game “huge” as Broncos can’t afford to fall further behind

The Denver Broncos don’t have the luxury of a soft landing. After Monday night’s 31-10 dismantling at the hands of the Kansas City Chiefs, the schedule doesn’t offer a get-right game against an overmatched opponent. It offers Jacksonville, a team that already knows how to win inside Denver’s building and is playing some of the most consistent offensive football in the NFL.

On a recent edition of “Stokley and Evans, with Mark Schlereth” on 104.3 The Fan, NFL insider James Palmer joined the show to discuss the magnitude of what Sunday represents for a Broncos team staring down one of the toughest opening stretches in the league.

Brandon Stokley framed the moment directly.

“How important of a game is this for the Denver Broncos to bounce back after that debacle Monday night?” Stokley asked.

Palmer didn’t sugarcoat his answer.

“It’s huge, Stoke,” Palmer said.

He then laid out exactly why the matchup carries so much weight, starting with the history between these two teams.

“We know what Jacksonville did when they came into Denver last year. And I remember being in that Jags locker room and talking to guys about how that was just such a big game for them. And you look at the roll that Jacksonville’s on right now, what is this, 12 straight they’ve had 23 or more points. I mean it’s the longest streak in the NFL. You know their offense is gonna go out there and play well,” Palmer said.

That streak is the kind of number that demands respect. Twelve consecutive games of 23-plus points means Jacksonville isn’t just capable of putting up crooked numbers, it’s doing it with the kind of consistency that suggests a system firing on all cylinders. The Broncos defense, which couldn’t tackle or contain the run against Kansas City, is about to face an offense that has been among the most productive in the league over an extended stretch.

Palmer then walked through the specific areas Denver has to clean up if it wants a different outcome than Monday night.

“Can you fix the effort on the tackling side of the ball? Can you, in the backfield, run the football a little bit better? Protect Bo a little bit better, then the running backs do their thing,” Palmer said.

Each item on that list was exposed at Arrowhead. The tackling was atrocious. The run game was underutilized despite averaging over 4.5 yards per carry. Bo Nix was left in uncomfortable situations by a game plan that refused to lean on what was working. All of those failures have to be addressed simultaneously, not over the next month, but by Sunday.

Palmer closed with the broader context that makes the urgency impossible to ignore.

“I think there’s a lot on the line here. You know, they’ve started slow almost every year here with Sean Payton. And it doesn’t get any easier after this,” Palmer said.

The slow starts have become a pattern under Payton, one the franchise has survived in previous seasons thanks to mid-year surges and fourth-quarter heroics. But the margin for error in a six-game gauntlet that includes the Rams, 49ers, Chargers, and Seahawks after Jacksonville is razor thin. Falling to 0-2 wouldn’t end the season. But it would put the Broncos in a position where every remaining game in the opening stretch starts to feel like a must-win, and that’s a pressure cooker this team hasn’t had to navigate before.

Palmer sees it clearly. The Broncos need to fix the tackling. They need to commit to the run. They need to protect their quarterback. And they need to do all of it Sunday against a Jacksonville team that is playing with the kind of offensive confidence that punishes unprepared opponents. The debacle at Arrowhead is in the rearview mirror. What matters now is whether the Broncos have the character to respond, because James Palmer is right. It doesn’t get any easier after this.

Related

Broncos’ Singleton fined for unnecessary-roughness infraction in Week 1Sean Payton intends on Jaylen Waddle getting the ball more against JacksonvilleDavis Webb is ‘not proud’ of how the Broncos offense performed in Week 1Broncos won’t have Mims for Week 2 against JaguarsAlex Singleton’s agent rips ‘ignorance’ and ‘incompetence’ of some Broncos mediaTravis Hunter returns to Colorado as Broncos prepare for two-way threat