Broncos predicted to get off to hot start but who gives them their first loss?
The Denver Broncos are a team many see as one of the better teams in the AFC this coming season, and the schedule set up nicely for them in the first month, with the Tennessee Titans and Indianapolis Colts to start the season.
Ali Bhanpuri and Adam Rank, two analysts over at NFL.com, recently made game-by-game picks for each team in the league. Broncos Country will love the thoughts of each of them. Bhanpuri has the Broncos finishing 11-6 on the season and becoming the AFC's top wild card. Rank does him one better, putting the Broncos at 12-5, winning the AFC West, and becoming the No. 2 seed in the AFC.
Looking at things from a different perspective, John Breech of CBS Sports decided to predict when each team would lose its first game of the season.
Breech has the Broncos getting off to a 3-0 start with wins over the Titans, Colts and on the road over the Los Angeles Chargers. But he suggests that the team will come back home in Week 4 and suffer its first loss at the hands of the Cincinnati Bengals.
"This might end up being the best game of Week 4. These two teams gave us a shootout last season and it won't be surprising if we get another one with the Bengals pulling off the road upset", wrote Breech.
The Broncos and Bengals played in one of the best games of the 2024 season, going shot for shot with major playoff implications on the line. The Bengals won the game 30-24 in overtime, dealing a blow to the Broncos' playoff hopes while significantly helping their own.
While the Broncos were the team that took the last playoff spot, many fans felt that the Bengals should have been there instead. The Broncos will still have that loss fresh in their minds for this one and will be seeking a measure of revenge.
READ: Broncos backup QB making case for team to repeat recent history
The Bengals are built just like they were last year, with a high-powered offense and a lackluster defense. The Broncos improved on both sides of the ball and could have one of the league's best defenses, so they should have the advantage in this game.
MORE BRONCOS CONTENT
Broncos predicted to cut one of the top players to hit this year's waiver wire
4 players Broncos must find a way to keep ahead of the 2025 season
Broncos' 2024 draft pick looks like a sure cut ahead of final preseason game
4 Broncos players who should be worried about their roster spot ahead of second preseason game
Broncos encouraged to cut productive third-year star before season starts
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Yahoo
24 minutes ago
- Yahoo
Pirates call up Bubba Chandler, baseball's top pitching prospect
PITTSBRURGH (AP) — Baseball's top pitching prospect is getting called up to the majors. The Pittsburgh Pirates have decided to promote 22-year-old right hander Bubba Chandler ahead of their game Friday against the Colorado Rockies, a person familiar with the decision told The Associated Press on Wednesday. The person spoke to the AP on condition of anonymity because the roster move was not yet official. Chandler will join a staff that already includes 2024 NL Rookie of the Year Paul Skenes. The Pirates are shuffling their pitching rotation after sending veteran left-hander Andrew Heaney to the bullpen last weekend. Chandler got off to a hot start in Triple-A this year but has stumbled lately and is currently 5-6 with a 4.05 ERA this year for Indianapolis. ___ AP MLB:
Yahoo
24 minutes ago
- Yahoo
NBA summer predictions: Projecting the West's best teams and LeBron James' future with the Lakers
With the NBA's new schedule out, and training camps just weeks away, it's time to look ahead to the 2025-26 season. What does the future hold for the Western Conference? Our writers take an early stab at predicting how the standings will play out. (Check out our East predictions, too.) Which West team will make the biggest leap in the standings? Dan Devine: The Spurs, but almost by default. The second through eighth seeds in the West were separated by four wins last season, with 48 Ws representing the low end. Nos. 9 through 12 were separated by four wins, too. That kind of congestion makes it tough to envision most of the teams in the conference taking too huge a jump, so give me San Antonio — 34 wins with Victor Wembanyama missing 36 games and De'Aaron Fox playing just 578 in silver and black — to climb the standings with better health, better depth and another year of seasoning. [Join or create a Yahoo Fantasy Football league for the 2025 NFL season] Ben Rohrbach: The Spurs. Assuming Wembanyama remains healthy, he will be the best defensive player in the league, and on offense he will be set up by a trio of guards — Fox, Dylan Harper and Stephon Castle — who are explosive in their own right. They have added some veteran depth around Wembanyama, and they still have much of their existing core, including Devin Vassell. It is a team primed to make a leap from outside the play-in tournament into the hunt for a guaranteed playoff seed. Vincent Goodwill: The easy answer is the Spurs, almost because everyone else in the West is bunched together. We are assuming a full season of Victor Wembanyama and, if that happens, one season closer to him being fully actualized. More playmakers around him to make the game easier and one can expect his first of many DPOYs. Going from 34 wins to at least 43-44 isn't unreasonable. Tom Haberstroh: The Spurs. It's hard to pick any of the West teams that made the playoffs last season since almost all of them were basically 50-win outfits. Of the teams that were in the bottom half, the Spurs have the highest upside with Fox and Wembanyama healthy. I think the public is underestimating the potential for Wemby to establish himself as the NBA's best player by the end of the season. Which West team will make the biggest drop in the standings? Haberstroh: The Lakers. From a standings standpoint, I don't see how the Lakers stay at a No. 3 seed again. I'm a believer in Skinny Luka, but if LeBron James is at all checked out, there's not nearly enough depth on this roster to sustain a level required to having first-round homecourt advantage. I fear the talent drop-off after Luka Dončić, James and Austin Reaves will doom them this season. Devine: This sucks, but … the Kings. I'm just bracing for the worst in Sacramento, where Fox is gone, Zach LaVine and DeMar DeRozan are hosting a revival of the wildly-underwhelming-in-the-worse-conference Bulls, Domantas Sabonis exited the season hoping for a point guard, and Scott Perry responded with Dennis Schröder and (maybe?) Russell Westbrook. Maybe Doug Christie's got the goods to turn all of this into a team that doesn't find itself drowning well below .500 in the West. But maybe, before too long, last season's 40-42 mark feels like the start of another disastrously steep descent. Rohrbach: The Lakers. Listen: LeBron James will turn 41 years old this season, and he does not seem happy about his current status within the organization, or at least that is what his last public statement suggested. That has a chance to disrupt the team's chemistry throughout the season. Even if it does not, the Lakers face real defensive issues as they try to build lineups around James, Dončić and Reaves. The addition of Deandre Ayton at the center position does little to assuage concern. Goodwill: This is no indictment, but what if it's the Thunder? For the same reasons so many other teams in the West are bunched, what happens if the Thunder slide to an unfathomable 60 wins just from being a champion and taking everyone's best shot? It wouldn't be a mark of decline; remember, the Warriors of Stephen Curry and Kevin Durant went from 67 wins to 58 in a year, just because even dynastic defending is still damned hard. Who will finish with the top six seeds in the West? Goodwill: (1) Thunder, (2) Nuggets, (3) Rockets, (4) Warriors, (5) Timberwolves, (6) Clippers The Thunder are still built to be a regular-season juggernaut with youth and the like. Cameron Johnson over Michael Porter Jr. already looks to be an upgrade, but could we be giving the Nuggets too much assumed love when hardly anyone in today's NBA stays atop or near it for too long? Denver and Houston could flip-flop, as could the Timberwolves and Warriors in the 4-5 spots. A full 'best of the rest of' Stephen Curry, Draymond Green and Jimmy Butler could have them right around 50, but you can't assume health — a big reason why the graybeards in Los Angeles barely escape the play-in. Haberstroh: (1) Thunder, (2) Rockets, (3) Nuggets, (4) Clippers, (5) Warriors, (6) Timberwolves The West is going to be a bloodbath, but I have the most confidence in these teams locking in slots. I'm sincerely hoping we get Lakers-Mavs in a win-or-go-home play-in tournament game. Make it happen, basketball gods. Devine: (1) Thunder, (2) Nuggets, (3) Timberwolves, (4) Rockets, (5) Warriors, (6) Clippers Even if another 68-win campaign seems like a lot to expect, the champs take the top spot until proven otherwise. I loved the Nuggets' offseason, and feel plenty confident betting on Nikola Jokić to get them to 50-plus wins; I'm pricing in a slight adjustment period, though, for Houston after the addition of Kevin Durant, who brings both titanic scoring talent and, seemingly, a fairly particular emotional weather system with him everywhere he goes. Maybe I'm overly bullish on Minnesota, given the loss of Nickeil Alexander-Walker and the big bets that team president Tim Connelly has made on youngsters like Rob Dillingham, Terrence Shannon and Jaylen Clark to back-fill the rotation, but head coach Chris Finch is as good as it gets at maximizing his roster around supernova Anthony Edwards. I think what Golden State found after the Jimmy Butler trade was real, and I think the Clippers' reloaded depth is real … and, evidently, I think they're more real than the Lakers' bet that Deandre Ayton, Marcus Smart and Jake LaRavia will fix a defense that gave up 121.6 points per 100 possessions — a league-worst-caliber mark — when Luka Dončić, LeBron James and Austin Reaves shared the floor. Rohrbach: (1) Thunder, (2) Nuggets, (3) Rockets, (4) Timberwolves, (5) Warriors, (6) Clippers Oklahoma City is a juggernaut. Denver and Houston made moves to firmly position themselves as Nos. 2 and 3 in the West. Minnesota and Anthony Edwards are still lurking. And I trust the veteran stewardship of Golden State and the L.A. Clippers more than I do the defense of the Lakers or the youth of some other challengers, including the Spurs and Grizzlies. However you order them, there are only six slots for twice as many competitors. What's your boldest summer prediction involving the West? Rohrbach: Go big or go home: LeBron James will not be on the Lakers at the end of the season. It made sense for the Lakers to trade James from the moment they traded for Dončić. Paying a 40-year-old max money is a hindrance to building a contender around a 26-year-old perennial MVP candidate. It just is. Who knows how the Lakers find a partner to match salaries for James, but they would be wise to acquire whatever they can for one of the game's all-time greats before he could leave them in 2026 free agency. Goodwill: The Sacramento Kings won't be as bad as everyone thinks. With that roster being logjammed, would a contender or wanna-be contender out East try to get Malik Monk or even DeMar DeRozan to solidify themselves in this Boston-Indiana sabbatical year? And maybe the Kings find themselves in a dogfight with the Lakers for one of the play-in spots. Bold, I know. Haberstroh: LeBron waives his no-trade clause and OK's a trade to the Cavs. He's coming home — again. It won't be easy, but if the Cavs get off to a slow start, Darius Garland's contract could be large enough to grease the wheels in a three- or four-team trade. Devine: Apparently, it's that the Lakers will be in the play-in tournament, Skinny Luka and all. I know. I'm just as surprised as you are!
Yahoo
24 minutes ago
- Yahoo
Bears reportedly sign Caleb Williams' backup Tyson Bagent to 2-year, $10 million contract after strong preseason
One of the Chicago Bears' biggest player-development wins in recent memory is being rewarded with a new contract. Backup quarterback Tyson Bagent reportedly signed a two-year, $10 million extension with the team Wednesday, per multiple reports. Bagent's deal can inflate to as much as $16 million based on incentives, per Ian Rapoport of NFL Network. After starring at Shepherd, a Division II college, Bagent, now 25, joined the Bears as an undrafted free-agent ahead of the 2023 NFL season. He worked his way up the depth chart in training camp, eventually winning the No. 2 job behind Justin Fields. Bagent was pushed into action immediately, starting four games for the Bears after Fields was sidelined with an injury. Bagent won his first start with the team, becoming the first Bears quarterback since Craig Krenzel to win his inaugural NFL start with the franchise. The start also made Bagent the first undrafted Division II quarterback to start an NFL game since 1950. Bagent led the Bears to a 2-2 record during his starts, though he saw his production decline after the promising debut. He finished the season completing 65.7 percent of his passes, with three touchdowns against six interceptions. Bagent retained his role as the team's backup in 2024, but barely saw any time on the field after the team selected Caleb Williams with the No. 1 overall pick in the 2024 NFL Draft. Bagent threw just two passes, completing both of them. The hiring of Ben Johnson put Bagent under an even bigger microscope. With a new coaching staff in town, Bagent needed to prove himself as the best backup option behind Williams. Both quarterbacks looked the part during the team's 38-0 preseason blowout win over the Buffalo Bills on Sunday. Following Williams' strong performance, Bagent came on in relief and immediately led the team to three straight scoring drives. He finished the contest 13 for 22, with 196 yards and a touchdown in the win. Bagent's reported extension seems to indicate his work in camp — and in the preseason — won over Johnson's staff. That wasn't a guarantee, as the team signed veteran Case Keenum in the offseason. Keenum missed the team's second preseason game due to an injury, though could stick around in a mentor role to both Bagent and Williams during the regular season. While Bagent's play has made him a fan favorite, he's not expected to see the field this season. Williams is fully entrenched as the team's starter and deserves an opportunity to show growth after an uneven rookie season. In his brief bursts of playing time, though, Bagent has looked like a capable backup quarterback. That's quite the accomplishment for a player every team passed on in the draft.
