As everyone knows the National Football League dominates American sports and has purposely made it so there is always something to get excited about. Thursday the NFL released all 32 teams’ regular season schedules.
The defending champion Broncos understandably have a tough road ahead as weeks ago their opponents and their cumulative .504 winning percentage in 2015, ranking as the 14th-toughest schedule in 2016, were announced. Thursday’s full schedule release highlighted some immediate pros and cons in the upcoming season. General manager John Elway summarized his immediate thoughts when asked about it Thursday.
“I think it’s a great schedule for our fans. If you look at the home schedule, there are a lot of great football teams coming in,” Elway said. “The bye week falls well for us—late in the year. We have kind of a semi-bye when we have San Diego on Thursday night (Week 6). We have Houston on the following Monday night, so we have a break there. I think it’s a good schedule.”
The Broncos come out of the gate playing the NFL’s top 2015 regular season team and NFC Champion Carolina Panthers in week one on September 8. The Broncos may have won Super Bowl 50 but the Panthers went through far less roster turnover this offseason and will be looking for revenge when they come back to Denver.
“It’s a big challenge for our team. It gets our attention really quick,” Kubiak said of the opening week rematch. “We’re opening up with a great football team that won 17 games and that we played last. There is a lot of familiarity there with them. It’s a tough schedule.”
Another negative is the Broncos first three opponents will all likely be favored to win their divisions or at least contend for a wild card slot. The Indianapolis Colts come to town but after some added rest for Denver following their Thursday night opener, in week two before the Broncos head to Cincinnati to face the Bengals.
“We have to get off to a quick start and we have to be ready to go,” Elway said Thursday of the start of the season. Kubiak echoed those sentiments when he was asked what the biggest benefit of the schedule release is each year. “The biggest thing you do as coaches is see who you’re playing early because there is a bunch of prep work that you do before you get to the end of the summer and the end of OTAs.”
The game that will garner the most attention comes on Monday Night, October 24 when Brock Osweiler returns with his new team, the Houston Texans but it comes with an added advantage for Denver. As Elway mentioned they will be coming off of a 11-day break following their Thursday night game in San Diego and the Texans will be following up a Sunday night games versus the Colts.
“It will be nice to have Brock come back here. They are a good football team. They are going to be a team that’s going to compete for the AFC,” Elway said.
Elway also noted that, despite the amount of talented teams on the schedule, most of them are coming to Denver to play at the favorable home confines osaying, “With Indy coming in, New England coming in, Carolina coming in and Houston coming in—we have a lot of top-notch teams coming in.”
Peyton Manning and the Broncos recent success certainly propelled them to a litany of primetime games in the past and this year, due to this Super Bowl Championship, they will once again be featured five times and three of those against divisional opponents.
“One of the unique things about it is we play every divisional team on the road at night. That’s interesting. It’s nice to get some exposure. I think our guys like that. Coming off the World Championship, it’s nice to have,” Elway said.
The Broncos will have three sets of back-to-back away games but they are spaced nicely coming in fair evenly separated parts of the season. Also, arguably the biggest factor in the schedule is the bye week, which the Broncos will reach in week 11 following road games at Oakland and at New Orleans. The late bye week could be seen as a negative if it were not for the lengthy break before the Texans matchup.
The unavoidable matchups, the divisional games will get just due attention due to their primetime lineups nationally but also due to the Kansas Chiefs and Oakland Raiders offseason moves, something that is not lost on Kubiak.
“I think our division is really good. The teams throughout our division have made a lot of moves with free agency and the various things going on. That’s a big challenge for us. In this league you try not to look too far past anything,” he said.
Two late dates with familiar foes will also likely have significant playoff implications. In week 15 the New England Patriots will come to town and then on Christmas the world will watch as the Broncos head to Arrowhead Stadium for a date with the Chiefs.
The Broncos tough opponents have already been highlighted for weeks but all things considering, their schedule is nicely spaced out with contenders and teams that remain upstarts or rebuilds such as the Tampa Bay Buccaneers in week four, the New Orleans Saints in week 10 and Tennessee Titans in week 14. Elway understands more than most the difficulty to repeat but is glad they have the blueprint in front of them.
“Any time you win your division; you’re going to get the top dogs in the other divisions in the AFC. That’s why we have New England and Cincinnati. So it’s automatically going to be tough,” he said. “People will be ready to play us, too. When you come off a world championship, you’re going to get everybody’s best shot.”
BRONCOS 2016 SEASON SCHEDULE
1- Sept. 8, Carolina Panthers (Thu), 6:30
2- Sept. 18, Indianapolis Colts, 2:25
3- Sept. 25, at Cincinnati Bengals, 11:00 AM
4- Oct. 2, at Tampa Bay Buccaneers, 2:05
5- Oct. 9, Atlanta Falcons, 2:05
6- Oct. 13, at San Diego Chargers (Thu), 6:25
7- Oct. 24, Houston Texans (Mon), 6:30
8- Oct. 30, San Diego Chargers, 2:05
9- Nov. 6, at Oakland Raiders*, 6:30
10- Nov. 13, at New Orleans Saints, 11:00 AM
11- BYE WEEK
12- Nov. 27, Kansas City Chiefs, 2:25
13- Dec. 4, at Jacksonville Jaguars, 11:00 AM
14- Dec. 11, at Tennessee Titans, 11:00 AM
15- Dec. 18, New England Patriots, 2:25
16- Dec. 25, at Kansas City Chiefs, 6:30
17- Jan. 1, Oakland Raiders, 2:25
