It's Super Bowl or bust for the 2026 Denver Broncos. The Broncos have a great team, but they didn't address several issues from last year in the offseason or in the preseason.

Questions remain.

If the Broncos can’t get good answers to these questions as the regular season gets rolling, it could be problematic. But if they can get the right answers, it'll be hard to see anything standing in the way of their ultimate ambitions.

With Week 1 of the regular season about to kick off, here are the five biggest questions for the 2026 Broncos.

Can the Broncos Stay Healthy?

Last year, the Broncos didn’t suffer many serious injuries, but the ones they did got them in trouble. Left guard Ben Powers and running back J.K. Dobbins getting hurt and missing as much time as they did destroyed the Broncos' ground game.

There was a significant drop-off after Powers got hurt early in the season, and when Dobbins went down, there was an even more palpable decline in the Broncos' ground attack.

However, neither Powers nor Dobbins held a candle to the catastrophic impact of Bo Nix’s injury in the playoffs, which directly led to the Broncos missing the Super Bowl. There weren't many major injuries, but the ones the Broncos suffered hurt, and in Nix's case, were impossible to overcome.

Injuries will happen in the 2026 season, but the Broncos need some luck and to avoid long absences from critical players.

Can Denver Force More Takeaways?

Denver nearly set the franchise low in takeaways in the 2025 season, barely beating the previous low only because there was a 17th game. If it were still a 16-game season, we would have seen a new record low.

The Broncos' defense was great in 2025, but they missed plenty of opportunities for takeaways, mostly dropped interceptions. Generating more takeaways would make the Broncos an even better unit. 

The Broncos' defensive coaching staff has emphasized forcing more takeaways. They've focused on the defensive linemen getting their hands up to clog passing lanes for more tipped balls.

The secondary players need to continue to work with the Jugs machine to improve their hands, especially safety Talanoa Hufanga, to generate more takeaways. Meanwhile, the Broncos' pass rushers must focus a bit more bandwidth on targeting the ball for strip-sacks. 

Can the Broncos Run the Ball Consistently?

Even before Powers and Dobbins got hurt, the Broncos' run game wasn’t the most consistent in the NFL. They were definitely better before the injuries, but there's still plenty of room to improve the consistency of the run game.

Two main culprits need to be the focus of that improvement. 

The highest priority is getting better success from the tight ends when it comes to blocking. They were such an issue last year that they made life unnecessarily difficult for the Broncos' running backs, though the runners (outside of Dobbins) had their issues as well.

Denver also needs to see vast improvements from RJ Harvey as a runner, and in the preseason, those improvements weren’t shown. He looks improved as a receiver and as a pass protector, but his vision still looked like it could be an issue. 

Can the Offense Start Hot and Sustain It?

When people talk about a hot start, they can mean one of two things. A hot start to the season or to a game, but in this case, I mean both.

The Broncos have typically started slowly in the season under head coach Sean Payton, then turned things up and got better as games went on. The Broncos were the comeback kings in 2025 because of their slow starts and how they were able to get everything clicking in the second half.

Denver needs to be a little better in both this year. 

The Broncos' offense started slow and really turned it around after the bye week, even though they still managed to win games before that point. The same was true in the games, which made it more difficult for the Broncos' defense to keep the game from getting out of hand until the offense got things together.

If the offense can start the season and games hot and sustain it throughout the season, the Broncos could end up as one of the best offenses in the NFL. 

Can Denver Fire on All Cylinders at the Same Time?

After analyzing the offense and the slow starts, we need to point out how the Broncos' defense was practically lights-out during that time. Before the bye week, Denver's defense was outstanding, and while it was still good after the bye, there was a clear drop-off in performance, backed by analytics and statistics. 

If the Broncos' offense can start hot and sustain it, the question becomes whether the defense can also play at a high level, along with special teams, which were awful to start last season. If the Broncos can get every unit firing on all cylinders at the same time, they will be a complete team and very, very difficult to beat.

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