The San Francisco Giants have played better in their last two games and still hold a glimmer of hope in the National League Wild Card. Still, it’s unlikely that the Giants will make the playoffs, barring anything drastic happening over the next three weeks.

As the season comes to a close, the front office needs to assess the campaign. While there’s been some good, much of the year has been a disappointment.

The front office can blame their injuries, lack of luck, or anything else, but the fact of the matter is that San Francisco wasn’t good enough.

That seemed obvious a few months ago. However, they were still in the mix to make the postseason via the Wild Card, so they didn’t sell at the deadline.

Does the Giants front office regret that a month and a half later? Perhaps so.

With Blake Snell, the chances of returning a top-100 prospect, or even two, seemed likely at the time. Prices at the deadline were outrageous, and if he had been dealt, there wouldn’t have been much debate that he would’ve been the best pitcher moved.

A missed opportunity, especially if he leaves in free agency this winter, which many around the industry expect.

An issue, even a big one, that Kerry Miller of Bleacher Report believes San Francisco “wishes” they could go back and fix.

“There were rumors ahead of the deadline that the G-Men might be willing to move Snell and his massive player option for 2025, but it didn’t happen. Since the beginning of July, he has made 11 starts with a 1.42 ERA, including a no-hitter against the Reds. Some lot of good it’s done the Giants, though, who have played .500 baseball since the beginning of July and are now as good as dead in the wild-card race.”

Hindsight is 20/20, and obviously, if the Giants knew they’d struggle after the deadline, they wouldn’t have decided to keep him.

At the time, it seemed to be the right thing to do. The rotation was getting healthy, they were playing better, and they had the veteran talent to do the job. Instead, they fell on their faces.

With the offseason approaching, a lot needs to be done. After not moving Snell, hopefully, one of those things is bringing him back.

It remains to be seen, but his free agency will be one of the more intriguing situations around baseball this winter.

For the second time in three seasons, the Seattle Seahawks handed the Denver Broncos their first loss to start the regular season, emerging victorious on Sunday, 26-20. The first loss of the Bo Nix era continues a streak of Seahawks dominance, as the Broncos haven’t earned a victory in Seattle since 2002.

Denver’s defense dominated the first half of action, flustering quarterback Geno Smith and the Seahawks offense with dynamic pass rushes and defensive line penetration that earned the Broncos four points on two safeties. But what looked to be a long day for the raucous crowd of Seahawks faithful quickly turned due to a Broncos anemic offense that scored just one touchdown late in the fourth quarter. 

I picked the Broncos to upset the Seahawks (27-24) in a close game against a hostile fan base on the road. But the most frustrating aspect of this loss isn’t the fact that I was wrong in my prediction or that the Broncos started the year with another loss.

Instead, it’s that Broncos Country is forced to lament what should’ve been a very winnable game for Sean Payton’s squad. 

With that said, let’s rip off the band-aid and get to three sad but true takeaways from the Broncos’ first loss. 

The first chapter in the Nix-Payton novel begins with an embarrassing road loss. Denver’s dynamic duo was quickly humbled by Seahawks first-year head coach Mike Macdonald’s smothering defense, which put the Broncos on notice, illustrating the difference between preseason and regular season NFL action. 

As a rookie team captain, Nix looked largely out of place for most of the game as he finished the contest 26-of-42 for 138 yards and two interceptions, with 35 yards on the ground and a rushing touchdown. He faced a barrage of pressure, taking two sacks, enduring multiple hits, and looking bothered and frustrated.

The Broncos offense continually stalled despite prime field position and was outmatched in virtually every statistical category, including total net yards, first downs, third-down efficiency, and penalties. 

Payton did his rookie QB1 no favors in this game. The veteran play-caller abandoned his ineffective rushing attack early with his three-headed stable of Javonte Williams, Jaleel McLaughlin, and Audric Estime. Denver finished the game with 99 yards rushing on 25 attempts, but those stats were padded by Nix’s five rushes and a drive that resulted in his four-yard scoring scramble in the fourth quarter.

The most alarming aspect of Denver’s disappointing offense was that it felt eerily similar to the 2023 season, where Payton would panic and strictly throw the football. By waving the white flag on the most critical principle of Payton’s offense, which is running the football, opposing defenders will continue to tee off on the Broncos’ rookie QB, putting Nix in the unsettling position of playing hero ball. 

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Linebacker Alex Singleton picked off Geno Smith on Seattle’s opening drive. Usually, when a road team’s defense starts the game with a series of QB pressures that force an interception, it’s a sign of good things to come. That should be doubly true when the Broncos defense outscores its own offense with a pair of safeties in the first half against a Seahawks offense that was reeling under Smith. 

Instead, Vance Joseph’s defense left fans with more questions than answers. The box score will show two sacks logged on Smith, both by outside linebacker Jonathon Cooper, who played extremely well off the edge. The Broncos interior D-line — John Franklin-Myers, Zach Allen, and Malcolm Roach — lived in Seattle’s backfield during the first two quarters, posting a productive stat line. 

But as fast as Denver’s pass rushers pummeled Seattle in the first half, they crumbled after halftime, and succumbed to one of Joseph’s biggest flaws: a porous and pathetic run defense. Joseph’s defense allowed Seahawks running back Kenneth Walker III to average 5.2 yards per carry at will as their rushing attack gashed Denver’s defense to the tune of 33 attempts for 146 yards and two touchdowns. 

Additionally, Smith found a rhythm by dissecting Denver’s secondary with 171 passing yards, including a touchdown to running back Zach Charbonnet that allowed Seattle to dismantle and take over the game coming out of Denver’s 13-9 lead at halftime. 

Team apologists may argue that Joseph’s defense held its own by limiting the Seahawks’ formidable wideouts DK Metcalf and Tyler Locket to nine combined catches for 106 yards. However, statistics don’t count in a game of wins and losses where ‘VJ’ has again proven that he struggles to make in-game adjustments after finding success early.

When Payton was asked about the Broncos’ first half of offense coming out of halftime, he explained from the sideline that Nix couldn’t do it all by himself and that he needed some help. That help would never come, as the rookie QB was forced to singlehandedly lead a seven-play, 54-yard drive that resulted in his first NFL touchdown on the ground.

Seventh-round rookie wideout Devaughn Vele would finish as Nix’s leading receiver in receptions, with eight catches for 39 yards(!), while Josh Reynolds led the team in 45 yards and a long of 25 yards. Nix’s fellow team captain Courtland Sutton was limited to just four catches for 38 yards, while the Broncos’ tight ends were largely ineffective through the air, with Greg Dulcich only logging two catches for a measly 12 yards.

When Denver’s receivers would catch a pass from Nix, they would immediately be smothered by Seahawks defenders, resulting in negative yards or hardly any yards after contact, although the rookie signal-caller did miss several key throws in this game.

Instead of capitalizing on Williams and Estime’s productive rushing early in the first few possessions, the diminutive McLaughlin was asked to be the bell cow and was continually bullied at the line of scrimmage. Payton’s offensive mismanagement of his playmaking resources spelled disaster for Nix for most of the game. 

None of this even mentions that Denver’s offense will likely be ice skating uphill following the injury of starting left tackle Garett Bolles, who exited the game with a lower leg injury that is presumed to be an ankle. 

If the Broncos offense hopes to improve in moving the chains and scoring points this season, Payton will need to remove his playmakers from the milk cartons and get to work quickly. 

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Week 1 is in the books, with the Denver Broncos falling short in a 26-20 loss to the Seattle Seahawks. The Broncos got great field position several times but the offense didn’t capitalize, while the defense kept them in the game in the first half but had issues in the second.

Many fans were no doubt hoping the Broncos could prove critics wrong from the start, but rookie quarterback Bo Nix showed he has a long way to go with his play and establishing a rapport with his receivers. Also, the Broncos may have lost a key offensive player for at least a few games, with left tackle Garett Bolles exiting the game early with a lower-leg injury.

The Broncos defense did some good things early on but could not keep the pace up in the second half. Denver’s special teams did its job well throughout.

But Week 1 is not the indicator of how things will go for a team the entire season. It’s why football analyst Aaron Schatz calls Week 1 the ‘National Jump to Conclusions Week.’ The single-game sample isn’t enough to reliably judge a team.

We saw this to some degree last season when the Broncos stumbled out of the gates in Week 1 in a close loss to the Las Vegas Raiders. Denver then got humiliated by the Miami Dolphins in a historic Week 3 loss. But fortunes turned for the Broncos later on, and they finished 8-9 despite many flaws on the team.

There are going to be growing pains with this team, but that doesn’t mean everything that happened in Seattle will predict what the season will be like. There may be one or two things that are cause for concern, but the key is to see how the Broncos improve throughout the season and continue to do well in the areas in which they did execute.

Here are four things to consider about the Broncos’ Week 1 loss and whether fans should be so quick to jump to conclusions.

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There’s no way to sugarcoat it: Nix had a bad regular-season debut. He stared down receivers, his mechanics were a mess, and he tried to force plays.

It’s easy to think after one game that all the pundits who predicted Nix would be a bust are correct. It’s easy to believe that a rookie QB needs to look like CJ Stroud right off the bat to have a future in this league.

However, that’s not always the case. Nix struggled but he did make a few good throws. He has shown he can escape the pocket and either extend the play or gain yards on the ground.

What Nix needs to learn is how to go through his reads at a quicker pace. That will only come with time on task. The question is whether he will figure that out. If he does, he can become a good starting QB, but if not, he won’t have a future with the Broncos.

With that said, it’s just one game. What matters is how Nix grows and learns from this game.

Verdict: Don’t jump to conclusions yet.

The Broncos defense got off to a hot start, pressuring Geno Smith early and forcing an early interception after D.J. Jones hit him as he threw. The Broncos also notched two safeties, one after a pressure led to a holding call in the end zone and another after defensive end Zach Allen tackled Seahawks running back Kenneth Walker III in the end zone.

However, the Broncos offense wasn’t able to convert the interception into a touchdown. Neither did the offense score six after a muffed Seahawks punt that the Broncos recovered. That made it a closer game at halftime.

And in the second half, the Seahawks made adjustments on offense and got the ball moving more often. The Seahawks capitalized on Broncos’ defensive mistakes and got two big plays that resulted in touchdowns.

It’s easy to blame the defense here, but while the Broncos had their issues, we knew going in that it’s not a defense that can carry the team. The Broncos defense has the potential to be good, but it won’t be an elite unit.

The Broncos defense will face some better offenses later in the season but that doesn’t mean all is lost. The talent is there for a defense that can keep the Broncos in games. Getting the offense to capitalize when the defense gift-wraps an opportunity will help.

Verdict: Don’t jump to conclusions yet.

For years, it seemed like the Broncos couldn’t get things together on special teams. But the Week 1 game saw plenty of things to like about the unit.

The Broncos were able to recover a muffed punt, and they downed a punt just inches from the goal line. The Seahawks didn’t get a big return on most plays.

Marvin Mims Jr. didn’t get much done in the return game, but he was good in making decisions about when to return the kickoff under the new rules. Perhaps the Pro Bowler can break off a longer return at some point.

While special teams may not be the unit that often decides a game, the battle of field position is important and the third phase plays a big factor. I’m optimistic that we’ll continue to get quality special teams play this season, especially based on the vast improvements the Broncos achieved in this area last year.

Verdict: There is reason for optimism.

The Broncos entered the Week 1 with nobody on the injury report. But during the game, they lost Bolles to an ankle injury.

The Broncos were fortunate last year to not have too many injuries on the offensive line and keep continuity throughout the season. Unfortunately, it took just one game before Denver seems to have lost a key player.

Matt Peart stepped in to relieve Bolles and was okay but he’s not as good as the starter. Losing a key starter up front is a definite cause for concern, especially if Bolles misses a lot of time.

For now, let’s hope that Bolles’ injury isn’t too serious. He has played through minor injuries before, but if this one is more significant and costs him a lot of games, he’ll be difficult to replace.

Verdict: There is cause for concern.

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