The Denver Broncos were unable to get their offense untracked against the San Francisco 49ers in Week 4. The Broncos were held to 14 points and this has been an issue throughout the first quarter of the season. The Broncos are near the bottom of the rankings of the key offensive stats and everybody is looking at 31-year-old first-year play caller Davis Webb.
He appears to have a slew of talented offensive players led by QB Bo Nix, RB J.K. Dobbins along with WRs Jaylen Waddle and Courtland Sutton, but the Broncos have been a pedestrian offensive team in three of their four games. The Nix-Waddle connection was a big hit in Week 2 in the team's 20-13 victory over the Jacksonville Jaguars, but the offense has been unimpressive in the other three games.
The loss to the 49ers was very troubling. The Broncos were held to two field goals until there were slightly more than four minutes left in the fourth quarter when Nix hit Waddle with a 13-yard TD pass. The 49ers dictated the pace of the game on both sides of the ball and this is not acceptable.
The Broncos are supposed to be a team that has Super Bowl aspirations and is good enough to control its own destiny. Sean Payton's team won the AFC West last year and hosted the AFC championship game against the New England Patriots. That game was a dud for Payton, Nix and the rest of the offense and they haven't turned things around in the 2026 season.
Offense is too predictable at this point
The 49ers are one of three undefeated teams in the NFL, and the Broncos should have been prepared for something of a shootout on the road. Instead, the Broncos were polite and predictable visitors at Levi's Stadium.
The first half was unworthy of a playoff team, let alone one that believes it should be going to the Super Bowl at the end of the season. The Broncos had five drives in the first half, and four of them ended with Denver punting the ball back to the Niners.
The second drive of the game saw the Broncos go 55 yards in 13 plays and it resulted in a Will Lutz 52-yard field goal. The majority of those plays were short Nix passes that the Niners were eager to handle. There was almost no run after the catch, and perhaps Webb has to take the blinders off the offense and let this unit go for it.
The combination of Waddle and Sutton should be inducing fear in their opponents. Waddle has the track record of a game-breaker and he is one of the fastest receivers in the NFL. His presence should be taking significant pressure off of Sutton, who has had back-to-back seasons with more than 1,000 receiving yards.
Instead, neither receiver is causing havoc at this point. Waddle has been targeted by Nix 26 times to this point in the season and he has 16 receptions for a mere 185 yards. His 11.6 yards per catch average is not what the Broncos were expecting. It is his lowest mark since his rookie season with the Dolphins in 2021.
Sutton's production is shockingly low at this point. He has caught 9 passes for a paltry 86 yards and he has not gotten into the end zone.
Little or no growth from Nix
Payton received much of the credit for the development of Nix during his first two seasons with the Broncos. He was the sixth of the first-round quarterbacks selected in the 2024 draft, and he quickly grabbed the reins in Denver and took hold of the offense.
He appeared to be an established commodity bordering on stardom last season when he connected on 388 of 612 passes for 3,931 yards with 25 TD passes and 11 interceptions.
Article Continues BelowThe numbers are not close this year. Nix completed 25 of 42 passes against the Niners, but those were dink-and-dunk passes that produced just 214 yards and a 5.1 yards per pass average.
That performance is on track with what he has done in the first quarter of the season. He has thrown for just 819 yards and that's an average of 204.8 yards per game. He has just 5 TD passes and 3 interceptions and his performance this year has been sluggish.
It certainly would help if J.K. Dobbins and the running game was making a decent contribution, but that is not happening either. Dobbins has gained 161 yards this season and his averaging a paltry 3.5 yards per carry. He had 11 carries for 40 yards against the 49ers, and Webb did not look to his running game to turn things around as the game progressed.
The Broncos do not look like a team that is going to threaten many opponents to this point in the season. There needs to be more focus and urgency, and it needs to start in Week 5 against the Chargers.
If the offense doesn't turn around against that winless team, Payton needs to make some serious changes to his game plan.