Jacksonville's Nine-Game Win Streak Exposes Denver's Week 1 Catastrophe

Jacksonville has not lost a regular-season game in nearly 10 months. Since November 9, 2025, the Jaguars have strung together nine consecutive wins—a span in which they averaged 33.7 points per game while holding opponents to 14.0, the league's highest point-differential rate over any nine-game window since 2020-21. Trevor Lawrence piloted that offense with surgical precision, including a four-touchdown performance against Denver in Week 16 last season. On Sunday at Empower Field, the Broncos will face a team operating at a fundamentally different level than the one they played a year ago.

Denver's Week 1 collapse against Kansas City provides the inverse picture. The Broncos surrendered 220 rushing yards while committing a staggering 248 missed-tackle yards—the worst single-game mark in Next Gen Stats history. Their 29.8% missed-tackle rate ranked third-worst among all teams since 2018. Defensive coordinator Vance Joseph's unit was neither prepared nor present on Monday night, and those structural breakdowns—the inability to locate gaps, diagnose blocks in space, and wrap up at contact—do not disappear overnight. Denver's vaunted pass rush, which Sean Payton built as a centerpiece, cannot impose its will if the front seven and secondary are already compromised by missed assignments.

Offensive coordinator Davis Webb's debut called for Jacksonville to exploit precisely these vulnerabilities. In Webb's first game managing play-calling for Denver, the Broncos generated only 176 total yards—the lowest output under Payton—and scored 10 points. Jaylen Waddle, the offseason acquisition meant to unlock the passing game, caught one pass for two yards. The running game vanished. Webb has two weeks of tape to study, one of which was a disaster, and the Jaguars' defense ranks among the league's finest at forcing negative plays. Jacksonville's last nine opponents averaged just 14.0 points; Denver will be the second test for an offense that has proven it can score with any team in the AFC.

The prop markets have not fully repriced the gap between these teams. Jacksonville opens as a field goal underdog despite entering with nine straight regular-season wins and having torched Denver's secondary last season. Lawrence's efficiency over this nine-game stretch—he is on pace to become only the fourth quarterback with a win and multiple touchdown passes in 10 consecutive games—suggests he will command Denver's secondary even if the Broncos' tackling improves marginally from Week 1's historic lows. Lawrence's passing yards against a decimated secondary and a secondary that must now account for all 11 defenders not missing assignments projects toward the 270-yard threshold; expect the over on his yardage line to carry value if the book has not yet adjusted for the gap in execution between these two teams.

Denver's Week 1 performance was so catastrophic that Sunday's line move will hinge on whether the Broncos can avoid the same foundational errors. If they cannot, Jacksonville's 10th straight regular-season win comes with minimal resistance. If they can, it will still be difficult: a team with a nine-game win streak and an offense engineered by a play-caller who has spent two weeks diagnosing how to exploit this specific defense.