This was a classic Thursday night game in the NFL, which means it wasn’t pretty.
The Broncos won 10-7 over the Raiders in what is the lowest-scoring game of the season so far. Bo Nix only threw for 150 yards with one touchdown and two interceptions, while Geno Smith only threw for 143 yards.
Here are my takeaways:
1. Denver has won seven in a row, I guess
You want to chalk this up to Denver having one of the league’s best defenses, shutting Las Vegas down for the final three quarters to win its seventh game in a row.
But offensively, it was such an underwhelming game for the Broncos that you found yourself asking how they could possibly be 8-2 this season. They beat the Jets by one point, beat the Giants by two and the Titans by eight. Denver has beaten the defending champion Eagles, but it has few solid all-around wins in 2025.
Next week will go a long way to validating their success when the Broncos host the Chiefs, and a win there would go a long way to making them the team to beat in the AFC West. Kansas City has won nine division titles in a row, which is a huge achievement in itself. Denver finishes the season with a tough four-game stretch – home vs. Packers and Jaguars, a Christmas Day showdown at the Chiefs, then a home finale vs. the Chargers.
2. Why has Ashton Jeanty been so ordinary?
Remember the excitement surrounding running back Jeanty, how prolific he was in college at Boise State? I know NFL defenders are faster than in the Mountain West, yes, but Jeanty had 24 runs of 20-plus yards last season. More than halfway through his rookie NFL season, he has one, in 143 carries.
Jeanty had that one three-touchdown game in the loss to Chicago, but he’s gone quiet again. He had 19 carries on Thursday night, and only one got more than six yards, and 10 at that. Las Vegas has a bad offense with not much else to draw the attention of opposing defenses, but he doesn’t make many people miss at all.
3. Nik Bonitto is vastly underrated
We wrote this week how there isn’t an easy choice right now for Defensive Player of the Year – the best sack guys are mostly on bad, irrelevant teams. But Denver linebacker Bonitto had another dominant game Thursday with three quarterback hits for 1.5 sacks, giving him 9.5 on the season, which is well on course to top his career high of 13.5 sacks last season.
Denver is on pace for a ridiculous number of sacks as a defense. It had 40 in nine games entering Thursday, then had five in the first half alone. The Broncos are on pace for 78, which would break the 16-game record of 72, set by the 1984 Chicago Bears. If they pulled that off, their sack leader would have a solid resume line for league-wide honors, especially if it contributes to a division title for Denver.
4. Nearly unwatchable offensive football
Thursday night games aren’t always great, but huge portions of Broncos-Raiders were just void of any excitement at all. You wish you could say it’s elite defense, but it was just as much uninspired offense. At one point, three of four Denver drives had failed to net positive yards, and four of six Raiders drives at the same time. Las Vegas accumulated a total of minus-3 yards over a span of seven possessions.
There had been only one NFL game in the last 18 years when both teams were held under 200 yards, and neither team made it to 200 until Denver got there with 3:05 left in the game. Las Vegas at least can say they just traded away their best receiver, but Denver doesn’t have much of an excuse against a fairly bad defense.
4 ½. What’s next?
It was hard to envision any breakout success for the Raiders in head coach Pete Carroll’s first season, but they’re 2-7 and have precious little to be excited about. Thursday night was the fourth time this season they’ve been held to single digits in scoring; Carroll’s Seahawks teams had just three such games total in his final six years in Seattle.
Perhaps you can build around Jeanty and tight end Brock Bowers, and finding a quarterback in the draft isn’t a great answer for a head coach who turns 75 in September. If they can get back to relevance while Carroll is still coaching, it’ll be quite an impressive turnaround.
Greg Auman is an NFL Reporter for FOX Sports. He previously spent a decade covering the Buccaneers for the Tampa Bay Times and The Athletic. You can follow him on Twitter at @gregauman.
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