The Denver Broncos started the season 0-2 for the second year in a row, losing 13-6 to the Pittsburgh Steelers on Sunday. Bo Nix’s debut in front of a home crowd was yet another flop.

What did we learn from another disappointing showing from the Broncos offense? Here are my top three takeaways from Week 2.

Simply put, the Broncos are playing by extremely narrow margins in their quest to win a football game and get the 2024 season underway. Fundamentally, the Broncos can’t score enough points, but we’ve seen that before.

Producing just six points tells a depressing story in itself, and it’s an ongoing story that the Broncos have been unable to change thus far. One of the biggest problems is the extent to which the Broncos’ extremely highly paid offensive line has underperformed.

Once again, the Broncos’ running game failed to make an impact. If Nix is ​​going to have a legitimate chance to compete, especially against a good Steelers defense, he’ll need a complementary rushing attack.

Once again, penalties continue to hurt the Broncos’ offensive tackles. Nix is ​​handicapped by what’s happening in front of him now, and if the Broncos continue to run the ball ineffectively, the losses will pile up at an alarming rate.

That’s not to say Nix didn’t look like a rookie. He did, and on more than one occasion. His feel for the long ball just isn’t what it should be, and opposing defenses are well aware of that. Opposing defensive coordinators also employ the basic strategy of gathering to the receiver in Denver’s all-too-predictable short passing game, and it works.

It will be a tough task to keep Nix’s confidence up when his receivers continue to look so passive. It wasn’t until late in Sunday’s game that the Broncos added some valuable yards after the catch. Sooner or later, the Broncos’ receiving corps is going to have to play with their hair on fire from the first possession.

How Sean Payton tackles the growing list of issues will test his coaching prowess to the limit, and that could mean looking at simplifying some of the multiple personal sets he chooses to employ. The desire to play complementary football gets lost in translation, but Sunday showed that the Broncos need to get to grips with the basics before adding any additional wrinkles of complexity to the attacking game.

Nix’s third-quarter interception was very rookie-like, and Broncos left tackle Garett Bolles saw his overall play regress to the bad old days. Finding what works with Nix will take a fair amount of trial and error, but Payton hasn’t presented a workable plan yet.

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Nix would inevitably have his ups and downs as a rookie, but Payton’s conservative approach to starting games allows other teams to step up and take notice — to maximum effect.

Through the Broncos’ first two losses, the short passing game has failed to find a coherent rhythm. Only in the pursuit of the game has the passing game opened up a bit, but on Sunday, execution problems arose in the form of costly dropped passes. Tight end Greg Dulcich dropped a few of his own at great cost.

Payton can be forgiven for trying not to be reckless with his rookie quarterback’s continued development, but by constantly playing catch-up, he’s taking Nix out of the game plan he and his coaches have worked so hard to create.

Stretching the field will never happen when the Broncos’ No. 1 wide receiver, Courtland Sutton, is allowed just four targets in a game, as he did on Sunday. Throughout the week, Payton pleaded with the Broncos to “help our guy” and seize the opportunity around Nix, but the head coach’s pleas yielded sporadic dividends as the team fell to 0-2.

We all know about his reputation and his huge contract, but PS2 really struggled against the Steelers. The -52 yards on Surtain’s trio of penalties hit the Broncos like a slap in the face, and to make matters worse, he failed to get his side of the field off the field.

Things could have been worse when Steelers star wideout George Pickens made a shameful catch deep in the field off Surtain, but it was thankfully negated by a penalty on Pittsburgh. Whether Surtain gets too caught up in his one-on-one assignments remains to be seen, but his busy hands are certainly drawing flags from the officials.

Things also went from the sublime to the ridiculous when Surtain came out with the punt coverage unit and was flagged for a holding foul, but that was the coaching staff’s fault. In the fourth quarter, Surtain finally started to get a better level on Pickens as the Broncos stiffened defensively, giving Nix and the offense more chances to get back into the game.

Surtain needs to set a much better tone, especially as the new team captain. For a high-profile player who just received a four-year, $96 million extension with $77.5 million guaranteed, the Broncos can’t afford to go two weeks without Surtain performing to a similar standard.

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