Broncos acknowledge ongoing offensive struggles after grinding out an ugly win over the Raiders.

The Denver Broncos pulled off a win on Sunday, but honestly, not many fans are throwing a party about it. After slogging through an ugly 16–10 victory over the Las Vegas Raiders, even the team isn’t pretending everything’s fine. The offense is still way off the mark.

If you watched that game, you probably needed more patience than pride. The defense showed up, forced big turnovers, and kept the Raiders off the board for most of the second half. But the offense? It stumbled around, racking up penalties, missing assignments, and never finding any sort of groove — a theme that’s starting to wear thin.

Sean Payton, who built his name on sharp offense, didn’t bother with any excuses afterward.

“We have to be better — plain and simple,” he said. “Too many stalled drives. Too many mistakes. You can’t expect to win all the time when you’re leaving points out there.”

The Offense Still Looks Lost

All that offseason hype about Russell Wilson’s second year with Payton? So far, not much to show for it. The offense still doesn’t know what it wants to be.

Wilson finished with just 182 yards, going 16-for-28 with a touchdown and a pick. The running game — supposed to be a reliable backbone with Javonte Williams and Samaje Perine — managed only 95 yards total.

Third downs keep haunting them. They went 3-for-12 and barely crossed midfield on most drives.

“It’s not about effort,” Wilson said after the game. “We’re giving everything we have. But execution has to be sharper. Timing, protection — all of it — we have to clean that up.”

Fans are getting restless, not because the Broncos are losing, but because they don’t seem to know who they are on offense. Are they a ground-and-pound team? Are they built around play-action? Right now, it feels like they’re stuck somewhere in the middle, and not in a good way.

Defense to the Rescue, Again

If the defense hadn’t played out of its mind, Sunday probably ends differently. Patrick Surtain II, Baron Browning, and Alex Singleton led a unit that suffocated the Raiders, holding them under 250 yards and forcing a couple of turnovers.

Vance Joseph deserves some props for turning this group around after a rough start to the year. The front seven attacked every snap, and the secondary took advantage of a rookie quarterback making mistakes.

“The defense was lights-out,” Payton said. “They gave us chances to finish it — we just didn’t take them.”

But even the best defenses can only do so much. The Broncos can’t bank on holding every opponent under 20 points, especially with tougher games coming up against the Chiefs, Chargers, and Lions.

Time to Get Serious

Inside the locker room, nobody’s pretending this win was pretty.

“We’re happy to get the W,” Courtland Sutton said after leading the team with 68 receiving yards. “But we know this isn’t the level we need to play at. There’s too much talent here to keep putting up 16 points.”

The offensive line is still a problem. Wilson took three sacks and got pressured almost half the time he dropped back. That makes it tough to attack deep or get into any kind of rhythm.

Payton said the coaches will spend this week digging into the playbook and looking at personnel to figure out what’s actually working — and then stick with it.

What’s Next?

The Broncos sit at 5–4. They’re technically in the playoff picture, but the offense is a glaring problem. If they want to keep up in the AFC, they need to find some confidence and figure out who they are before their next divisional game.

The bright side? The defense is back to being a force. The downside? The offense is still dragging them down.

For a franchise that prides itself on toughness and high standards, “good enough” won’t cut it for long. The Broncos have the talent and the coaches. Now it’s about turning all that potential into actual results.

Until then, wins like Sunday’s just remind everyone of the same thing: the defense can only carry this team so far.

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