Broncos vs. Jaguars Week 2: Jaylen Waddle and Rookie Jonah Coleman Fuel a 17-Point Comeback in Denver

For most of three quarters, Denver's home opener looked like a sequel nobody ordered. The Broncos stumbled at the goal line, threw a pick in the end zone and trailed Jacksonville 13-3 early in the third quarter, with the Jaguars and their nine-game regular-season winning streak looking perfectly comfortable at altitude. Then the two newest faces in the Denver offense took over, and the Broncos ripped off the final 17 points.

Final: Broncos 20, Jaguars 13. Jaylen Waddle caught eight passes for 138 yards a week after a one-catch, 2-yard Denver debut, and rookie Jonah Coleman scored the go-ahead 3-yard touchdown with 7:21 left before grinding out the clock himself. Both teams are 1-1, and only one of them left Mile High feeling great about it.

A Slow Burn, Then a 17-0 Avalanche

Nothing came easy early. Denver punted on its first three possessions, and Jacksonville finally broke through when Bhayshul Tuten plunged in from a yard out early in the second quarter. The Broncos had a golden answer when Waddle hauled in a 49-yarder that set them up at the 1, and then they somehow walked away with only a 20-yard Wil Lutz field goal. Next trip, Bo Nix drove them 76 yards and threw an interception in the end zone to Jourdan Lewis. The Jaguars used that gift to set up a 44-yard Cam Little field goal as the half expired. 10-3.

The second half opened with an 11-play Jacksonville drive that stalled at the Denver 5, and Little's 23-yarder made it 13-3. That was the high-water mark for Duval's finest. Lutz answered from 45, and then Riley Moss jumped a Trevor Lawrence throw late in the third. Denver turned it into a 10-play drive capped by a 7-yard Nix strike to tight end Nate Adkins early in the fourth. 13-13.

Little then pushed a 54-yard try wide left, Denver went 56 yards in five plays, and Coleman punched in from the 3. The Broncos forced a punt, took over with 4:41 left and never gave the ball back.

Waddle Shows Up, Coleman Grows Up

Waddle's line is the headline: eight catches on 10 targets, 138 yards and a long of 49 in what was basically his real Broncos debut. Denver gave up a first-round pick to get him from Miami ahead of last April's draft, and after a Week 1 in which he looked like a guy still learning where the bathrooms are, this was the version the front office paid for. Nix said Waddle "showed his swagger all day." Sean Payton went shorter and sweeter. "I'm glad he's ours," he said.

Coleman's story is even better. The fourth-round pick out of Washington played three snaps and got zero carries in the opener. On Sunday, with J.K. Dobbins hurt during the game, he led the Broncos with 39 yards on 10 carries, scored his first NFL touchdown and then closed the game like a 10-year vet. Nix credited his "great football IQ," and Payton put it simply: "He came up big when we needed it."

Nix himself was sharp when it counted: 22 of 31 for 288 yards, 9.3 yards per attempt, a touchdown, that one ugly interception and zero sacks taken. Per the AP, the win pushed him to 24-11 as a starter, the same mark John Elway had through 35 games. Broncos Country will enjoy that comparison a little too much.

On the other side, Parker Washington was Lawrence's lifeline with seven catches for 98 yards, and Tuten ran hard for 65 yards on 13 carries. Lawrence finished 17 of 29 for 189 yards with no touchdowns, an interception and two sacks.

The Slide That Ended It

The tying score gets the replay, but the most Payton-coded moment came on the final drive. Jacksonville burned all its timeouts trying to get the ball back. Coleman carried six times for 31 yards on the possession, and on a 12-yard run near the two-minute warning he slid down inbounds at the 18 instead of chasing a highlight. Clock keeps running, Nix finishes it, everyone goes home. That is the kind of rookie decision that earns you more snaps immediately.

And if you want the hidden turning point, rewind to Moss. In the first quarter, his illegal contact flag erased a Nik Bonitto strip-sack that Alex Singleton had recovered deep in Jaguars territory. Late in the third he got his redemption arc with the interception that sparked the tying drive. "It was a good day for the team to bounce back," Moss said. Character development, in one afternoon.

The Numbers Behind the Comeback

• 17-0: Denver's scoring run after falling behind 13-3.
• 392 to 268: Total yards, Broncos over Jaguars. Denver averaged 6.6 yards per play to Jacksonville's 4.9.
• 0: Sacks allowed by Denver. Malcolm Roach got one of the two on Lawrence.
• 2-for-5: Denver's red zone touchdown rate. The comeback was necessary partly because of that number.
• 9: The Jaguars' regular-season winning streak that died here, a run that included a 34-20 win in Denver last December.

What It Means in the AFC Arms Race

Denver needed this one. The Broncos opened with a 31-10 thumping at Kansas City, a game in which the defense whiffed on 28 tackles, per the AP. This team won 11 one-score games and pulled off a dozen comebacks last season, so a grinding, late-surge win is basically its native language. The difference Sunday was that the new pieces did the talking. If Waddle is a 138-yard guy and Coleman is a trusted closer, the offense has a ceiling it did not show in Week 1. The Rams come to town next on Sunday night, which is a real test.

For Jacksonville, the 34-10 opening rout of Cleveland felt like a continuation of last season's run. This one felt like a warning. Liam Coen liked the start but not the finish. "You needed a stop, you needed a catch, you needed a play, we just didn't do it," he said. Lawrence was blunt too. "Definitely disappointing," he said. "I felt like we played the opposite way in the second half than we did in the first half." New England visits Jacksonville next.

Tebow Watched a Different Kind of Magic

Fittingly, the Broncos brought back Tim Tebow, a Jacksonville native, to plant the flag before the game, his first time back at Empower Field since that famous overtime touchdown pass against Pittsburgh in January 2012. That overtime throw was pure lightning. This win was less mystical and more methodical: a trade acquisition stacking catches, a rookie sliding down at the 18 and a defense that remembered how to tackle. Less magic, same result.

Stats from the official box score via ESPN. Postgame quotes and historical notes as reported by the Associated Press.