Broncos

The Broncos started their season with an ugly, four-turnover win over the Titans. Denver HC Sean Payton praised QB Bo Nix‘s gutsy effort through the tough moments to lead them to a win. 

“Well we won, that’s the first thing,” Payton said, via Myles Simmons of Pro Football Talk. “I thought he hung in there. He battled. Made some critical plays first in the second half, and so obviously he’ll be disappointed with the turnovers, but it was a gutsy performance. It is pretty usual Week 1, a lot of different looks maybe that you hadn’t seen normally or scouted normally for relative to their coverages.

“Overall, his job is to lead us to score. I thought he played really well in the second half, and we won the game.”

Chiefs

• Chiefs TE Travis Kelce blamed himself for WR Xavier Worthy‘s shoulder injury after making a mistake on his route: “I’m supposed to be running my route at depth for Worthy. So, it’s frustrating for me. I was trying to kind of set up my guy to be able to get into position, and it all just happened pretty quick. I just gotta be better, man. I’m 13 years in the league. There is no excuse for me running into my own guys like that…” (Ian Rapoport)

Raiders

Raiders veteran LB Devin White led the team with 11 tackles in Week 1’s win over the Patriots. White said he was helping keep the defense aligned and feels they were having fun in Sunday’s game. 

“I was just playing hard, trying to get everyone lined up and execute,” White said, via Adam Hill of the Las Vegas Review-Journal. “Those were the only things I could think about. I just knew we were having fun.”

White is hopeful to keep the positive momentum rolling into Week 2. 

“For me, it’s a great start,” White said. “It’s just one game, but we can build off this with momentum and energy. Individually, it doesn’t mean much to me. I just have to get back to the drawing board and be consistent with what I put out today because I can be that person all year. I played at a high level for a long time. Had a couple setbacks, but I don’t dwell on the past. I focus on the future and the controllables and that means going in tomorrow and getting ready for the next one.”

Raiders HC Pete Carroll feels White recaptured some of the quality he showed in earlier years of his career. 

“He was a hammer. He looked good. I was really excited that his presence was so obvious,” Carroll said. “He’s had a couple years where his game hasn’t been at that level that he played at yesterday, and so he’s just getting going and had fun playing. He handled a lot of communication, and he hit the heck out of it. So that was really encouraging, really fired up for him.”

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