Albert Breer and the MMQB staff addressed the Week 2 address by making straight-up picks for 16 games, and more than half of the panel expected the Jacksonville Jaguars to upset the Denver Broncos. Denver was favored, but the Broncos were also on short rest after an opening loss to the Chiefs.
The panel included eight named voters: Breer, Eva Geitheim, Mitch Goldich, Mike Kadlick, Gilberto Manzano, Conor Orr, John Pluym, and Matt Verderame. Breer served as a senior writer on the panel, which made its selections without a spread and had to weigh the Broncos against the Jaguars on a home field where the favorite still drew doubt.
MMQB Week 2 panel
Those straight-up picks covered 16 games in Week 2, so the Jaguars-Broncos call sat inside a larger slate rather than as a stand-alone prediction. Even so, the matchup stood out because more than half of the panel landed on the upset side while Denver entered as the favored team.
That split is the practical takeaway for readers tracking the game: the panel did not treat the Broncos as a safe pick. A favored team on short rest after a 0–2 opening stretch faced a group of voters willing to back Jacksonville anyway. If you are looking for the clearest read from the picks, it is that the Broncos drew respect, but not confidence.
Denver and Jacksonville
The Broncos-Jaguars matchup was one of the Week 2 games discussed, and the upset lean gives a quick view of how the panel read the early-season slate. Week 1 had already produced four upsets, so the first month of the NFL season was still open to a result that did not match the favorite.
For readers following the game, the immediate question is not whether the matchup mattered — it did — but which side of the panel landed where. The article identifies the result of the room more clearly than the individual votes, leaving the broader point intact: on this Week 2 board, the Broncos were favored, yet Jacksonville drew the larger share of upset support.
