Ranking the Five Best Players Denver Will Face in 2026
The Denver Broncos enter the 2026 season with legitimate Super Bowl aspirations and one of the NFL’s most talented rosters. Reaching those goals, however, will require navigating a schedule loaded with elite talent, including league MVPs, award-winning playmakers, and future Hall of Famers. Few teams will face a more impressive collection of star power than the one awaiting Denver this fall.
The five players featured on this list include the reigning NFL MVP, the reigning Offensive Player of the Year, the reigning Defensive Player of the Year, and two quarterbacks who have spent years in the MVP conversation. Ranking players across different positions is never easy, but based on recent production, accolades, and overall impact, these are the five best players the Broncos are scheduled to face during the 2026 season:
5. Jaxon Smith-Njigba, WR, Seattle Seahawks
Few players in football enjoyed a breakout season quite like Jaxon Smith-Njigba in 2025. Smith-Njigba led the NFL with 1,793 receiving yards, averaged 15.1 yards per reception, and added 10 touchdown catches while emerging as the focal point of the Seattle Seahawks’ championship offense.
Those numbers helped Smith-Njigba earn Offensive Player of the Year honors and First-Team All-Pro recognition. Week after week, he demonstrated an ability to win at every level of the field, combining elite route-running with explosive playmaking ability after the catch. By the end of the 2025 campaign, there was a legitimate argument that he had become the NFL’s premier wide receiver.
Smith-Njigba saved some of his best football for the postseason. In the 2025 NFC Championship Game, he went nuclear, tallying 10 receptions, 153 yards, and a touchdown to help send Seattle to Super Bowl LX. When Denver faces the defending champions in 2026, slowing down Smith-Njigba will be one of the toughest challenges the Broncos’ secondary faces all season.
4. Myles Garrett, DE, Los Angeles Rams
For nearly a decade, Myles Garrett has been one of the NFL’s most dominant defensive players. The former No. 1 overall pick spent the 2025 season terrorizing quarterbacks for the Cleveland Browns before being traded to the Los Angeles Rams this offseason.
Garrett delivered a historic campaign in 2025, recording an NFL-record 23 sacks while capturing Defensive Player of the Year honors. He now owns 125.5 career sacks, averaging nearly one sack per game across nine NFL seasons. His blend of power, athleticism, and technique has made him one of the most complete pass rushers the league has ever seen.
Garrett’s résumé already resembles that of a Hall of Famer. The two-time Defensive Player of the Year already ranks among the top 20 sack leaders in NFL history, has forced 23 fumbles during his career, and is widely viewed as a future Pro Football Hall of Famer. Denver’s offensive line is among the league’s best, but Garrett remains the type of player capable of wrecking an entire game plan by himself.
3. Matthew Stafford, QB, Los Angeles Rams
Matthew Stafford authored the finest season of his NFL career in 2025. The veteran quarterback led the league with 4,707 passing yards and 46 touchdown passes last season, guiding Los Angeles to a 12-5 record and earning NFL MVP honors.
What made Stafford’s 2025 campaign especially impressive was his week-to-week dominance. He threw three or more touchdown passes in nine different games and repeatedly punished defenses that failed to pressure him. His most explosive performance came in Week 16 against the Seahawks, when he shredded Seattle with 457 passing yards.
Stafford carried that momentum into the postseason. He led the Rams on a deep postseason run, passing for 936 yards and six touchdowns across three playoff games. Even with a loaded defense and talented supporting cast around him, the reigning NFL MVP remains the engine that makes Los Angeles one of the NFL’s most dangerous teams.
2. Patrick Mahomes, QB, Kansas City Chiefs
Patrick Mahomes has already assembled a résumé that places him among the greatest quarterbacks in NFL history. He is a three-time Super Bowl champion, a three-time Super Bowl MVP, a two-time league MVP, and has appeared in five Super Bowls. At just 30 years old, he is already widely regarded as a future first-ballot Hall of Famer.
Few players have dominated the NFL landscape the way Mahomes has over the past decade. His arm talent, creativity, poise under pressure, and postseason success have consistently separated him from his peers. There is already a legitimate argument that he belongs on the Mount Rushmore of NFL quarterbacks.
Yet entering 2026, Mahomes finds himself ranked second on this list because recent performance matters. For all of Mahomes’ accomplishments, however, his recent play has fallen short of the standard he established earlier in his career. He has not made a Pro Bowl since 2023 and led the Kansas City Chiefs to a disappointing 6-8 record as a starter in 2025. Mahomes remains one of the NFL’s elite players, but for the first time in years, there is room to debate whether another quarterback currently occupies the top spot.
1. Josh Allen, QB, Buffalo Bills
No player on the Broncos’ 2026 schedule enters the season with more momentum than Josh Allen. The 2024 NFL MVP continued to perform at an elite level in 2025, earning his fourth Pro Bowl selection while leading the Buffalo Bills to a 12-5 record and a seventh consecutive playoff appearance.
Allen once again proved why he is one of the league’s most dynamic offensive weapons. He accounted for 4,247 combined passing and rushing yards and produced 39 total touchdowns, overwhelming defenses with a combination of arm talent, mobility, and power that few quarterbacks in NFL history have possessed.
Denver has faced Allen in each of the past two postseasons with dramatically different results. In the 2024 Wild Card Round, he completed 20 of 26 passes for 272 yards and two touchdowns in a dominant 31-7 Buffalo victory. The Broncos got revenge in the 2025 Divisional Round, but Allen still accounted for nearly 350 total yards and three passing touchdowns. Despite forcing Allen into four turnovers, Denver still needed overtime to emerge victorious over the Bills, underscoring why he enters 2026 as the best player the Broncos will face all season.
