{"id":74323,"date":"2025-08-17T05:07:08","date_gmt":"2025-08-17T05:07:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/74323\/"},"modified":"2025-08-17T05:07:08","modified_gmt":"2025-08-17T05:07:08","slug":"broncos-27-7-cardinals-17-aug-2025-game-recap","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/74323\/","title":{"rendered":"Broncos 27-7 Cardinals (17 Aug, 2025) Game Recap"},"content":{"rendered":"

DENVER — \u2014 Troy Franklin<\/a> caught two touchdown passes from Jarrett Stidham<\/a> and the Denver Broncos<\/a> rolled over the Arizona Cardinals<\/a> 27-7 on Saturday night in a matchup of mostly backups. <\/p>\n

With both teams sitting the majority of their starters following a productive and spirited joint practice<\/a> on Thursday, Stidham followed up a spectacular preseason debut in relief of Bo Nix<\/a> at San Francisco with another stellar performance.<\/p>\n

He completed 16 of 23 passes for 240 yards and TDs of 27 and 17 yards to Franklin before giving way to Sam Ehlinger<\/a> in the second half. Ehlinger completed 14 of 16 passes for 162 yards.<\/p>\n

Denver’s top-to-bottom defense had another solid outing, too. The Cardinals (1-1) converted just 2 of 13 third downs a week after the Broncos held San Francisco to 1 of 12.<\/p>\n

Stidham’s first drive covered 97 yards in just four plays. It featured a 58-yard catch and run by tight end Evan Engram<\/a> and ended with an 8-yard touchdown run by rookie running back R.J. Harvey, a second-round selection by Denver (2-0).<\/p>\n

After Jacoby Brissett<\/a> (6 for 8 for 57 yards) replied with a 16-yard TD toss to Simi Fehoko<\/a>, Stidham hit Franklin for a 27-yard touchdown<\/a> down the left sideline. His 17-yard strike<\/a> to Franklin with 45 seconds left before halftime made it 24-7.<\/p>\n

Stidham’s third drive reached the Arizona 2 but he airmailed a throw on third down and right tackle Alex Palczewski<\/a>‘s second flag, this one for a false start, moved the ball back to the 6 and Wil Lutz<\/a> nailed a 26-yarder to make it 17-7.<\/p>\n

Franklin’s 7-yard sideline catch with 2 seconds left allowed Lutz to attempt a 64-yard field goal as the first half expired, but he missed short and to the right.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat was a pretty good half,\u201d Broncos coach Sean Payton said at halftime. \u201cWe had a lot of plays to guys that maybe hadn’t gotten the snaps or the touches. Engram had a few.\u201d<\/p>\n

Clayton Tune<\/a> relieved Brissett and was 13 of 20 for 56 yards. <\/p>\n

Injuries <\/p>\n

Broncos G Nick Gargiulo<\/a> was carted off with a right knee injury at the 6:41 mark of the third quarter. The entire Broncos bench went out to midfield in a show of support. The Cardinals lost OL Hayden Carter to a knee injury on the first drive of the game. Broncos LB Garret Wallow<\/a> (ankle) went out in the fourth quarter.<\/p>\n

Remembrances <\/p>\n

The Broncos honored pass-catching great and coaching pioneer Lionel Taylor,<\/a> who died earlier this month at age 89, and also former AP sports writer Dennis Georgatos<\/a>, who died in June at age 70. <\/p>\n

Up next <\/p>\n

Cardinals: Host the Las Vegas Raiders<\/a> next Saturday.<\/p>\n

Broncos: Visit New Orleans next Saturday.<\/p>\n

——<\/p>\n

AP NFL: https:\/\/apnews.com\/hub\/NFL<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"DENVER — \u2014 Troy Franklin caught two touchdown passes from Jarrett Stidham and the Denver Broncos rolled over…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":74324,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[559],"tags":[64,63,593,85],"class_list":["post-74323","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nfl","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-nfl","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/74323","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=74323"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/74323\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/74324"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=74323"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=74323"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=74323"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}