Weekly during the NFL season, the Denver Broncos use cornerback Patrick Surtain II to blanket their opponent’s top receiver.
“It’s like the good news-bad news question all the time,” Broncos coach Sean Payton said. “The good news is you just did a great job against such-and-such. Then what’s the bad news? Well, this week it’s – and so there’s stress with that. …
“Generally speaking, the elite corners want that.”
But for Sunday’s game, the bad news is the Las Vegas Raiders’.
Since Davante Adams joined Las Vegas in 2022, the six-time Pro Bowl wide receiver has battled Surtain twice a season in AFC West games. But when the Raiders and Broncos square off on Sunday, Surtain will cover another Las Vegas pass-catcher. Adams is out with a hamstring injury.
“They got other good receivers as well, too,” Surtain said. “And (Jakobi) Myers and everybody else, those guys, they put good reps up on film that I’ve been studying.”
A unanimous All-American and the SEC Defensive Player of the Year for Alabama’s undefeated CFP national-championship team in 2020, Surtain quickly established a reputation as one of the NFL’s best cornerbacks after joining the Broncos as the ninth selection in the 2021 draft. He did it by battling against the best wide receiver on Denver’s opponent each Sunday.
“I’ve been doing it for the past few years,” Surtain said. “Just having that experience, traveling against the best year after year. I feel like my experience, I have been getting better with knowing my opponent. And it’s just a credit to my game, but also to the staff that trusts me to put me in that situation. I mean, the staff made that call for me to follow the best each and every week, so I just got to live up to that for sure.”
Adams had a pair of 100-yard games against the Broncos in his first season with the Raiders. Last season, he had 11 receptions for 112 yards and one touchdown in two games against Denver.
The Broncos and Raiders square off at 3:05 p.m. CDT Sunday at Empower Field at Mile High in Denver. The first meeting with Las Vegas this season also is the first of the Broncos’ six AFC West games.
Denver has lost its past eight meetings with the Raiders.
“It’s very important,” Surtain said of Sunday’s game. “Obviously, divisional games is important because it has a lot to say about your season moving forward. And, obviously, to get those divisional wins and getting that first seed in your division means a lot for the playoffs, so this game is very important in the weeks moving forward, so we really got to hone in, study on the game plan and make sure we come out victorious.”
The 1977 Denver team split with the Raiders, who gave that edition of the Broncos one of its two regular-season losses. In Sunday’s game, the current team will honor the 1977 Denver squad by wearing throwback uniforms.
“They tight,” Surtain said. “They dope. I ain’t going to lie. They my favorite uniform combo, for sure. It sucks that we can only wear them twice this year, so I wish we could wear them more times. But, shoot, I got to come out swaggy this week, put something together, for sure.”
