Pat Bryant — Week 1: Six Targets, and a Holding Call at the Five
2026 NFL Season · Half-PPR Scoring · Tuesday, Sep 15
Bryant led Denver with six targets, caught four for 42 yards and three first downs, and converted the third and five on the touchdown drive with 5:10 left in the first quarter. His holding penalty with 9:34 left in the third quarter wiped out a run to the Kansas City three, and Denver settled for a field goal, in a 31–10 loss to the Chiefs.
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Seven to nothing, Chiefs, five 10 left in the first quarter, third and five at the Kansas City 38. Bo Nix threw short left to Pat Bryant for eight yards and the first down. +1.7 expected points added — expected points added is what a play was worth given down, distance and field position — and 3.7 points of win probability, the chance of winning the game after the play against before it. Two snaps later Nix hit Evan Engram for the touchdown. It was one of two third downs Denver converted all night.
The line: six targets, four catches, 42 yards, three first downs, +2.0 expected points on the targets. The catches were 13 on first and 10, the eight on third and five, 11 on first and 10 to the Kansas City 19 — three catches on the touchdown drive — and 10 on second and 15 with a minute 25 left in the half. The incompletions were second and four in the second quarter and second and 16 late in the third. Five targets before halftime, one after. His one third-down target converted; no target inside the 20.
The other play that belongs in his ledger — his second holding penalty of the night; the first had wiped out a Dobbins run in the first quarter — came with nine 34 left in the third quarter, first and goal at the Kansas City five after Brandon Jones' interception return, Denver down 21 to seven. RJ Harvey ran to the three, and a holding penalty on Bryant brought it back to first and 15 from the 15. Denver got a 31-yard field goal from the drive.
The split: Bryant six targets, Courtland Sutton five, Evan Engram five, RJ Harvey four, Adam Trautman three, Jaylen Waddle three, Troy Franklin one. 28 throws on the night against 12 designed runs. Bryant's six targets were more than Waddle and Franklin had between them.
Back in June the preview made no call on Bryant — the 90-fourth receiver at pick two 33, priced about right for a fourth receiver with a health question — and named three things to watch: the target pecking order behind Sutton, Waddle and Franklin, any dated word on the concussion clearances, and whether the touchdown rate climbed off the floor. Monday's pecking order was not the one the preview assumed: Bryant first on the team in targets, five of them before halftime, and the most productive stretch of the night — three catches on the touchdown drive — was his. One game does not reorder a depth chart, and a team-high of six in a hundred-31-yard passing game is a modest crown. It is a data point the preview did not expect. The Broncos are home to the Jaguars on Sunday the twentieth.
_Data via nflverse._
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