Talanoa Hufanga Discusses Broncos Goal of Winning Super Bowl

Hufanga, who inked a $39 million contract in free agency, made his orange-and-blue debut against his former Niners teammates, finishing with two combined tackles. The Broncos' first-string defense allowed an eight-play, 71-yard touchdown drive to San Francisco's second-string offense on the game's opening series.

Following a Bo Nix safety, the Broncos would go on to score 30 unanswered points amid a blowout victory, forcing four turnovers in the process. But the stink remained — blown coverages, nearly a dozen penalties, and even factors that had little to do with the action between the hashmarks.

“There’s some mistakes that are going to happen. But it's the pre-snap, it's the illegal man downfield. There's a handful of these things that have to be cleaned up like, like tomorrow," Payton said after the contest. "I do think it's important when we come to work tomorrow. It's not just the players. This is the first road trip for us. I've got 14 things written down that I'm pissed off about that have nothing to do with the game. That's part of the debrief, too. The willingness of the player, employee, all of us to accept and make those corrections are important.”

While it's difficult to nitpick a 21-point victory, albeit in preseason, the Broncos showed that work must be done to fulfill Payton's wish of hoisting the Lombardi Trophy again. Neither his potential top-five quarterback nor his vaunted defense looked the part last week, perhaps by design.

This week, hosting the Arizona Cardinals at Empower Field, the Broncos will attempt to right those wrongs.

“We talked about a good way to see it, is coming back and decreasing it," Hufanga said of Payton's corrective message. "We have to go through the whole layers as to what is the right calls at the right times. It is exciting for me to learn what their process is and be a part of it.”

Despite what Sean Payton derided as "average to below average" performances from his starting units in Saturday's preseason opener, the championship idealizations that the Denver Broncos head coach himself materialized continue to persist within the locker room.

Denver kicked off the exhibition period against the San Francisco 49ers at Levi's Stadium — the site of Super Bowl 60 — and safety Talanoa Hufanga believes the club could end its 2025 season in the same locale it began.

“I think that is the goal for everybody. That is our goal. Every team’s goal is to win the Super Bowl," Hufanga told reporters. "What we have to focus on is our next week. Our next week is playing Arizona.”

Hufanga, who inked a $39 million contract in free agency, made his orange-and-blue debut against his former Niners teammates, finishing with two combined tackles. The Broncos' first-string defense allowed an eight-play, 71-yard touchdown drive to San Francisco's second-string offense on the game's opening series.

Following a Bo Nix safety, the Broncos would go on to score 30 unanswered points amid a blowout victory, forcing four turnovers in the process. But the stink remained — blown coverages, nearly a dozen penalties, and even factors that had little to do with the action between the hashmarks.

“There’s some mistakes that are going to happen. But it's the pre-snap, it's the illegal man downfield. There's a handful of these things that have to be cleaned up like, like tomorrow," Payton said after the contest. "I do think it's important when we come to work tomorrow. It's not just the players. This is the first road trip for us. I've got 14 things written down that I'm pissed off about that have nothing to do with the game. That's part of the debrief, too. The willingness of the player, employee, all of us to accept and make those corrections are important.”

While it's difficult to nitpick a 21-point victory, albeit in preseason, the Broncos showed that work must be done to fulfill Payton's wish of hoisting the Lombardi Trophy again. Neither his potential top-five quarterback nor his vaunted defense looked the part last week, perhaps by design.

This week, hosting the Arizona Cardinals at Empower Field, the Broncos will attempt to right those wrongs.

“We talked about a good way to see it, is coming back and decreasing it," Hufanga said of Payton's corrective message. "We have to go through the whole layers as to what is the right calls at the right times. It is exciting for me to learn what their process is and be a part of it.”