The wait is finally over, and NFL fans everywhere can finally rejoice knowing there will be hours of professional football to watch this weekend as Week 1 commences.

Fans of the Denver Broncos will have to wait the longest to watch their favorite team play, as they travel to Oakland to take on the Raiders for Monday Night Football.

Denver Broncos fans are anxiously waiting on the debut of Joe Flacco, their new franchise quarterback. Getting off to a good start against the Raiders is essential not only for Flacco’s confidence in a new situation, but for the Broncos’ chances to make the playoffs.

The word “elite” has floated over Flacco’s head his entire career. Talking heads on sports debate shows love to question his place in the quarterback hierarchy, and while he has a Super Bowl win on his resume, his stats with the Baltimore Ravens were mostly average for a starting quarterback.

While his regular-season stats don’t exactly jump off the page, he has certainly performed well when the stakes are the highest in the playoffs. In four games during the Super Bowl run, he totaled 1,140 yards and 11 touchdowns while throwing no interceptions.

As impressive as that 2012 run was, Flacco has not really been able to find the magic since. Flacco went to the playoffs only one other time in Baltimore and was ultimately benched for Lamar Jackson in the middle of the 2018 season, solidifying that his Baltimore reign had come to an end.

In his new starting role with the Broncos, Flacco is excited to play in high-pressure games again and help his team earn wins and head back to the playoffs:

“Listen, we’ve only got 16 games. …Every single game matters. You never know which ones are going to be more important than others, but they’re all very important. You’ve just got to go out and take them one at a time and win them,” he said regarding the importance of the season opener to SB Nation’s Laurie Lattimore-Volkmann.

Any Broncos fan who tuned into HBO’s “Hard Knocks” knows the Raiders have their share of issues. According to Vegas betting odds, they’ll be lucky to get more than six wins this season, and the Antonio Brown drama continues to loom overhead.

While this looks like an easy win for the Broncos on paper, they can’t take this Jon Gruden-coached team lightly. There’s a lot of defensive talent on the depth chart, with young pass rushers on the defensive line in Maurice Hurst and Clelin Ferrell set to come hard after Flacco. Experienced safeties Karl Joseph and Lamarcus Joyner will help lead a secondary that might be better than people think.

One thing that does help the Broncos is that Joe Flacco is no stranger to Raiders defensive coordinator Paul Guenther and his schemes, as he was formerly the DC of the Cincinnati Bengals from 2014-2017. The quarterback will be expecting pressure on base downs and all-out blitzes in critical points in the game. That veteran savvy from Flacco to know that information will help the Broncos in the long run.

Flacco is out to prove a lot of people wrong this season, starting with the Baltimore coaches who benched him for Jackson. Facing this Oakland defense and that crazy Raiders fan base may be daunting at first, but Broncos fans should expect to see Flacco throw for 275 yards and a few touchdowns while leading his club to a Week 1 win.