Denver Broncos vs San Francisco 49ers, Week 4 2026

Broncos vs 49ers kicks off at 4:25 PM ET on Sunday, October 4, and it is the first time San Francisco has hosted Denver at Levi's Stadium since December 2018.

CBS has the broadcast. From the opening snap this page keeps itself current: live score, real time score, game leaders, box scores, play-by-play with the game flow chart and team statistics, every panel updating on its own without anyone hitting refresh.

Broncos vs 49ers is also the first look at Mike Evans in front of a San Francisco home crowd, quadricep permitting.

Broncos vs 49ers Start Time, TV Channel and Live Stream

CBS carries Broncos vs 49ers in the late afternoon window rather than the early one, so in most of the country it is not competing with three other games. Santa Clara runs on Pacific time, which turns a 4:25 PM ET kickoff into a 1:25 PM start at the stadium.

Mike Evans Has a New Quarterback

Evans signed a three-year deal with San Francisco in free agency, ending twelve seasons and 176 games in Tampa Bay. He leaves holding the Buccaneers' franchise records for receptions, receiving yards and receiving touchdowns: 866, 13,052 and 108. Six Pro Bowls, drafted seventh overall in 2014, and now a 49ers receiver.

The first day of camp went the way the front office would have drawn it, including a deep completion from Brock Purdy down the left sideline. Then a quadricep injury put Evans on the sideline for a stretch of August. Broncos vs 49ers falls early enough in the season that his workload is still a live question rather than a settled one.

What is settled is that San Francisco needs him. Ricky Pearsall is out for the season, and Kyle Shanahan has been open about what that does to the depth chart, with snaps opening up for De'Zhaun Stribling and others behind Evans.

Denver Brought Three Running Backs

Sean Payton has spent the offseason describing his backfield as a three-headed thing, and for once the phrase is doing real work.

J.K. Dobbins is the veteran of the group in his seventh season. His first year in Denver produced 772 rushing yards and four touchdowns in ten games, and he sat fourth in the NFL in rushing through Week 10 before the season got away from him. RJ Harvey is the second-year man, coming off a rookie campaign of twelve total touchdowns and roughly 900 all-purpose yards. Jonah Coleman is the fourth-round rookie, taken 108th overall, whom Payton has called one of the pleasant surprises of camp.

Jaleel McLaughlin and Tyler Badie are still in the room too, which is the part that matters for Broncos vs 49ers. Denver can send a fresh back at a defense in the fourth quarter without dropping off, and Bo Nix does not have to carry a drive by himself to make one work.

Broncos vs 49ers: Sixteen Meetings, Eight Wins Each

The all-time series is exactly level at 8-8. San Francisco is 5-3 in the home games and has won the last four of them, which is the sort of split that makes a tied record misleading.

There is a wrinkle in that streak. One of those San Francisco home wins over Denver, a 24-16 result on October 31, 2010, was played at Wembley Stadium in London, with the 49ers as the designated home team. The most recent one on actual California grass was December 9, 2018, a 20-14 win. So Broncos vs 49ers on October 4 is Denver's first trip to Santa Clara in almost eight years, and San Francisco's last two home wins in this series happened on two different continents.

Denver also arrives as one of five 2025 playoff teams on the San Francisco schedule, alongside the Chargers, Rams, Eagles and Seahawks.

Rosters are set. The cut to 53 passed on August 30. Follow the Broncos and 49ers pages, and check the NFL standings a month into the season. The rest of the slate sits on the 2026 NFL schedule.

Eight Months After a Super Bowl

Levi's Stadium hosted Super Bowl LX on February 8, 2026. That was the building's second Super Bowl in twelve years of existence, after Super Bowl 50 in February 2016, and no other stadium opened this century has collected two of them that quickly.

The practical effect for anyone attending Broncos vs 49ers is a building that has just been through a full league inspection and a winter of work, with signage, wayfinding and concourse flow all reset for an audience that had never been there before. Regulars notice the difference.

The 49ers Museum sits inside the stadium on the ground level, which is worth knowing if you are the sort of person who arrives early rather than sprinting in from the lot at 1:20. The club's game day hub collects entry, bag and arrival details in one place before you leave the house.

Broncos vs 49ers FAQ

Broncos vs 49ers brings Denver back to Santa Clara for the first time since 2018, with a rotation of running backs against a receiver room rebuilding itself around Mike Evans. Come back on game day for inactives and the live score.

Last updated: August 27, 2026