The Denver Broncos Might Be Frauds

I know we just did this with the Chicago Bears, but I always have the Bears on fraud watch because they’re the Bears. The Denver Broncos, to my casual AFC eye, seem pretty good. Their defense seems to be for

real, and while I don’t really care for Bo Nix as a quarterback, I’ve always felt like he is at least careful with the ball, and he has Courtland Sutton to rely on in desperate situations. The Broncos being legitimately good seems perfectly reasonable, especially since one of my few actual memories of the season is Denver losing to Indy on a leverage penalty that allowed Indy kicker Spencer Shrader a second shot at a missed game-winning field goal.

But a quick check under the hood has turned me around on this, at least a bit. First, let’s go over the wins.

1. Tennessee (Terrible), 20-12. The Titans are one of the worst teams in football. Big whoop.
2. Bengals (Terrible), 28-3. Cinci started Jake Browning in this game. He went 14/25 for 125 yards.
3. Eagles, 21-17. A complete rock fight that the Broncos were losing 17-3 entering the fourth quarter, and that featured a combined 21 penalties for a combined 176 yards from official Adrian Hill and his crew.
4. New York Jets (Terrible), 13-11. The Jets actually went up in this game 11-10 due to a holding call in the end zone against Denver, resulting in a safety. The Broncos managed a late field goal, but the Jets managed to drive all the way to the Denver 44 and probably needed five yards or so for a game-winning field goal attempt of their own. Instead, Justin Fields took a giant sack. Some things never change.
5. New York Giants, 33-32. The height of the Skattebo/Dart combo as Jaxson Dart torched the Denver defense for 283 yards and three touchdowns. The Giants led by two points with 37 seconds left, but Nix hit big plays to Marvin Mims and Courtland Sutton, and Will Lutz walked it off with a short field goal.
6. Dallas Cowboys, 44-24. OK, this isn’t a bad win, but it’s not exactly impressive to light up the Cowboys’ defense.
7. Houston, 18-15. Two of the best defenses in football played a terrible game. Will Lutz once again walked it off after a 25-yard scramble from Bo Nix in the final seconds.
8. Las Vegas Raiders (Terrible), 10-7. Another horrific game where Denver had a 10-7 lead with seven minutes remaining when Nix was picked by Kyu Blu Kelly. The Raiders moved down to the Denver 30 where Daniel Carlson missed a game-tying 48-yard field goal.
9. Chiefs, 22-19. Will Lutz kicked five field goals in this game, including a 54-yarder to tie things up with 4 minutes left, and yes, another walk-off from 35 as time expired.
10. Commanders (Terrible), 27-26 in overtime. The Commanders trailed by three with three minutes left, but Marcus Mariota led a 17-play drive to the Denver 14, resulting in a game-tying field goal. Denver scored first in overtime because of a 41-yard Evan Engram catch and run, but Mariota again led a 13-play touchdown drive to bring Washington within one. The Commanders went for two to try and win it, and Mariota missed Jeremy McNichols.
11. Raiders (Terrible, again), 24-17. The Raiders man. They’re terrible and got down 24-7, partially on a Marvin Mims 48-yard punt return. They rallied a bit, but we should not, in fact, count this as a one-score game because the Raiders hit a walk-off field goal to cut it to seven. Very unsuspicious.

Anyway, the last Raiders’ game notwithstanding, that is a LOT of close games against a LOT of garbage. They are now 7-2 (technically 8-2) in one-score games, have an 8.5-4.5 Pythagorean record, and per DVOA, they have 8.1 estimated wins. They have had the 31^st hardest schedule to date, and they have the fourth hardest remaining.

This is all VERY similar to the Bears, and I didn’t call the Bears frauds, so I won’t throw the label on Denver completely, but they’ve undoubtedly been very lucky. And unlike the Bears, who were kind of in a big jumble of pretty close NFC teams, the Broncos have the one seed, are tied with the Patriots in terms of record, and are a full two games clear of number three. People were still pretty skeptical of the Bears, but there’s a lot of “best team in the AFC” talk about the Broncos, and uhm, no. By DVOA their two best wins are over the Texans (8^th) and Chiefs (7^th), but they’ve mostly beaten the dregs. The Jets, Raiders (x2), and Titans are all in the DVOA bottom five, and all have DVOA’s under -23.6.

In fact, the more you look at the Broncos, the more they resemble the Bears. While Denver has better defense, both teams are obviously terrified of their quarterbacks, and with good reason. Bo Nix SHOULD be a safe, conservative game manager. Only three qualifying quarterbacks (Aaron Rodgers, Kyler Murray, and Geno Smith) have fewer completed Air Yards than Nix, and only Caleb Williams has a lower “aggressiveness index” than Nix. Aggressiveness Index measures the number of throws a quarterback makes when a defender is within a yard of the intended receiver. For context, Jordan Love’s AI is 15.5% which is almost exactly average. That number for Nix is 11.3%. However, despite rarely attempting a risky pass at all, Nix has thrown nine interceptions. His 1.9% interception percentage is tied for 15th, which may not seem that bad except that Nix is ALWAYS checking down and NEVER attacking tight windows.

Nix has a few other problems. He’s second in the league in having passes batted down, which is a functional result of throwing short all the time. And even though he’s throwing simple passes to mostly uncovered targets, his receivers are the second worst at catching the ball, with a 9.7% drop percentage. Only Trevor Lawrence has been done dirtier.

Compounding everything else, the Denver rushing attack has cratered in the wake of losing JK Dobbins for the season. Dobbins was ripping off five yards a carry and ranked eighth in Next Gen Stats Rushing Yards over Expected percentage. He was lost for the season to an injury after November sixth, and backup RJ Harvey has been a marked downgrade, averaging just 3.9 and ranking second to last in ROE%.

I do think the Denver defense is legit. The only team to really do any real damage was the Giants of all teams; they’re sixth in DVOA and seventh in EPA, but while those are good rankings, they’re hardly elite, and don’t really support an 11-2 record with a below-average offense.

Despite a 10-game winning streak, including a 10-game winning streak at home, the Broncos are underdogs to the Packers this week in the Mile High City. If you’re wondering why, now you know. They may not quite rise to the level of frauds, but everything indicates that the Packers are a top-five team in the league, and Denver simply isn’t.