We’re going to do something new each week where we track and share any interesting tidbits about the Denver Broncos from a statistical or data standpoint. To be honest, this is something we used to do a lot more of back during the Peyton Manning years. I suppose the data hasn’t been very fun to review until last year. It’s looking a lot more fun to look at not, though, so let’s dive in!
First up is something that was shared in the feed already, but was too good not to lead with. The Broncos defense
pressured Jordan Love on 52.2% of his dropbacks during last week’s win. While Love did amazingly well against that in the first half, he did not fare so well late throwing for just 61 yards, 2 interceptions, and 3 sacks while the Broncos outscored the Green Bay Packers 20-3 late.
It was also good to see that given it felt like the pass rush was hibernating a bit over the last three games or so despite some sacks in both those previous wins.
Next up, I noticed this post about where each team is kicking the ball off. I’m not sure what to do with this data, but I found it fascinating that teams seem to be trying different things to generate the best results.
It will be interesting to compare this data with actual success rates for where opponents average start position was over the course of the season.
We’ve got our own Joe Mahoney posting some interesting data on where the Broncos defense is ranking overall. They were the top ranked defense for a while on these metrics, but have slightly fallen behind the Seattle Seahawks — though that might change again after all of the yards and points the Seahawks gave up last night!
Now some Bo Nix stats.
On the season, he ranks third overall for most 1st down or touchdown passes on third downs this season trailing only Justin Herbert and Josh Allen.
With last week’s 300 yard, 4 touchdown performance, Nix also joined Dan Marino as the only two quarterbacks with 20+ wins, 7000+ yards, and 50+ passing touchdowns in their first two seasons in the NFL. Nix achieved that mark with three games left to play — though will ultimately play two more regular season games than Marino did back in the early 80s.
And for the final Bo Nix stat post of the week, we’ve got Romi Bean laying down the trends showing Nix is getting hot at just the right time. He has been up and down most of the season, but since Week 11 he has been warming up.
This is trend we kind of saw last season too. Nix might be a guy who takes some time to get going during a season. Frankly, I would rather have a franchise quarterback who gets hot from November on than one who flames out down the stretch.
Now we’re going to look at some wide receiver stats. Let’s get the ugly one out of the way first. On throws of 30 yards or more, Nix has targeted Troy Franklin the second most in the NFL with 16 attempts. Unfortunately, Franklin has only come down with one of those deep passes. 1/16 is easily the worst efficiency of everyone on this list.
Not ideal, but at least Franklin is getting open deep… I guess. To end on a positive with that, Franklin was a perfect 6 for 6 on targets and receptions last week. Hope to see more of that!
Then we have some data how big of a cushion our guys are getting against opposing defenses. Marvin Mims Jr. is getting a huge cushion by defenders and despite that he is still getting the third most separation of all wide receivers.
Surprisingly, Evan Engram is also getting a lot of separation. It feels like he isn’t a big part of the offense so maybe that could change given he is beating his coverage so consistently. I’d love to see both Mims and Engram more involved here in the final regular season games and playoffs.
Lastly here, we’ve got to look at some punter data, right? Jeremy Crawshaw has been pretty good overall outside of that terrible game against the Las Vegas Raiders. Overall, however, he’s been pretty efficient in both punt average and getting punts downed inside of the 10 yard line.
He has one of the higher number of punts downed inside of the 10, but he also punts more than most given the offenses early season struggles with three-and-outs and the low turnover numbers by the offense.
Well, that’s about all I could find for this week. If you have any interesting tweets or posts you’ve seen this week about the Broncos, share in the comments section below!
