| Projected Record: | 9-8 (Currently 0-2) |
| Weighted DVOA Offense (2022)*: | 28th |
| Weighted DVOA Defense (2022): | 16th |
| Early Down DVOA (2022)*: | 1st Down – 21st, 2nd Down – 29th |
| Explosive Play Rate (2022)*: | Offense – 19th (Run 24th, Pass 11th), Defense – 9th (Run 14th, Pass 6th |
| Key Additions: | Jarrett Stidham QB, Samaje Perine RB, Michael Burton FB, Chris Manhertz TE, Adam Trautman TE, Mike McGlinchey OT, Ben Powers IOL, Zach Allen DI, Tremon Smith CB, Wil Lutz K, Riley Dixon P |
| Key Departures: | Mike Boone RB, Latavius Murray RB, Chase Edmonds RB, Andrew Beck FB, Eric Saubert TE, Albert Okwuegbunam TE, Eric Tomlinson TE, Billy Turner OT, Calvin Anderson OT, Dalton Risner IOL, Tom Compton IOL, Graham Glasgow IOL, Dre’Mont Jones DI, DeShawn Williams DI, Jake Martin EDGE, Ronald Darby CB, Brandon McManus K, Corliss Waitman P |
| Rookies to Watch: | Marvin Mims Jr. WR, Drew Sanders LB, Riley Moss CB |
Injury Report
Injured Reserve: Tim Patrick WR, Greg Dulcich TE, Baron Browning EDGE, K’Whaun Williams CB, Caden Sterns S
Quarterback
Last year, I was ardently following a weekly Twitter account dedicated to whether Russell Wilson had thrown more TDs than there were bathrooms in his house. He narrowly passed the test, throwing 16 TDs to his 12 bathrooms, with 3 coming in the finale against the Chargers, who already owned a playoff spot and rested some players. Man, it was a bad season. Wilson would eventually finish 26th in PFF passing grade*, behind an elbowless Matt Stafford and the slumping Derek Carr. He finished behind rookies Kenny Pickett and Brock Purdy, and behind journeymen like Jacoby Brissett and Mitchell Trubisky. This offseason, the terms of his nightmare trade finally ended, with the Seahawks scoring an extra 1st and 2nd round pick this year to go with the same from last year. In exchange, the Broncos got a worse QB than 2021’s Teddy Bridgewater season, where he finished 16th in passing grade (tied, in fact, with 2021 Wilson). Some numbers to break down how bad it got: Russ took 55 sacks, easily a career high, as his athleticism finally gave out. His big time throw percentage* dropped from the above-6% height we knew of him to 4.4%. Russ is a player who lives and dies on the big play, but he took more sacks and threw less big plays than ever before. He threw for the second lowest yards per attempt in his career, just 7.3, while compiling 11 INTs. He threw for a completion percentage of 60.5, one tenth of a percent above the inaccurate Justin Fields and substantially below the benched Marcus Mariota, Taylor Heinicke, Mitchell Trubisky, and Carson Wentz. In a world where the team hadn’t moved Heaven and Earth to get him, Wilson would be riding pine. His 18 batted balls were third in the league, a concern for a short QB. He was TERRIBLE in the play action game, throwing for a completion percentage of 55.9 with 5 TDs and 4 INTs, the 34th best QB at the passing concept. If you think that means he was good without it, you’re dead wrong! He was PFF’s 22nd best QB without play action*, mismatched with a coach who loved play action and timing and brought over the Aaron Rodgers concepts from Green Bay. He couldn’t manage big time plays out of the concept, and an injury to Javonte Williams meant that the running game could not manufacture favorable opportunities. He had the worst 3rd down conversion rate of his career by almost 10%, his 55 sacks plus 11 INTs was worst in the league for negative plays.
So that’s a whole heaping helping of bad. Where is the good? Russ has taken care of the ball pretty well, keeping the turnover worthy play rate* down below 3%, when his early years in Seattle were much more than that. In 2020, just three seasons ago, Russ threw for 42 TDs, a staggeringly good number. Even with a lot more drops, Russ’s adjusted completion percentage* ticked up this year. He held onto the ball too long, with an average time to throw that was 32nd quickest, but his big time throw rate on passes in which he does hold the ball was…okay? He still has the mentality to get the ball down the field, with an average depth of target that was top 10 in the league. While his arm may not have been as consistent, the Russ Moon Ball is still in his arsenal: so many plays we remember from Wilson are him throwing the ball into orbit only to land right on the receiver’s shoulder. He was 14/42 on such passes (not great) for 555 yards (better!) and 3 TDs to 1 INT. PFF notes that 3 of his vertical lead* balls traveled 50 yards down the field, which is an awesome display of power. No one else in the league can do that! Trubisky did it once, and the fact that Russell Wilson believes he can hit a dude in stride running away from him at 50 plus yards (as opposed to Tua, whose 55 air yard passes had receivers running under them horizontally) is something special. You do want that mentality. The thing with Russell, ultimately, is that the man is unflappable. He is fine with being self-parody, fine with saying “Let’s Ride” over and over. His receivers in Seattle still love him, at least they appear to with Tyler Lockett inviting him to his wedding and taking a picture with him and D.K. Metcalf in tuxedo shorts. Russ is goofy! It can work, especially if he takes the gunslinger mentality and molds it into a better scheme in which he has a better understanding. You have to comb through numbers to find some positives in Russ’s 2022, but you don’t have to look hard to see how sweet the redemption could be. How does it look so far after two games in 2023? Ugly but manageable at the moment. In counting stats, Russ has been solid: 5 TDs to 1 INT, 7.3 yards per attempt which is near 10th in the league, a nearly 10th adjusted completion percentage. In some of the other measures, you worry: he’s been sacked 9 times (5th most) and a lot of that is coming from a ridiculous 3.11 seconds on average in his time to throw. His peers in taking forever to unload the ball are Jalen Hurts and Patrick Mahomes, yes, but the rest of the list is guys who are playing like they’re underwater right now (Zach Wilson, Deshaun Watson, Bryce Young, Justin Fields, and Daniel Jones). Russ is still a poor conductor of a timing offense and, of course, the Broncos hired just that yet again in Sean Payton. How long will this friction take to mend or break? We’ll see how 2023 shakes out, but a better coach and a hard look in the mirror could be exactly what the doctor ordered for Russell Wilson (to which Russ would respond, “You sure you don’t want to also order some Anti-Concussion Water?”)
Coaching
What will Sean Payton bring to a team that seemed less professional than any other franchise in the sport last year? Fans are hoping the future hall-of-famer brings with him immediate competence and structural integrity, and history is mixed on whether that will happen. Sure, Andy Reid and Bruce Arians (the Tom Brady caveat applies) come to mind as the antithesis of a lame duck hire, but Jon Gruden, John Fox, and Mike McCarthy all also got retread shots in the last decade, only to lead disasters (or potential disasters, despite how talented the Cowboys are). Ultimately, one questions how far removed from the modern game these types of coaches are. Is their tree of intelligent, capable, future-head-coach-type assistants still intact or are we pulling from the tired thinking that led the coach away from the site of their success in the first place? In Payton’s case, a need for change from constant retooling and QB talent issues in New Orleans led him to retirement, and he was lured out by a staggering amount of resources: the Walton owners guaranteed him a five year contract around $18 million and the team sent a 2023 first-round pick with 2024 2nd and 3rd attached. All to secure a coach rumored to be no higher than third on their list. The stink of last season permeates all. Payton’s first task will be to resurrect the career of the clearly-declining Russell Wilson in a QB friendly scheme. He is handling said task by spending oodles of money. Mike McGlinchey ($17.5 mil a year), Ben Powers ($17.1), and Zach Allen ($15.9) were all brought in with one common goal: to bring something resembling excellence at the spine of both sides of the ball. It’s an old school mentality for a veteran coach, as the Broncos were actually average across both lines by PFF metrics. The problem was the QB’s inability to find the endzone, with 16 TDs to 11 INTs despite relatively average big time throws and turnover worthy play rate. The Broncos did less with average than average, and Payton is banking on both his ability to make a team more than the sum of their parts and build other units into strengths of the team, even at the cost of an overpay. Payton himself, schematically, is the king of mercenaries: despite building his hall-of-fame candidacy on a timing-based, precision West Coast offense for Drew Brees, Payton showed that he could adjust to the volatile, instinctive, and often athletic play of Jameis Winston and Taysom Hill. The creativity of the year post-Brees offers the most hope for Wilson, who spent years as the league’s best outside of structure. At 59, Payton has a career that could go beyond Wilson if money and motivation extends, but his first task is to rebuild a losing culture with competence. On offense, the entire staff has been cleared out, with new offensive coordinator Joe Lombardi (a classic Saints QB guru) moving over from the Chargers. Lombardi is fairly conservative in style, another interesting mix for Wilson, and he only ever coached well with Brees. Lombardi’s stint with the Chargers ended in disastrous ineffective play in a playoff collapse, so he’ll need Payton to get back on his own career trajectory. Davis Webb comes in as QB coach, directly from the practice squad of the New York Giants. He actually played football in week 18 last year, throwing 23/40 with 1 TD and rushing for another. How will Wilson take to a 2022 practice squad guy as his coach? The marriage again seems frayed. Keary Colbert will coach WRs, a newcomer to the Payton roster from the college ranks, and Zach Strief (a longtime Saints standout player new to coaching) are two other former players brought in to coach the offense. Payton seems intent on player-friendly schemes taught by player-friendly coaches, and time will tell how the young Broncos offensive core takes to them. Payton’s answer to a scattered tree is relatively new to me (hiring smart players he coached) and bears watching for the season.
Defensively, Vance Joseph is back in town after his own stops around the league as a top defensive mind. Joseph, awkwardly, was the Broncos head coach and his firing created bad blood, but new ownership opened a lane for him to return. For the Cardinals last year, Joseph blitzed with the best of them, his 34.5% rate slotting in behind the Giants (Wink Martindale is the blitz-happiest coach in the league) and the Boyer-led Dolphins. In Arizona, the Cardinals were top 10 in hurries and knockdowns, but bottom 10 in sacks: they simply did not get home. In Denver, both Josey Jewell and Alex Singleton are strong blitzers in addition to their coverage game. Both will likely be better than LB Zaven Collins in Arizona based on their history in the league, even in schemes less blitz-heavy. Justin Simmons is the only defender of note who already played with Joseph, but he also brings the aforementioned Zach Allen to anchor a role as a 3-4 DE and interior pass rusher. Allen will need to show more than just the 35 pressures of last year to justify his contract, and Vance must know he has more in him. To ensure Payton’s own philosophies make their way into the building, Joe Vitt will sit as a defensive consultant after more than a decade with Payton as his assistant head coach. Vitt coached the Saints during Payton’s 2012 suspension, and it will be interesting to see if his fingerprints are on the team. It’s interesting to have him back at all after Payton fired him in 2017.
One last note: I don’t normally discuss special teams coaches, but the great Mike Westoff, a legend in the special teams game, is back in the NFL after a hiatus since 2018. His first retirement was in 2012 from the Jets. The longtime Shula man (a Phin from 1986 to 2000), Westoff will be the assistant head coach, likely overseeing a special teams staff of Ben Kotwica and the hilariously-named Chris Banjo. Denver’s hope for improvement this year is in the centuries of combined football experience from their coaching staff, a year after a bunch of young hotshots ran a promising Broncos team into the dirt.
Offense
After ranking last in the league in points scored last year, Sean Payton’s scheme should quickly illuminate where the problems lie for the Broncos as they chart a course forward under their new ownership. Media hype is at an all-time low for Russell Wilson, and the Broncos too seem to be hedging their bets, investing big free agency dollars in guys they hope bring some consistency to the less flashy forms of offense. On the offensive line, that manifested in two drastic overpays for RT Mike McGlinchey and LG Ben Powers. McGlinchey is a quintessential Kyle Shanahan 49ers lineman: drafted in the top 10, McGlinchey never put up consistent pass blocking numbers, but he was one of the most intelligent lineman in the league as far as zone blocking. He’s an absolute savant in terms of angles, entirely dependable in his ability to get up field and secure running lanes. The 49ers used him and Trent Williams on the other side to play rugby up the field with a cavalcade of speedy RBs, and the Broncos clearly hope they’re getting some of that intelligence with one of the richest free agent deals of the season. The early returns are quite bad: McGlinchy has graded with PFF as a below average tackle, not good in the run game, but also allowing a nauseating 12 pressures on 77 pass blocking snaps. Russell Wilson’s poor scrambling can only explain so much, and the 12 pressures is 2nd worst in the league right now behind Pittsburgh’s outmatched Dan Moore Jr., who got worked by Myles Garrett on Monday Night. Ben Powers comes over from Baltimore after some troubling seasons in which he looked physically outmatched in the power Baltimore scheme. Though he rarely got to zone block, Powers was much better there, a full 14 points better by PFF grading. The 338-pounder is surprisingly somewhat a finesse player, delivering his absolute best pass blocking performance last year, even with inconsistent QB play, allowing just 13 pressures in 596 opportunities. This year? A far worse rate with 7 pressures allowed in 2 games, good for 10th in the league. Powers is entirely a projection: can the downsides be fixed with a less idiosyncratic offense that prioritizes a one-cut zone scheme upfront? Powers will surely have less assignments to execute and be allowed to win one-on-one more often in the Broncos scheme. The new system and offensive line coaches bear some scrutiny when so much money appears to have already been wasted. There is plenty of talent outside of the two imports, namely in former 1st-round pick Garett Bolles (who has always ranked as a top half LT, but broke his leg last year) and excellent interior player Quinn Meinarz. Bolles is the type of invisible lineman you love at his best, but does have some real penalty issues (he had 17 in 2019, but a more normal 15 in the last two full seasons combined). Bolles is the 46th ranked tackle this year, delivering the same kind of steady play with 5 pressures allowed so far (decent) though he needs to pick up his run blocking. PFF likes Miami’s Kendall Lamm better, which might be the first time since Laremy Tunsil that a Dolphins tackle not named Terron Armstead was considered better than his opponent. Meinarz was a favorite of Dolphins Draft Twitter, and is currently playing well. He was an absolute mauler in the run game last year for a bad rushing offense, and coupled with the other investments in the line, he has some All-Pro potential. PFF likes him as the 2nd best guard through 2 games and, with one pressure allowed and his constant downfield blocking on big Javonte Williams runs, that’s a fair grade. Wilkins and Sieler will have their hands full. The one head-scratcher is the return of Lloyd Cushenberry III at center after his chemistry with Russ and the blocking schemes was atrocious last year. Cushenberry has never been even an average player, though he has some pass blocking skill, and the only real explanation there is a poor center market and/or a vision from Payton of some kind of competence. Cushenberry, however, is the only real weak link of a talented line, even if that line is probably prohibitively expensive. But that was pre-season: in the actual games, Cushenberry has yet to allow a single pressure and has been just good enough in the run game. The real problem, as you can tell, are the newcomers, and that says bad things about the Payton Plan.
At the skill positions, the Broncos have some NFL players who have already shown plenty of talent, and should benefit from creative looks within Payton’s offense. On the perimeter, Courtland Sutton and Jerry Jeudy provide an excellent top two. Jeudy in particular had a phenomenal third season in the NFL last year: he ranked 8th among players with qualifying targets in QB rating (111.8), edging out QB-friendly targets like Tee Higgins, Tyler Lockett, CeeDee Lamb, and Keenan Allen. His 2.18 yards per route run* was a bit below the top 10, but considering he played for a non-functioning offense, those numbers are almost certainly deflated and already fantastic. His YAC per reception* trailed only Deebo Samuel and Jaylen Waddle, tied with a legitimate MVP candidate in A.J. Brown. It’d say we’re looking at a Jerry Jeudy breakout season, but it was hampered by a preseason hamstring injury, and he is still looking to return to form. Sutton is a player who can do just about anything, but his numbers were fairly inefficient last year, and he has struggled to be noticed favorably since his 2020 knee injury. He does not produce much YAC, but he’s a smart route runner and showcased plenty of talent in 2019, when he looked like a top 10 player at his position. Interestingly, Wilson had the third-lowest rating when targeting Sutton, suggesting real chemistry issues. If Payton does not like him, Sutton is a good candidate for a trade at the deadline, but 2023 has shown some better returns with 9 catches for 98 yards and a score through 2 games. Behind those two, depth has thinned: Tim Patrick (Achilles) and K.J. Hamler (heart condition) are out for the year (Hamler has some gray area, but let’s assume he is, especially post-Hamlin). Marvin Mims Jr. is now the most important wild card of the receiving corps. Mims averaged over 20 yards a catch in his last two college seasons, and simply produced with the benefit of legit 4.38 speed. He was 5th in the country in deep ball yardage, and Wilson will love having a guy that resembles Tyler Lockett in body type and skillset. He’s already shown it off with 4 catches for an insane 122 yards and a score, averaging 30 yards a catch. Down the depth chart, undrafted free agent Brandon Johnson has already caught 2 TDs and Lil’Jordan Humphrey (who is 6’4” 225 lol) has a TD of his own. At TE, Greg Dulcich was compared by Sean Payton to Taysom Hill and, given Payton’s unhinged obsession with Hill’s skillset, that bodes well for Dulcich’s usage. Dulcich is on the Gesicki program: he plays half of his snaps in the slot and was one of the worst run blocking TEs in the league as a rookie. Dulcich will miss the game on IR, so another Saints retread (Adam Trautman) will start: he was held catchless in week 2 after catching 5 passes for 34 yards in the opener. The skill players are disappointing for Denver: once seen as a strength, injuries have thinned out the roster quickly. Mims and Jeudy remain the interesting players to watch as the season progresses.
As Payton seeks to revitalize this offense, special attention should be paid to the RB position. Javonte Williams looked on his way to a top 5 positional ranking, but suffered a full knee injury that typically requires serious time to rehab last year. He’s a guarantee to produce top 10 yards after contact with his physical run style, but the injury could be multiyear in terms of eddicacy. Enter Samaje Perine, an excellent third down back with enough elusiveness to suggest that he can handle a larger role within an NFL offense. Perine frequently looked like the more talented (and certainly more versatile) back in Cincinnati despite starter Joe Mixon’s pedigree. The team will likely utilize Perine all year, especially as an outlet for Wilson. Though he can certainly catch the ball well, Perine was also integral to protecting Joe Burrow in his years in Cincinnati as a willing pass blocker. At 235, Perine is big enough to handle contact, and his reliance on shiftiness rather than speed strikes me as almost a heavier Alvin Kamara, albeit with far less big play potential in the run game specifically. Both backs have yet to show any explosiveness to start the year, with Williams averaging less than 4 yards per carry and Perine only taking 9 carries. Both have been slightly better as receiving options for Wilson, but terrible in the pass blocking game despite previous success. Sean Payton is building a balanced attack in Denver, and if he can match the personnel to creative play calling, this should be a far cry from the lowest scoring offense in the league that arrived in 2022: the early returns are just mediocre.
Defense
Since Peyton Manning rode the 2015 all-star Broncos defense to championship heights, the Broncos have continued to nurture defense to an almost-detrimental degree. First, the Broncos hired the promising Vance Joseph from Miami, whose defenses maintained top 10 statuses, to be their head coach. After the Broncos went an abysmal 11-21 (with a good defense!) under Joseph, they turned to Vic Fangio for the next three years, who managed a 19-30 record and pedestrian DVOAs. The Broncos were getting older, and getting worse with each passing year, unable to totally restock the cupboard with players who could rotate in for their 2015 core. Last year, Ejiro Evero coordinated the team, retaining the Vic Fangio concepts and enjoying better efficiency than the team had seen in years: Evero declined the opportunity to be interim head coach and left for the vacancy in Carolina leaving the new DC in Denver to be…Vance Joseph! It’s a weird league.
While Joseph will likely find a team possessing far more talent than the lowly Cardinals that he coordinated for the past four years, it will not be on the defensive line. In two consecutive years, the Broncos traded away top edge rushing talent: first, Von Miller was traded in 2021 to cut costs and then Bradley Chubb (Miller’s ostensible heir to the position) was traded the next year to avoid paying him a large contract. In their stead, Randy Gregory and Baron Browning are set to rush the passer from the edge. Browning is merely a replacement-level player through two seasons, originally a Jerome Baker-esque LB moved to the edge in 2022 to less-than-inspiring results. He will not play in this game after starting the year on the PUP list. Gregory is a more interesting character, one of the league’s reclamation projects after various marijuana suspensions derailed the promising first-rounder’s career in Dallas. Gregory has never started every game in a season, never tallied more than 6 sacks, and yet landed a 5 year-70 million dollar deal on potential alone last year to be paired with Chubb. The plan never saw fruition, as Gregory was hurt by week 4 and returned after the Broncos were far from relevance. Jonathan Cooper and Nik Bonnito have rotated in with Browning sidelined, managing 10 pressures in two weeks between the two of them. Those numbers are solid through two weeks, and Cooper has been the better of the two rushers thanks to quality run defense. On the interior, the Broncos swap out Dre’Mont Jones (who went to Seattle after a disappointing career in run defense) for Zach Allen, who emerged as a pleasant surprise in all phases of the game for Joseph in Arizona. D.J. Jones, the 6’0” nose tackle from San Francisco, was another pleasant surprise in 2022, showing the versatility to move from nose to 3-technique, even if his play strength needs improvement. Neither showed out in the first two games, but the Broncos have a noticeably deep rotation, giving five different players (Allen, Jones, Mike Purcell, Matt Henningson, and Jonathan Harris) at least 27 snaps in the first two weeks. For the most part, this rotation has been the most effective piece of the Broncos defense, albeit against the Raiders and Commanders teams that lack pieces on the offensive line. At linebacker, the team returns Josey Jewell for the final year of his deal after a third straight year of quality performance, and enjoyed outlier performance from Eagles castoff Alex Singleton enough to reward him with a new 3-year, $18 million dollar contract. Jewell projects as the run stuffer while Singleton has become one of the league’s better coverage LBs. In the first two games, Jewell played like an absolute star, breaking up passes with athleticism and recording 5 defensive stops on 11 tackles. He’s a player you can count on to be both instinctive and technically sound, and he’s playing like Denver’s best defensive player in the Joseph system. He has not missed a tackle yet. Singleton has had a bit more difficulty, picked on in the pass game for 8 catches on 10 targets for 83 yards, 68 of which came after the catch. Still, he is a solid blitzer and extremely quick to the ball. The linebacker unit with the defensive line will clog up the offensive operation, and most teams will instead look to the perimeter to beat Denver.
In the secondary, veteran safeties and talented corners were the best hope for a good defense, but they have yet to play like it. Justin Simmons and Kareem Jackson are elite talents at safety over their careers, both perfectly suited for a Fangio defense (they famously flummoxed Tua in the 2020 Broncos game, forcing Flores to turn to Fitz, only for Fitz to throw the game away to Simmons). Justin Simmons had his first down year against the run last year, likely due to the ugly situation in Denver, and will likely return to form when reunited with the coach who discovered him in Vance Joseph. Simmons was a top 10 safety in the league for Vic Fangio, and will turn 30 when the season starts. Simmons has been weak in coverage to start the year, allowing a near-perfect passer rating* of 145.8 and he may have lost a step. Barring something miraculous, Simmons will sit this game out with a hip injury, and the Broncos will likely turn to youngster Dellarin Turner-Yell, who has 30 career defensive snaps. Meanwhile, Kareem Jackson is three years removed from his time as one of the league’s elite, and turns 35: he has savvy but needs to prove there is gas in the tank. His first two weeks were somewhat ill-fated as he delivered two flagged hits against receivers that put them out with concussions (Logan Thomas and Jakobi Meyers). The league announced he would not be suspended for the hits. He has just 6 tackles to start the year, offering less run support than he has in the past. At CB, the Broncos are anchored by the best young corner in the league, Patrick Surtain II. Surtain is as physical as his father, with fluid movement skills, and the ability to take any receiver anywhere. 2021 was a year of splash places rather than consistency, but in 2022, he showed off both: against Mahomes last year, he only allowed one catch on three attempts and had a highlight-reel INT on trail coverage. Mahomes did not bother targeting him the next game. Teams are following suit this year, and he’s allowed just 33 yards all season with 3 pass breakups. He is still looking for his first INT. Outside of Surtain, Ronald Darby’s departure allows 2022 4th rounder Damarri Mathis to step into a full-time role at corner (he was serviceable and dependable with 800 snaps last year) and the talented K’Waun Williams looks to add value as a slot corner. He’s 32 now, but still has the quickness from his days as an important inside piece for the 49ers and Browns, though he will also miss this game after preseason arthroscopic surgery. Essang Bassey is taking the nickel snaps, and appears to be outmatched physically: he has allowed all 7 of his targets to be caught and missed 2 tackles to start the season. Mathis, meanwhile, has been the weakest link of the difficult 0-2 start. He has allowed a QB rating of nearly 150, giving up 15 of 17 targets for 178 yards and 3 scores. Bad. Teams have picked on him due to Surtain and he has simply not stepped up.
The Broncos defense has real problems. They’d probably like to line up in man coverage, giving Mathis safety help and allowing Surtain to follow the best receiver on the field, but such a strategy is impossible against Miami. The scheme is too lethal and Tua is seeing the field too well. Help for Mathis will be the Broncos top priority, but to win games, they simply must tackle better. The tackling has been shoddy, especially in the screen game, where late fills allowed the Commanders to claw back from a giant first half deficit.
Special Teams
It isn’t easy to kick in Denver: the famed swirling winds in Mile High Stadium are reason enough to drop your fantasy football team’s kicker every year. Brandon McManus has been the guy since 2014 with a leg powerful enough to hit from 61 in 2021. Last year, he fell off a cliff, hitting just 28/36 attempts, including 3 misses from inside of 39 yards. Nope. Adding a non-impressive 8/13 from over 50, McManus moves on to the Jaguars. The Broncos signed Elliott Fry to take McManus’s place, a dude with just 6 career FG attempts to his name, none over 50 yards. The experiment failed, and the Broncos turned to Payton’s old reliable Wil Lutz. Lutz is 4 for 5 on extra points and has missed his only attempt above 40 yards; not good! At 29th overall, the Broncos had a negative DVOA in every category but kickoff, where McManus’s leg was an asset. Assistant coach Mike Westhoff is charged with fixing the unit now, starting by signing Riley Dixon to a nice two-year deal. Dixon was a top punter in the league last year with the Rams, tied for 7th highest yards per attempt and 11th highest net average. He pinned just 19 inside the 20 and needs to improve there, especially if the offense is not hot out of the gate. Alex Singleton, who played 771 snaps on defense at LB, is on every special team and will likely stay there as a solid weapon for the Broncos.
Game Prediction
It’s panic time in Denver. After losing two hotly contested games, including one that they had a 21-3 lead in AND hit a Hail Mary, the Waltons must wonder what they spent their life savings on (or, rather, .02% of their net worth). Payton’s team has played uninspired football, particularly defensively, where effort has been lackluster and plays have not been finished. Missed tackles were a drastic issue through the first two weeks, and the stars that once dominated opponents physically have been watered down to an overachieving Josey Jewell, an under-achieving Justin Simmons, and Patrick Surtain II, who is awesome and alone on an island. Teams can beat them quick, and the Dolphins are yet another. Losing Jaylen Waddle, as the team most likely will for just this week, will hurt a lot less if Berrios, Achane, and Cracraft are able to make plays in the short game. It’s hard to buy into the Denver defense at all right now: if the Commanders can score 35, the Dolphins sure should be able to do the same, especially with Terron Armstead back from his various ailments.
Defensively, the key is (of course) to hem in Russell Wilson and force him to beat you on long, plodding drives. The new NFL, with defenses mostly designed to do just that, is a tough look for Russ, and Miami will plan to do the same. Bradley Chubb will be looking to show out for his old team, Vic Fangio will have to manage his emotions (kidding, of course) in playing against the ownership that passed on holding onto him, and a defense that is still smarting from a week 1 beatdown will get a shot in the arm from the return of Jaelan Phillips after his odd practice back injury. The Broncos runners have been physical, and this would be a game in which the Phins were wise to keep David Long Jr. in the game to lean on his strong run fits and the pop he delivers to ball carriers. Even if Denver gets going quick, they will need to play all four quarters, and it’s been a good minute since they have.
This week, there’s really only one question and it isn’t even schematic: can you sustain your level of individual and collective preparation during your home opener after you started fast? The Dolphins are good, but this AFC requires all gas and no brakes, and the chance to go 3-0 in the conference and 1-0 in the division to set up a showdown in Buffalo for week 4 is too good to pass up. Get. It. Done.
Game Prediction: Dolphins 34-20
Season Record (Taylor Picks): 2-0
NEXT WEEK: Buffalo
* = See Glossary
