Tag: Broncos Defense

Broncos and Lions bring diverging defensive trends to a key Saturday night matchup

When the Broncos and Lions face off on Saturday night, it will be a story of two defenses that have changed dramatically.

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When the Denver Broncos and the Detroit Lions face off Saturday night at Ford Feld in Detroit, it’ll be one team fighting to maintain their division lead (the 9-4 Lions), and another trying to make a dent in the postseason picture after a horrible start (the 7-6 Broncos).

And in this case, we’re talking about two defenses that have gone in decidedly different directions in the second half of the season. That’s a good thing in Denver’s case. The Broncos ranked dead last in Defensive DVOA in through Week 9, and they rank sixth since. It’s even better for Vance Joseph’s defense against the pass — a team that ranked 32nd in Pass Defense DVOA through Week 9 now ranks third.

In the Lions’ case, it’s no bueno. Detroit started the season ranked eighth in Defensive DVOA through the first nine weeks, and they rank 28th since. The Lions ranked eighth in Pass Defense DVOA in the first half of the season, and they’re stuck at 28th since.

How can two NFL defenses go so strongly in different directions so quickly? Let’s go under the hood.

Why is the Denver Broncos’ defense historically putrid?

The Denver Broncos’ defense is one of the worst in pro football history through five weeks. How did things fall apart, and how can they fix it?

In 2022, the tale of the Denver Broncos was the complete cratering of the offense with Russell Wilson, and a defense that ranked 13th in DVOA was a sub-story, at best. The Broncos made all kinds of changes in the offseason, including the trade that allowed them to hire Sean Payton as head coach, and replacing defensive coordinator Ejiro Evero with Vance Joseph.

Through the first five games of the 2023 season, the script has flipped about as much as it is possible to do. Wilson is actually performing decently in Payton’s offense — not nearly what he was at his Seattle best, but at least out of the figurative gutter.

No, the problem for the 1-4 Broncos now is a defense that is historically bad. No team has ranked worse in Defensive DVOA through the first five games of a season than Denver, and DVOA goes back to 1981 at this point. Denver has given up 13 opponent touchdowns to just three interceptions, and their opponent passer rating allowed of 124.6 is by far the NFL’s worst — the Chicago Bears rank second at 111.1.

The run defense is just as bad, which is kind of remarkable — usually, subpar defenses are sub-par in one direction or the other. Kudos to the Broncos for filling out both sides of the equation. Denver has allowed a league-worst 938 rushing yards and a league-worst 5.9 yards per carry and eight touchdowns, which is only the league’s second-worst total, behind the New York Giants and Carolina Panthers, who have each allowed nine.

The nadir of this defense this season — at least, so far — was the 70-20 Week 3 loss to the Miami Dolphins, when the Broncos became the first team in pro football history to allow 10 offensive touchdowns in a game. But things haven’t been much better since. On Sunday, the New York Jets beat the Broncos, 31-21, and it wasn’t Zach Wilson who beat them — it was a run game that amassed 234 yards, the third-most allowed by any defense in a game this season. No. 1 in that category? The 350 yards the Broncos allowed to the Dolphins in that 70-20 laugher.

So, it’s clear that the Denver Broncos have a historically bad defense. Why has this happened, and how in the world do they fix it?

The Broncos’ defense has officially jumped the shark

The Broncos’ defense was embarrassed enough against the Dolphins; now they’re getting waxed by the Bears. How the mighty have fallen.

The Denver Broncos’ defense, under new coordinator Vance Joseph, has experienced all kinds of embarrassment. It was bad enough when the Broncos allowed 10 offensive touchdowns and 726 total yards last week against the high-flying Miami Dolphins, but what’s happening early on against Justin Fields and the Chicago Bears is especially not good.

The Bears’ passing game has been especially putrid this season, but against Denver on Sunday, Fields has looked more like Josh Allen or Tua Tagovailoa than anything we’ve seen this season to date. The first half isn’t even over, and Denver’s problematic coverages have already ceded two big touchdowns from Fields and his targets.

There was this 29-yarder to DJ Moore with 14:53 left in the second quarter…

…and this 22-yarder to Cole Kmet on the very next drive.

UPDATE: In the time it took me to write this, Fields hit Kmet for ANOTHER touchdown.

After that score, Fields upped his stats to 12 completions in 12 attempts for 185 yards and three touchdowns. Which means that the Broncos haven’t allowed an incomplete pass in the first half since Week 2, as Tagovailoa completed 16 of 16 for 206 yards and two touchdowns in that Week 3 debacle.

The Broncos already ranked dead last in Defensive DVOA before this game — at this rate, the guys over at FTN may have to build a floor under the basement to accurately rate what this defense is doing.

Studs and duds from Broncos 16-9 loss to Jets

Mostly duds for the Broncos after yet another loss.

The Denver Broncos’ Week 7 matchup against the New York Jets ended in a 16-9 loss at Empower Field at Mile High on Sunday afternoon. Broncos Wire chronicles the studs and duds from the loss.

How the Broncos absolutely demolished the Cowboys’ top-tier offense

The Broncos came to AT&T Stadium against a Cowboys offense that was loaded for bear. Denver’s defense gave Dak Prescott several surprises.

If there was one defense primed for trouble in Week 9, it was the Denver Broncos’ defense. The same defense that was now without all-time pass-rusher Von Miller after Miller was traded to the Rams could have taken a nose dive in a “rebuilding” season and allowed the Cowboys to work them all over the field. Dak Prescott was back from his calf injury, and even with Cooper Rush at quarterback in Week 8, Dallas embarrassed the Vikings in Week 8 in a 20-16 win as Rush completed 24 of 40 passes for 325 yards, two touchdowns, and one interception in his first NFL start. As the Vikings ranked fourth in Defensive DVOA and third against the pass after that game, and the Broncos ranked 25th in Defensive DVOA overall after Week 8, and Dak was back, and Miller was gone… well, if this had been a Cowboys uprising, nobody would have been surprised.

That’s not how it played out. Denver’s defense, led by head coach Vic Fangio, performed masterfully against one of the NFL’s best offenses. They played their usual brands of man and match coverage, but they did so far more physically than they had all season, and they did so consistently. Moreover, they tied pressure to coverage magnificently. When Prescott had time to find the open receiver, the receiver generally wasn’t open for long. And Prescott was pressured more than he found comfortable. Per Pro Football Focus, the Broncos got some kind of pressure on 17 of Prescott’s 43 dropbacks, and while Prescott did pretty well against it (six completions in 13 attempts for 88 yards, one touchdown and no interceptions), he didn’t have any kind of consistent answer for Denver’s complex, plastering, suffocating coverages.

Overall, Prescott finished his day with 19 completions in 39 attempts for 232 yards, two garbage-time touchdowns, and one interception. The Cowboys attempted four fourth-down conversions, and failed every time.

“We got beat,” Prescott said after the game, when asked what happened. “We got thumped in every aspect of the game. Especially on offense, didn’t get it going. We scored a couple of touchdowns there in late time, but never got going. I missed some throws. We didn’t throw and catch the ball as we normally do. It wasn’t our best performance by any means, obviously our worst of the year. Credit to those guys. It’s the NFL, those guys get paid to do this and play at a high level and they came in here and were more prepared of this game. Did a great job, did better than we did. Just beat us, plain and simple.”

The two touchdowns came late in the fourth quarter when the Broncos were already up, 30-0, and things had been well-decided. Before that, we were all looking up the last time the Cowboys got shut out at home — it was September 15, 1991, when Dallas was blown out 24-0 by the Eagles of… Rich Kotite?

Any given Sunday, I guess.

In any event, this was a shocking turn of events for both Dallas’ offense and Denver’s defense. Let’s get into how (and why) it went that way.