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From one of my favorite posters at OM, Kaylore - in the past he gave me permission to post his stuff at KFFL as long as it gave him credit and linked to the original.
My case for why the Broncos will and will not go to the Super Bowl - The Orange Mane - a Denver Broncos Fan Community
"I wanted to try and objectively look at the chances for the Broncos to make it to the Super Bowl. My instincts are they are too flawed offensively to do so. But I wanted to give it an honest look and break things down. So I will be making a case for why the Broncos will not, and possibly will make it to the Super Bowl. I will start with the bad news first.
Why Denver could be one and done:
The biggest weakness of the team is their offense. They are prone to mistakes, turnover the ball too much, don’t protect their quarterback and are bad in the redzone.
Of the six playoff teams, the Broncos are one of only two teams who don’t have a top ten scoring offense. At the top are the Patriots, who rank 3rd, Pitt is next at 4th, then the Bengals are 7th, followed by KC who is 9th. Only Houston trails at 22nd.
Denver leads the entire league in interceptions. Manning lead the league in interceptions despite not playing for more than a third of the season and only finished second the final game of the year to Blake Bortles. Of the AFC opponents in the playoffs, KC, Cincinnati, Pittsburgh and Houston are all top 15 in interceptions.
Denver is the bottom third in sacks allowed per game. This despite having, for a time, one of the most difficult QB’s to sack in NFL history. They tend to let their QB get hit and often do so at terrible times. They will be Playing teams ranked 2-4 and 9 in sacks per game in the playoffs. The Broncos addressed some of this by mercifully benching Michael Schofield. Part of me hopes his being the starter was at the insistence of the front office, where Elway wanted to give his pick every chance possible to fail to try and recoup the value. We’ll call this the George Foster treatment. Regardless, with the loss of Clady and Sambreillo, we’re either stuck with Schofield or the guy who couldn’t beat him out in practice for whatever reason. Not a lovely thought. The bottom line is ask yourself if this offensive line is one you could see playing in and winning the Super Bowl.
Denver has the seventh most incompletions per game in the NFL. This is related to a porous line, but also a receiving corps that is towards the top of the league in drops. DT has had a bad year. And outside of Sanders, there aren’t really any other receiving targets who have been consistent. They also are bottom third in yards per pass attempt – a stat usually symptomatic of poor QB play. It all speaks to an offense that lacks confidence and coordination.
Denver is not good enough on the ground to account for the weak passing attack. Sometimes a below average passing game can be mitigated by a potent rushing attack. Not so with the Broncos. Denver’s rushing game is actually getting better. However it is currently ranked middle of the road in both yards per rush and rushing touchdowns. Not nearly good enough to account for all the offensive woes.
Denver has the fifth worst redzone scoring offense in the entire league. This is a stat familiar to those who watched the Shanahan offense post-Elway. The system fit for nimble, undersized linemen has a tendency to work well between the 20’s and prove anemic when it counts. To make matters worse, the entire rest of the AFC playoff field is in the top 15 for redzone scoring percentage. The next worst is KC at 14th.
Peyton Manning. Manning’s record in the playoffs speaks for itself. You can nitpick things, but the bottom line is he has sometimes struggled against physical teams in the playoffs.
Denver’s offense had moments of decent performance coupled with overall bad play showing the latter to be the norm and not the former. It’s difficult to see an offense that performs this poorly and not expect it to wilt against the elite teams of the NFL.
Why Denver could go all the way:
When you read the above list and didn’t know anything about the Broncos, it reads like this is a team that is somewhere between 5-7 wins and picking in the top fifteen of the draft. But they’re the top seed in the AFC. So obviously something went right.
Denver leads the league in total Defense. This is the obvious answer, but it is a huge one. They are also first in passing offense, third rushing offense (they were 35 total yards away from being number 1 in rushing defense) and fourth in scoring defense. Now go back and re-read how crappy the offense has been. This is how the Denver defense finished and consider that had Denver’s offense not shot themselves in the foot over and over again all season, the Denver defense could have finished with even better statistics – certainly in terms of scoring, probably in most other statistics. Of the top ranked Defenses in the last six years, four have gone on to the Super Bowl and two have won it. So having an elite Defense is HUGE.
Denver has good special teams defense at home. Denver is top five in touchbacks and toward the top of the league at home in not allowing kickoff or punt return yards. This means in two of the three areas of the game, Denver will be formidable.
The offensive line may be reshuffled. No offense to Michael Schofield, but he was one of the biggest weaknesses on the offensive line. If a more experience Polumbus can come in and be marginal, it would be a huge upgrade. There have been instances of teams changing their offensive line prior to a playoff run with much success, more recently with the Ravens who did so on their way to a SB win.
Denver is 5-2 against playoff teams this year. For all their warts, the Broncos have a very good winning percentage against playoff teams this year. They also never lost to a division winner this year. Of the two wild card teams, Denver has lost to both. However the Chiefs got out to a lead after picking off a clearly injured Manning several times, and Denver has also defeated the Chiefs once and they lost on the road to the Steelers in Pittsburgh by one score. They would get to play both teams again at home should they meet either one.
Denver has home field advantage. Every game Denver gets to play, excepting the last one, will be in Denver. They are 6-2 at home this season and 16-5 all time in the playoffs at home. Denver is a difficult place to play recently and overall historically. Consider also many of the teams like the Steelers, Chiefs and Patriots have losing records in Denver – again recently and historically.
Denver gets a bye. There is a lot of debate about Bye’s especially around Manning. However in the case of the hobbled Broncos, this is undoubtedly an advantage. CJ Anderson and Manning both had their best games coming off the bye week this season. In Kubiak’s short playoff experience he has never lost his first playoff game. Consider that Manning has had several weeks off. He would only need to play two games back to back, get another bye, and be fresh for the big game if we get that far; An ideal situation for a QB who is breaking down.
Peyton Manning. He has the playoff experience and despite the issues he’s encountered before, he literally has never had a defense line this backing him up. It will be more difficult for defenses to fool him, and as one commentator remarked, he called a better game than Kubiak did once he came in. A lot of the big runs were a result of Manning fixing Kubiak’s work. The team feeds off his experience and leadership.
The offense has to lean on the run, protect the QB and put up some points in the redzone. The defense will be fresh and playing at home with a great defense is a decided advantage for the home team. If the offense continues its turnover ways, we could be looking at another first round exit."
My case for why the Broncos will and will not go to the Super Bowl - The Orange Mane - a Denver Broncos Fan Community
"I wanted to try and objectively look at the chances for the Broncos to make it to the Super Bowl. My instincts are they are too flawed offensively to do so. But I wanted to give it an honest look and break things down. So I will be making a case for why the Broncos will not, and possibly will make it to the Super Bowl. I will start with the bad news first.
Why Denver could be one and done:
The biggest weakness of the team is their offense. They are prone to mistakes, turnover the ball too much, don’t protect their quarterback and are bad in the redzone.
Of the six playoff teams, the Broncos are one of only two teams who don’t have a top ten scoring offense. At the top are the Patriots, who rank 3rd, Pitt is next at 4th, then the Bengals are 7th, followed by KC who is 9th. Only Houston trails at 22nd.
Denver leads the entire league in interceptions. Manning lead the league in interceptions despite not playing for more than a third of the season and only finished second the final game of the year to Blake Bortles. Of the AFC opponents in the playoffs, KC, Cincinnati, Pittsburgh and Houston are all top 15 in interceptions.
Denver is the bottom third in sacks allowed per game. This despite having, for a time, one of the most difficult QB’s to sack in NFL history. They tend to let their QB get hit and often do so at terrible times. They will be Playing teams ranked 2-4 and 9 in sacks per game in the playoffs. The Broncos addressed some of this by mercifully benching Michael Schofield. Part of me hopes his being the starter was at the insistence of the front office, where Elway wanted to give his pick every chance possible to fail to try and recoup the value. We’ll call this the George Foster treatment. Regardless, with the loss of Clady and Sambreillo, we’re either stuck with Schofield or the guy who couldn’t beat him out in practice for whatever reason. Not a lovely thought. The bottom line is ask yourself if this offensive line is one you could see playing in and winning the Super Bowl.
Denver has the seventh most incompletions per game in the NFL. This is related to a porous line, but also a receiving corps that is towards the top of the league in drops. DT has had a bad year. And outside of Sanders, there aren’t really any other receiving targets who have been consistent. They also are bottom third in yards per pass attempt – a stat usually symptomatic of poor QB play. It all speaks to an offense that lacks confidence and coordination.
Denver is not good enough on the ground to account for the weak passing attack. Sometimes a below average passing game can be mitigated by a potent rushing attack. Not so with the Broncos. Denver’s rushing game is actually getting better. However it is currently ranked middle of the road in both yards per rush and rushing touchdowns. Not nearly good enough to account for all the offensive woes.
Denver has the fifth worst redzone scoring offense in the entire league. This is a stat familiar to those who watched the Shanahan offense post-Elway. The system fit for nimble, undersized linemen has a tendency to work well between the 20’s and prove anemic when it counts. To make matters worse, the entire rest of the AFC playoff field is in the top 15 for redzone scoring percentage. The next worst is KC at 14th.
Peyton Manning. Manning’s record in the playoffs speaks for itself. You can nitpick things, but the bottom line is he has sometimes struggled against physical teams in the playoffs.
Denver’s offense had moments of decent performance coupled with overall bad play showing the latter to be the norm and not the former. It’s difficult to see an offense that performs this poorly and not expect it to wilt against the elite teams of the NFL.
Why Denver could go all the way:
When you read the above list and didn’t know anything about the Broncos, it reads like this is a team that is somewhere between 5-7 wins and picking in the top fifteen of the draft. But they’re the top seed in the AFC. So obviously something went right.
Denver leads the league in total Defense. This is the obvious answer, but it is a huge one. They are also first in passing offense, third rushing offense (they were 35 total yards away from being number 1 in rushing defense) and fourth in scoring defense. Now go back and re-read how crappy the offense has been. This is how the Denver defense finished and consider that had Denver’s offense not shot themselves in the foot over and over again all season, the Denver defense could have finished with even better statistics – certainly in terms of scoring, probably in most other statistics. Of the top ranked Defenses in the last six years, four have gone on to the Super Bowl and two have won it. So having an elite Defense is HUGE.
Denver has good special teams defense at home. Denver is top five in touchbacks and toward the top of the league at home in not allowing kickoff or punt return yards. This means in two of the three areas of the game, Denver will be formidable.
The offensive line may be reshuffled. No offense to Michael Schofield, but he was one of the biggest weaknesses on the offensive line. If a more experience Polumbus can come in and be marginal, it would be a huge upgrade. There have been instances of teams changing their offensive line prior to a playoff run with much success, more recently with the Ravens who did so on their way to a SB win.
Denver is 5-2 against playoff teams this year. For all their warts, the Broncos have a very good winning percentage against playoff teams this year. They also never lost to a division winner this year. Of the two wild card teams, Denver has lost to both. However the Chiefs got out to a lead after picking off a clearly injured Manning several times, and Denver has also defeated the Chiefs once and they lost on the road to the Steelers in Pittsburgh by one score. They would get to play both teams again at home should they meet either one.
Denver has home field advantage. Every game Denver gets to play, excepting the last one, will be in Denver. They are 6-2 at home this season and 16-5 all time in the playoffs at home. Denver is a difficult place to play recently and overall historically. Consider also many of the teams like the Steelers, Chiefs and Patriots have losing records in Denver – again recently and historically.
Denver gets a bye. There is a lot of debate about Bye’s especially around Manning. However in the case of the hobbled Broncos, this is undoubtedly an advantage. CJ Anderson and Manning both had their best games coming off the bye week this season. In Kubiak’s short playoff experience he has never lost his first playoff game. Consider that Manning has had several weeks off. He would only need to play two games back to back, get another bye, and be fresh for the big game if we get that far; An ideal situation for a QB who is breaking down.
Peyton Manning. He has the playoff experience and despite the issues he’s encountered before, he literally has never had a defense line this backing him up. It will be more difficult for defenses to fool him, and as one commentator remarked, he called a better game than Kubiak did once he came in. A lot of the big runs were a result of Manning fixing Kubiak’s work. The team feeds off his experience and leadership.
The offense has to lean on the run, protect the QB and put up some points in the redzone. The defense will be fresh and playing at home with a great defense is a decided advantage for the home team. If the offense continues its turnover ways, we could be looking at another first round exit."
