According to Colin Cowherd, the Denver Broncos will be one of the top 10 best teams in the NFL in 2020. His logic as to why is reasonable.
Although pretty much any major talking head in the sports media world making a positive prediction about the Broncos for 2020 would be surprising at this point, a top 10 ranking from Colin Cowherd of FOX Sports Radio is something worth discussing.
Cowherd has to have a beat on every sport, so he’s not always as tapped in as analysts who specifically cover the NFL, but he’s a betting man and specifically for that reason, his insight is worth at least discussing.
Cowherd spends the last couple minutes of this segment talking about his ‘shot’ for the 2020 season, the Broncos, and cites a number of logical reasons why Denver could be in good shape to make a little noise in 2020.
Check it out:
10. Denver Broncos
— Herd w/Colin Cowherd (@TheHerd) February 4, 2020
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7. New England Patriots
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1. San Francisco 49ers@ColinCowherd reveals his 'way-too-early' Herd Hierarchy for the 2020 NFL season: pic.twitter.com/P8HBgbGYnU
Colin initially says he thinks the Broncos are his ‘double the win total’ team but he forgot they won seven games total last season (although none of us are going to complain if the Broncos can win 14 games).
He thinks more realistically, the Broncos can win 11 games.
He felt like the Broncos should have won a couple more games early in the year, but cited a few reasons why he likes the Broncos.
1. In Drew Lock, the Broncos found ‘their guy’
For the wait-and-see crowd, the jury is still out on Drew Lock. You can’t put the guy in Canton after five games, but he showed enough to me in college and now in the pros to indicate he’s got what it takes to excel at the NFL level.
2. Top 10 defense/continuity in Fangio’s system
This is an underrated point to be made because the Broncos managed to have a top 10 defense without all of their key pieces in place.
Continuity in Fangio’s system will be key, as we’ve seen at his last two stops with the Bears and 49ers that the defense got better and better as they all grew together.
This is one of the main reasons I’m not giving up on some of the young players on defense, particularly in the secondary, despite the struggles some of them had in year one with Fangio’s derfense. We should see continued improvement.
3. Bradley Chubb’s return
This is another good reason to think Denver’s going to be back among the league’s top half in 2020 — Bradley Chubb is one of the best players on the roster.
One of the keys to the Broncos’ rebuild, Chubb is a foundation piece of the defense and a critical player to the success of Fangio’s defense as a whole.
4. Success down the stretch
Even with a depleted roster, the Broncos showed some serious guts down the stretch of the 2019 season with four wins in their last five games, the only loss coming on the road to the Super Bowl Champion Kansas City Chiefs.
I think this is proof that Fangio’s tactics have taken, and the team is ready to turn the corner.
Of course, with some of this Colin is projecting, but that’s part of making predictions in the sports media world. It’s also partly him saying things that Broncos fans want to hear, but the great part about it is, Colin is not under any obligation to do that.
As a matter of fact, he’s been highly critical of the Broncos in the past and has no hidden agenda here to hype up Denver for any reason.
He just likes a lot of things about this team, and he didn’t even mention the fact that the Broncos have over $60 million in cap space and 9, soon to be 12 draft picks.
Colin’s prediction of the Broncos being a top 10 team is not only within the realm of possibility, it borderline seems likely given this team’s assets and young core.