Denver Broncos: Will the offense finally come alive in 2020?

It seems as though it has been ages since we watched the Denver Broncos put up record numbers on offense with Peyton Manning at quarterback.

When the Broncos went to the Super Bowl in 2013, Peyton Manning threw 55 touchdown passes and the team put up more points (606) than any team in NFL history. It was truly one of the most electric offenses the league has ever seen.

Though not quite as unstoppable the following year, the team still averaged 30.1 points per game in 2014. It has been a steady decline since, with a small sign of improvement this past season.

Manning began to physically decline in 2015 and though the Broncos won the Super Bowl thanks for a great defense, the team dropped down to an average of 21.5 points per game that season.

Manning retired and Trevor Siemian ended up winning the starting quarterback job. The team started that season 4-0 but finished 9-7 and missing the playoffs. The team averaged 20.8 points per game that season but a big reason why it missed the playoffs that year was due to the fact that between Weeks 14-16, the team scored a grand total of 23 points in a three-game losing streak.

Things got really ugly offensively following that season.

Vance Joseph came in as the team’s new head coach. Things got off to a promising start after the team beat the Los Angeles Chargers in the season opener before blasting the Dallas Cowboys 42-17 in Week 2.

But in the next 10 games of that season, the team scored more than 17 points just once and the Broncos lost nine of those games, one of the worst slides in team history. For the season, the Broncos averaged 18.0 points per game.

In Joseph’s second year as head coach, the team scored more total points but the offense was just as inept. The team averaged 20.5 points per game that season but those numbers are a bit inflated by a 45-point outburst against a bad Arizona Cardinals team.

After scratching and clawing their way back to a 6-6 record, the Broncos were unbelievably talking playoffs. The team then went on to lose its final four games, averaging a measly 13.2 points per game over that stretch.

The 2019 campaign brought in a new coach but that coach, Vic Fangio, was also known for his defense.

The team got out to a rough 0-4 start and in those games, averaged 17.5 points per game. That number actually dropped as the season went on as the Broncos, who missed the playoffs for a fourth consecutive season, averaged 16.3 points per game on the year.

But things definitely looked brighter in the five games Drew Lock started at quarterback. Take a look at these numbers:

2019 Broncos without Lock (11 games): 15.9 points per game

2019 Broncos with Lock (5 games): 21.4 points per game

Poor quarterback play is the biggest thing that has contributed to the Broncos not being able to score points. Siemian, Paxton Lynch, Case Keenum, Joe Flacco and Brandon Allen just weren’t the answer.

But it certainly seems that Lock could be.

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It’s great to have a swarming, physical defense that makes the opposing offense earn every yard it gets. That’s the whole idea of playing defense and Fangio is going to pride himself on that. But not every defense is the 1985 Chicago Bears or the 2000 Baltimore Ravens.

A team needs to be able to score points in a division where Patrick Mahomes is the quarterback of one of the other teams. The Broncos need more offensive weapons in order to do that and that should be one of the real focuses of this offseason.

While a coach like Fangio likes to win games 16-10, it’s not practical to be able to sustain that in today’s NFL where a good portion of the rules are geared toward an offensive game.

If the Broncos can build off the 21.4 points per game that Lock helped the team average in the latter stages of last season and perhaps add another four or five points per game to that average, the Broncos could be in good shape in 2020.

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