Top 10 things that have defined the 2020 season for the Denver Broncos.
The Denver Broncos, like most NFL teams, have not exactly had an easy go of it in 2020.
Every NFL season is difficult for its own reasons, but the 2020 campaign was especially challenging for the young Broncos who faced overwhelming adversity at seemingly every turn.
With 2020 nearly in the books, the 2020 season nearly at its conclusion, and many eyes already on the 2021 NFL Draft and offseason in general, how can we look back on the season that was for the Denver Broncos?
Here are 10 things that defined the 2020 season for the Broncos.
10. Firing Rich Scangarello, Hiring Pat Shurmur
As the Houston Texans were blowing a colossal lead over the Kansas City Chiefs and I, personally, was falling asleep peacefully at the sight of it, my phone started blowing up with notifications that the Denver Broncos had made a huge move.
Just a couple of weeks after Vic Fangio said he thought all three of his coordinators would be back for the 2020 season, the Broncos fired first-year offensive coordinator Rich Scangarello with a more veteran name in mind.
That obviously turned out to be Pat Shurmur, who was fired from his head coaching gig with the New York Giants.
The Broncos were expected to attempt continuity with Scangarello, but there were apparently enough inconsistencies with his game management as a coordinator that the Broncos decided they wanted Shurmur’s system and experience in place.
Shurmur, a veteran coordinator, inherited the youngest offense in the NFL “by a thousand snaps” he said at his most recent press conference, and while that’s not an excuse (because the Broncos are talented) it is context for the way this team has been so inconsistent.
But hopefully, most fans knew there would be growing pains with some moments of brilliance along the way, even with a veteran coordinator. Shurmur is now poised to lead the unit into at least a year two in 2021 with some decent success (or at least, progress) down the home stretch of the 2020 season.
9. Big Veteran Trades
For varying reasons, the Denver Broncos decided to go out and make some of their biggest acquisitions in the 2020 offseason through trades.
Armed with a ton of picks in the 2020 NFL Draft, the Broncos sent a fourth-round pick to the Jacksonville Jaguars for veteran cornerback AJ Bouye and a seventh-round pick to the Tennessee Titans for defensive lineman Jurrell Casey.
These two moves had Broncos Country absolutely thrilled based on the players’ pedigree, but there was obviously some inherent risk in acquiring both players.
For Bouye, it has been recent injury history. For Casey, it was age.
Bouye played just seven games for the Broncos, limited by injuries before he was given a six-game PED suspension that will linger into 2021.
Casey played just three games before a biceps injury ended his 2020 campaign that barely got started in the first place.
It ended up being Casey’s first NFL ‘season’ without a sack and his first one with fewer than five sacks since 2012.
Now, the jury is out as to whether either of these players will be back with the Broncos in 2021 even though both are still under contract.
8. Signing RB Melvin Gordon
Very few fans were initially pleased by the Denver Broncos’ decision to sign Melvin Gordon to a two-year, $16 million deal in free agency.
Gordon, a former first-round pick of the Los Angeles Chargers, was fresh off of a disappointing season that Vic Fangio says can be attributed pretty directly to his holdout and contract situation with the Chargers.
Gordon’s arrival seemed to spell bad news for incumbent Phillip Lindsay, depending on who you asked, though the Broncos preached all offseason that Gordon and Lindsay could be a top duo together and it was a tremendous benefit to have two complementary backs like that on the roster.
If it had all worked out, it would have worked out.
Lindsay struggled with injuries from the first game of the season. Gordon had a tough first half of his Broncos career with fumbles, a DUI, and a missed game due to sickness.
As the season unfolded, however, Gordon’s value to the Broncos became abundantly clear. He has made two of the best receptions of the entire season by any player on the roster (Steelers and Jets games) and he’s clearly the best all-around back on the roster.
Part of that may have to do with Lindsay’s health, but all things considered, the Broncos’ reasoning for signing Gordon has been more than validated this year as he has eclipsed 1,000 yards from scrimmage and nine touchdowns with a shot at 1,000 rushing yards in week 17.
7. The 2020 NFL Draft
The 2020 NFL Draft was a lot of fun for the Denver Broncos.
It started with a bang as the team drafted its first Alabama player in the John Elway era, former Biletnikoff Award winner Jerry Jeudy.
The Broncos then pulled something they have never done in franchise history, taking back-to-back receivers with their first two picks when they used a second-rounder on Penn State’s KJ Hamler.
In the third round, the Broncos found starters in Michael Ojemudia and Lloyd Cushenberry III as well as developmental defensive lineman McTelvin Agim.
They proved their faith in Drew Lock by drafting his former Missouri teammate Albert Okwuegbunam in round four.
That selection was followed up by Wake Forest linebacker Justin Strnad in round five, offensive guard Netane Muti in round six, wide receiver Tyrie Cleveland in round seven, and pass rusher Derrek Tuszka with their final pick.
This draft class has been loaded with a mix of instant contributions as well as tremendous upside for the future. If it weren’t for injury, all of Jeudy, Hamler, Ojemudia, Cushenberry, Okwuegbunam, and even Strnad have had or would have had major roles on this team in 2020.
Injuries have limited Okwuegbunam and Strnad, as well as undrafted nickel corner Essang Bassey, but the Broncos should be thrilled with what they have in this 2020 rookie class going forward.
6. Justin Simmons doesn’t get a long-term deal
For the first time in the John Elway era, a player who was franchise tagged earlier in the offseason did not receive a long-term deal by the deadline to receive one.
This had to be one of the more bizarre deals of the entire year for the Broncos, at least just in terms of things the team could legitimately control.
Simmons has now been twice named the team’s Walter Payton Man of the Year candidate and he stands a decent chance of winning that honor in 2020. Simmons exemplifies everything — everything — the Broncos have emphasized when it comes to wanting to be a Bronco, being a team-first guy, playing at a high level, being available, and being consistent.
Simmons may not have a signature post-game sound byte that has gone viral at this point, but he’s one of the top leaders on the team and is one of the only guys on defense that has consistently been able to create turnovers over the last five years.
The fact that he doesn’t already have a long-term deal is surprising, but once the deadline passed, the Broncos obviously had to wait for the 2021 offseason to negotiate again.
Hopefully, that will get done, but Simmons showed what kind of guy he is by literally playing every snap and not missing any practice time while on the franchise tag.
5. Von Miller suffers a season-ending ankle injury
I was at Disney World, the happiest place on earth, when I returned to my hotel room to a bunch of messages that something bad happened to Von Miller on the last rep of practice as the team prepared to face off against the Tennessee Titans in the season opener.
A season-ending foot injury.
The Denver Broncos’ leader, highest-paid player, and best defensive player arguably in franchise history poised for a big season was lost.
Just before the regular season began, it was a massive blow to a Denver Broncos team that, with its youth, had already lost a huge chunk of the offseason to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Miller himself had COVID and after his recovery had put in the work for one of the most impressive offseasons we have seen from him in his time with the Broncos, at least physically. Miller looked like he had taken up body building after his recovery from COVID and everyone in Broncos Country was excited to hopefully, finally get the chance to see Bradley Chubb and Miller together in Vic Fangio’s defense for an extended period of time.
Losing Miller paved the way for Malik Reed to prove his worth as a top reserve, but it also has significantly shown up in the Broncos’ ability to close games.
4. Drew Lock, Courtland Sutton hurt during the same game
The Denver Broncos, after dropping their first game of the season, hoped to go into Pittsburgh and pull off an upset in week two.
They almost did just that, but the Broncos lost more than just a game when they traveled to Pittsburgh.
First, Drew Lock was hurt while trying to catch himself falling to the ground and simultaneously being hammered into it like a stake by Steelers pass rusher Bud Dupree. Lock suffered a significant injury to his throwing shoulder and was slapped with a vague but not season-ending timeline for a return to the field.
In the same game, star wide receiver Courtland Sutton — playing in his first game of the season after a shoulder injury prior to week one — let a ball hit him in the hands for a tip-drill interception.
As the Steelers were trying to run the interception back, Sutton attempted to make a tackle and ended up tearing up his knee in the process. Specifically, Sutton suffered a torn ACL and MCL in that particular game.
Lock obviously came back from his injury after starts from both Jeff Driskel and Brett Rypien, missing minimal time thanks to a rescheduling of the team’s matchup with the Patriots, but Sutton’s injury paired with Von Miller’s injury meant the Broncos had lost their best players on both offense and defense for the year.
It could be a piece of this post all its own, but injuries throughout the 2020 season have been the primary reason this team is eliminated from the playoffs. Head coach Vic Fangio said in his many, many years in the NFL, he cannot recall a roster being more impacted by injuries than these 2020 Broncos.
3. Garett Bolles earns a long-term extension
The Denver Broncos decided before the 2020 offseason program to decline Garett Bolles’ fifth-year team option as a former first-round draft choice (2017).
Although the price to retain Bolles on the fifth-year option was not prohibitive, it’s no small chunk of change and the Broncos decided to make Bolles go ahead and prove himself.
In year two under offensive line coach Mike Munchak, his fourth overall season in the NFL, Bolles took a leap forward that almost nobody saw coming.
The most optimistic Denver Broncos fans hoped Bolles could prove the Broncos right by at least improving after the team didn’t spend a single draft choice on the offensive tackle position. Less optimistic fans felt like the Broncos were wasting their time by going another year with Bolles at left tackle.
Considering his habit for holding penalties, it wasn’t wrong to be skeptical of Bolles’ development, but his final stretch of games in 2019 at least raised some eyebrows and gave everyone in the Broncos’ building hope that he could be what they drafted him to be — a franchise player at the position.
Bolles’ play has been so strong in 2020, the team rewarded him with a massive contract extension keeping him around for the foreseeable future.
This has been arguably the biggest and most positive roster or player personnel development for the Broncos all year, and certainly one of the most important.
2. COVID-19 impact on the season
The COVID-19 pandemic has impacted everyone, not just professional sports teams.
The NFL has taken its own approach to dealing with the pandemic, largely working around it, but the Denver Broncos have certainly been significantly impacted by it.
Initially, the Broncos had to deal with the loss of starting right tackle and prized 2019 free agent Ja’Wuan James, who opted out of the 2020 season completely due to concerns over the pandemic and inherent injury risks with the lack of offseason preparation.
The loss of James sent the Broncos into somewhat of a scramble at right tackle as Elijah Wilkinson was also recovering from offseason surgery.
The opt-out of James aside, the Broncos’ young offense was obviously limited to organizing their own workouts where it was even possible as many states limited gatherings to just a small handful of people, if you were allowed in public at all, over the offseason months.
The team’s “OTAs” happened over Zoom calls. Training camp was expedited and the players barely had any time on task learning a new offense while many were simultaneously finding their footing in the NFL.
Over the course of the season, the Broncos’ gameday roster has been substantially impacted by COVID rules and protocols as well.
Shelby Harris missed four games on the COVID/reserve list. Other players missed a game or multiple games, but there was no more significant event than all four of the Broncos’ quarterbacks being declared ineligible for the team’s contest at home against the New Orleans Saints, which forced the Broncos to use practice squad wide receiver Kendall Hinton as their top quarterback for a game.
Everyone knew there was a possibility this kind of thing could happen, but obviously it was a really disappointing piece of the Broncos’ 2020 season and, unfortunately, one of the things people will remember the most about it.
1. A sign of things to come for the Denver Broncos?
Amidst all of the craziness of 2020 for the Denver Broncos, things have settled in at least a little bit and the team has shown progress and potential throughout the campaign.
The 2020 season has been all about the team getting to know what they have in quarterback Drew Lock.
Unfortunately, that has been stunted at times by Lock’s shoulder injury and the bizarre event that occurred leading up to the New Orleans Saints game, but the Broncos officially have a full season schedule of games to evaluate from Lock dating back to his first five starts in 2019.
What do the Broncos think of him really? How much stock can they put into a learning season like this that has been so limited with Sutton being out, the offseason being so short, and the team installing a new offense filled with young players?
Again, these are not meant to be excuses, but context for why the Broncos’ offense is not putting up 30 points per game. Progress is not always linear, but it does appear as though Drew Lock has taken substantial steps forward from where he was at the beginning of the season, and there is reason to be hopeful for his future with the team.
Not every quarterback clicks immediately like a Mahomes or Justin Herbert, especially given the circumstances Lock has been dealing with. All things considered, the progress we’ve seen over the final month of the season has given many fans hope that the Broncos can continue confidently building around Lock, at least for another year.
What will 2021 bring? How will the Denver Broncos use all of these things that have defined their 2020 season to get back to playoff contention in 2021?
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