The Denver Broncos have suffered through another miserable campaign.
Though there is still one game left in this extra-long season, the team’s fate is already decided. They will miss the playoffs for a sixth straight year and in all likelihood, be looking for the two things they haven’t had since winning Super Bowl 50 – a quality head coach and a solid quarterback.
The Broncos will close out the season this Saturday against the Kansas City Chiefs, a team they have not beaten since that same 2015 season. With the Chiefs playing for the No. 1 overall seed in the AFC, it’s likely they will defeat the Broncos for the 13th time in a row.
But that game aside, we are going to focus on four specific stats that sum up another losing season for the Broncos quite well. Each of these stats points to specific issues with the team and clearly spotlights why the team currently sits at 7-9 on the season.
This team can’t score points
Since the Broncos won Super Bowl 50, a lack of offense has been a common theme. The Broncos’ ability to score points only seems to be getting worse as the years go on.
The Broncos have scored 20 points or more in just four out of 16 games this season and in five of their last seven games, have not cracked the 13-point barrier. That’s just not going to get it done.
All five of those games resulted in a loss.
On the season, the Broncos have scored a total of 34 touchdowns. That is just a shade over two touchdowns per game on average.
In total, they have scored 311 points on the season. That rounds out to 19.4 points per game. Only nine teams in the league have scored fewer points and guess what? None of those teams are going to be in the playoffs either.
The Broncos absolutely must find a way to create better offense next season. An average of fewer than 20 points a game is going to lead to very mediocre results.
Kick return yardage against
Brace yourselves for a ridiculous statistic, because this is just bad.
On the season, the Broncos are allowing 39.36 yards per kickoff return, by far the worst mark in the league. The second-worst, the Jacksonville Jaguars, are more than 10 yards better in this category than Denver.
Many have called for the job of special teams coordinator Tom McMahon, and this stat alone is proof that he should probably be looking for work elsewhere.
The Broncos have also allowed the longest kickoff return of the season (102 yards, tied with Jacksonville) and have allowed two kickoffs to be returned for touchdowns. When only 14 kickoffs have been brought out for a return, that’s a terrible percentage.
Brandon McManus has one of the strongest legs in the league and should be trying to kick every single kickoff out of the back of the end zone. With this special teams unit, there is a good chance it gets brought back for big yardage or even six points.
Atrocious.
Broncos’ top wide receiver has just 57 catches
This is a direct result of the level of quarterback play the Broncos have had, but the wide receivers are just not as involved as they need to be.
Courtland Sutton has caught the most passes by a wide receiver this year with just 57. That’s an average of about 3.5 receptions per game. Because the Broncos signed he and Tim Patrick to contract extensions this season, the team needs to see much more production out of them.
Jerry Jeudy missed several games with injury but for the season, Broncos wide receivers have a total of 162 catches. To put that into perspective, Los Angeles Rams wide receiver Cooper Kupp has caught 138 passes this season himself.
Noah Fant leads the team with 67 receptions and Javonte Williams has more receptions than Jeudy and almost as many as Patrick. This is something the team desperately needs to find a way to fix.
It’s certainly not the fault of the wide receivers, but there’s no sense in talking about how great this wide receiving corps is when it accounts for about 10 receptions and 132 yards per game…. as a group.
Record of teams the Broncos have beaten
One of the easiest ways to see just how bad this Broncos team is would be to take a look at the teams they have beaten. Remember when everyone was so excited about the 3-0 start to the year?
The Broncos have won seven games this season. Here are the teams they have beaten:
New York Giants
New York Jets
Jacksonville Jaguars
Washington Football Team
Dallas Cowboys
Detroit Lions
Los Angeles Chargers
Five of those seven teams have already been eliminated from the playoff picture and the Chargers are hanging onto their playoff lives. They also avenged their defeat to Denver by pummeling them this past Sunday.
The one quality win the Broncos have this year came against the Cowboys and it’s hard to figure out how that happened. But there was absolutely no building on that win as the team stumbled the very next week against the Philadelphia Eagles.
This is just not a good team.
The total combined record of the teams the Broncos have beaten this year is 38-73-1. That translates to a winning percentage of .343. Clearly, the Broncos would have an even worse record than 7-9 if the schedule wasn’t so favorable to begin the season.
To dive into their win-loss record even further, the Broncos are 1-4 against the AFC West (will be 1-5 with a loss to Kansas City) and 3-8 against the AFC teams they have faced this year.
These four statistics point to a team that will not participate in the postseason, and it’s not hard to see why.