Broncos are Rocky Mountain high, and the Super Bowl is Mt. Everest
The Denver Broncos are Rocky Mountain high heading into the 2022 NFL season, but the Super Bowl is their Mount Everest to climb.
The Broncos have had Mile High hopes ever since George Paton pulled off the trade for Russell Wilson. The weapons Denver has accumulated around him do indeed inspire excitement and optimism.
Many NFL analysts believe they will take back the AFC West crown, I’ve even heard rumblings of a Super Bowl championship to end the season. Denver has every reason to expect better times in the Wilson era, but the Super Bowl is an Everest-sized hill to climb.
I’m excited to see the Broncos with a Russell Wilson/Nathaniel Hackett offense. The weapons are certainly in place with targets like Sutton, Patrick, Jeudy, Hamler, and Albert Okwuegbunam on the team along with guys like Greg Dulcich and Montrell Washington joining the fold.
The backfield returns the tandem of Javonte Williams and Melvin Gordon who had success last season running the ball. I believe this offense improves a lot this year.
How much improvement would be required to chase a title is the question I asked myself. So I dove into some team stats of the previous six champions since Peyton Manning rode off into the sunset ahead of the 2016 season.
I focused on points scored versus opponents’ points scored during the regular season. In the 2015 Super Bowl season, the Broncos scored 22.2 points per game while opponents scored 14.1 (the famed Super Bowl 50 defense).
The point differential there is +8.1. Even that wasn’t as dominant as the combined +14.1 during Manning’s tenure.
After that, as we well know, Denver hasn’t played near those levels. How much off are they? Well averaged out post-Manning, Denver has scored 19.5 points per game and surrendered 19.48 so +0.2. How much better is required to chase a Super Bowl?
The champions of the last six years average 28.23 points per game and gave up 17.6 (plus 10.6 on average). This stat hardly predicts every Super Bowl contender, but for argument’s sake is there reason to believe that the Broncos can jump 10 points per game higher than their opponents next season?
In a way yes. The 2011 Broncos were around the pedestrian averages of the last six years with 19.3 points per game while giving up 19.5. In 2012 those numbers jumped to 30.1 points per game and the defense surrendered just 13.8 (+16.3).
So yeah, the jumps have been made by none other than the Broncos and Peyton Manning. Are Russell Wilson and this year’s team also capable of this kind of leap?
Again with the stats I looked over, Wilson’s last five full years excluding last year’s injury-cramped season. His averages were 25.12 points per game and a Seattle defense that gave up 18.96 (+6.16) impressive in his own right.
My conclusion based on these plus-minus statistics is that it’s altogether possible the Denver Broncos make a monumental jump this year or over the next few.
For that to happen though this offense led by Russell Wilson with Hackett calling the plays will have to be not just better than we have been, but even better than Wilson and the Seahawks were in some of his best years.
And the defense will have to be as good or better than they’ve been to achieve the goal as well.
So the hopes should well be a Mile High while realizing what a big feat jumping into Super Bowl contention really is.