Let me take you back 12 months to Week 9 of the 2015 NFL season. The Denver Broncos just suffered their first loss of the year at the hands of the Indianapolis Colts, and they were a week away from being blown out by 16 points by the Kansas City Chiefs.
While Denver had just dominated the Green Bay Packers on Monday Night, they weren’t that far removed from needing overtime to beat the lowly Cleveland Browns and a Chris Harris Jr. pick-six to beat the Oakland Raiders.
The Broncos’ record may have been 7-1, but they were far from a perfect team. In fact, aside from that Packers game, they were a heart attack in shoulder pads; the team looked to be on the verge of collapse with every Peyton Manning drop back.
As we all know, though, the Broncos defense somehow managed to drag a kicking-and-screaming offense all the way to Super Bowl 50 where Von Miller and company earned the Lombardi Trophy all on their own — the offense had 194 total yards of offense!
There were times, yes, where Broncos Country gave up hope or pointed fingers. It wasn’t easy, for the team or the fans. The 2015 Denver Broncos were a deeply flawed team. Fortunately, they had a legendary defense, a never-lose mentality and good old fashioned dose of Mile High Magic.
The same can be said about this year’s team. In fact, the 2016 Denver Broncos look to be a mirror image of the 2015 version that went all the way, heart attacks and all.
The two teams’ statistics through eight games are eerily similar. Really, the only aspect of this year’s team that you can point to and say, “They’re not as good as last year,” is their run defense, where they’re allowing .8 more yards per carry.
On the whole, here are a few takeaways:
- In terms of points per game, the Broncos offense and defense are essentially identical through the first half of the season, with the 2016 version being slightly better.
- For as underwhelming as the Trevor Siemian-Paxton Lynch duo have been, they’re still better than Peyton Manning. No. 18 may have put up a few more yards, but those 13 interceptions were killer.
- Somehow, someway, the “No Fly Zone” is even better in 2016. So far this season, they’re allowing just 4.7 yards per attempt. To understand how low of a mark that is for quarterbacks, only eight passers in NFL history (with at least 200 attempts) have had a yards per attempt below 4.7 for an entire season, and only three quarterbacks since 1980.
- On the ground, the Broncos have been extremely inconsistent this season, but once again, they’re still producing more in the run game than they did in 2015.
Figuring out this year’s Denver Broncos has been a frustrating task, but I think we forget how confusing and frustrating last year’s team was, too — an NFL championship tends to do that.
This is not, and never will be, a perfect team. But through eight games, these Denver Broncos are playing just as well as the 7-1 team from last year. In fact, you can make the case that they’re playing better.
Either way, the Broncos should be in contention well into the new year. Just don’t expect it to become any less nerve-racking.