Once again, the Denver Broncos come out of a game with more questions than answers: Is this defense still elite? Can we trust the offense at all? What is going wrong in the second half?
And at face value, it’s a tough problem to crack. How does a team go from nearly perfect in the first half to a complete mess in the second? Did someone sneak some laxatives into the Broncos’ half-time Gatorade?
I don’t think there’s a single answer, or an easy one, but let’s take a look at the advanced analytics and see if they give us any insight into where the Broncos stand.
Chris Harris Jr. could not have been worse
I hate to pile on Chris Harris Jr., but his performance on Sunday was about as bad as they come, according to Pro Football Focus at least.
Wade Phillips tasked Harris with covering Antonio Brown all day, and it did not go well. On 15 targets, Brown caught 14 passes for 164 yards and two touchdowns, earning him a grade of -7.0. Not only was that Harris’ worst performance of his career, but it was the first time he graded out lower than -1.0 since Week 12 of the 2013 season.
Only twice did Brown get matched up against anybody other than Harris, and he was just as effective then, too: two receptions for 25 yards.
This may have just been a bad game for Harris, but in reality, Antonio Brown was probably going to go off against anybody, no matter if it was Darrelle Revis, Chris Harris or Deion Sanders.
If there’s any conciliation, though, while Harris was the worst-graded cornerback in Week 15, Josh Norman (another top-five cornerback) was right behind him, with a grade of -5.9.
Lesson: It happens.
The offensive line is still as inconsistent as ever
If you’re looking for the good news, both Michael Schofield (2.1) and Matt Paradis (3.9) had their best games of the year. Unfortunately, both Louis Vasquez (-4.3) and Ryan Harris (-8), had their worst.
And really, that perfectly exemplifies the way the Broncos offensive line has played these last two weeks; half the time (normally the first half) they look fairly competent, and half the time (the second half) they fall into complete shambles.
We’ve now reached the point, though, where there’s no denying that this is one of the worst units in the entire league, and it’s not going to change. We can hope and pray that they pull it together down the stretch, but it’s been 15 weeks and the only thing they’ve proven is that they don’t know what they’re doing.
In their year-long grades, PFF has Michael Schofield as their 56th best tackle and Ryan Harris as their 65th — remember, there are only 32 starting tackles in the NFL. The interior isn’t much different, either, with Matt Paradis (25th), Louis Vasquez (44th) and Max Garcia (50th) all ranked as bottom-tier starters at their position.
The only player that has a positive grade on the Broncos line is Evan Mathis, who’s 22.6 grade is sixth amongst guards, but that’s almost entirely buoyed by his league-leading 25.7 grade in the run game; his -4.1 grade in the passing game is 45th in the league.
Again, with the performances this group is outputting, it’s hard to put much blame on the quarterback, no matter whom it is; nobody is going to succeed behind a line which is leading their quarterback out to slaughter.
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[adrotate banner=”10″]The Denver Broncos’ defensive stars did not come to play
We already talked about Chris Harris Jr.’s performance on Sunday, but he wasn’t the only big-name player to have their worst game of the year; both Von Miller (-2.6) and DeMarcus Ware (-1.8) were almost completely ineffective, finishing with a combined one quarterback hit and two hurries.
As PFF’s No. 2 pass rush and the league leader in sacks, that’s a disappointing performance in a game the Broncos absolutely needed to close out.
And it’s not like the Broncos didn’t try to get to Ben Roethlisberger; they blitzed 33 times (57 percent of all drop backs), but only pressured Big Ben 16 times, amounting to three sacks. And on those blitzes, Big Ben completed 62.5 percent of their passes for 196 yards and two touchdowns, though the Broncos did come away with two interceptions.
Actually, one of the few players who had a good game was David Bruton, who, once again, was playing with a broken leg! With 81 defensive snaps, more than any other Broncos defender, Bruton’s 2.9 grade was higher than Harris (-7.0), Miller (-2.6), Aqib Talib (-2.1), Sylvester Williams (-2.0), Ware (-1.8), Derek Wolfe (-1.4) and 10 other defenders.
Bruton may have flown under the radar for years in Denver, but they sure are going to miss him the rest of the way. If this defense is going to keep the Broncos in championship contention, something they’ve been doing all season, then they need to forget this performance as quickly as possible and move on to Cincinnati.
For now, I’m hoping this one was no more than a fluke.