Mile High Report
The Denver Broncos defense balled out and the Bronco offense did just enough to get the team a win. The Bronco special teams had some good and some bad.
Let’s start with the offense – the Bronco offense turned the ball over three times with Bo Nix throwing two picks and losing a fumble. The offense did generate 20 first downs and 20 points though with a running game that came on strong in the second half. The run game got 152 yards on 29 actual carries (removing the kneel-down). That’s 5.24 yards per carry which is pretty good (currently 8th with one game left). The Ravens put up an insane 8.2 YPC in their loss to the Bills. The Commanders, Dolphins and Jaguars all got better than 6.0 YPC in their games on Sunday.
Were it not for the final Titan play being ruled a fumble (and not a turnover on downs which oddly doesn’t count as a turnover), the Broncos would have been -3 in turnover margin. They finished at -2.
The special was mostly ok, but the 71 yard KOR cost the team three points. Absent a crazy effort by the defense the muffed punt would have done so as well. Jeremy Crawshaw was spectacular in his first game after a lackluster pre-season. He punted from the DEN 37 (fair catch at the 8), DEN 48 (fair catch at the 7), and the DEN 47 (caught at the 7 and returned to the 19, but moved back to the 9 after penalty). So we could have “gained” 62, 51, and 52 yards from the team (getting a punt downed at the one) and he gained 144 of a possible 165 yards – that 87% which is elite.
The defense was amazing. They pressured Cam Ward on 40% of his dropbacks. They allowed 62 net passing yards and 29 of those came on the third play of the game where Ward pulled some Houdini moves to get the ball to Tony Pollard on 3rd and 11. The Titans would be held to 133 total yards and would only have 90 net yards in the first half and -1 net yard in the second half.
The longest drive for the Titans was their first and that drive only gained 33 yards.
When the Broncos have allowed 200 yards or fewer this century they are 27-3.
However there is a caveat. The Bronco defense was facing a rookie QB making his first start. Going back to 1990 rookie QBs in their first start are 13-28, and they are 1-11 when facing defenses that finished the season in the top five in scoring.
The Bronco D finished the day with 6 sacks, 7 TFL and 12 QB hits, matching season highs in all three categories from last season. This was the eighth fewest net passing yards that they Broncos have allowed this century and fewest since the 2017 Broncos allowed 41 in a shutout of the Jets.
As crazy as it...
