Every year ESPN’s analytics guru, Mike Clay, releases his model’s projections for the upcoming season. Clay is truly one of the best in the business and his model is an excellent tool for giving us a general idea of what we should expect from the upcoming season.
Clay has the Broncos winning 9 games and being in the playoff conversation, but how does he have the team making such a big improvement? Let’s take a closer look.
QB play improves by a lot, but both Bridgewater and Lock start games
As seems to always be the case with the Broncos over the past half-decade, whether this season is marvelous or dreary will come down to quarterback play. Fortunately for Broncos Country, Clay projects the passing game to take a big step forward.
As a whole, he has the room completing 61.4% of their passes for 4,130 yards, 25 touchdowns and 15 interceptions, at a rate of 7.3 yards per attempt. For the sake of comparison, last year’s Bronco quarterback room completed 57% of their passes for 3,673 yards, 21 touchdowns and 23 interceptions, at a rate of 6.6 yards per attempt.
It seems easy to assume the addition of Teddy Bridgewater its lifting the performance of the rest of the room, but instead, it’s Drew Lock’s development leading the way.
Clay projects Lock to hold onto the starting spot for 13 weeks, and score 20 total touchdowns to just 11 interceptions. Last year, Lock nearly threw as many interceptions as touchdowns (18:15), so flipping the ratio to nearly being 2:1 would be phenomenal.
Especially considering how dominant this defense can be if they don’t constantly have their backs up against the wall due to turnovers.
If Lock and Bridgewater are able to elevate Denver’s quarterback room to that degree, the Broncos will be in the playoff conversation, and the immense skill position talent — like Jerry Jeudy and Courtland Sutton — will have an opportunity to shine.
Jeudy takes massive leap, combines for over 2,000 yards with Sutton
Lock and Bridgewater won’t be the only ones benefitting from an improved passing attack, as it goes without saying that Jeudy and Sutton would see their numbers inflate as well, as ESPN projects.
However, one interesting aspect of Clay’s projections are that he has Jeudy and Sutton doing a lot of the heavy lifting in the passing game. Clay has them combining for 2,027 yards — which accounts for 49.1% of the team’s passing yardage and 71.7% of the WR unit’s total yardage — and 12 touchdowns — which accounts for 48% of the team’s touchdowns through the air and 70.6% of the unit’s scoring production.
This is due largely to Jeudy making such a drastic improvement he’s nearly a co-No. 1 option with Courtland Sutton. Clay’s projections have Sutton coming away with only 117 more yards and two more touchdowns than Jeudy’s final stat line of 955 yards and four touchdowns and 69 receptions.
The dynamic duo of Sutton and Jeudy should give opposing defense nightmares if Clay is correct because they are both exceptionally gifted playmakers, and because they compliment each other perfectly. Sutton is one of the most physically-imposing and athletically-dominant receivers in the league, while Jeudy is one of the most nuanced and refined route runners we’ve ever seen enter the league.
The Broncos have the potential to be a deadly passing attack for a long time if they can figure out quarterback.
Denver’s defense should be the best in the league
The most important takeaway from Clay’s work — though it isn’t a particularly surprising one — is that the Broncos are projected to have the best defense, and the best secondary in football this season.
On Clay’s 0-4 scale he uses to rate each position group, the Broncos score a perfect 4.0 at safety, and a 3.9 at cornerback, which gives them the best safety group in the league and lands them only behind the Ravens at cornerback.
The Broncos’ edge unit is also projected to be elite with a score of 3.6 — which ranks fourth in the league behind the Browns, 49ers, and Washington Football Team — thanks to the return of Von Miller and Clay projecting Miller to continue playing at a high level.
In fact, Clay has Miller leading the team in sacks with 9.1, which ranks 13th among all defenders. Bradley Chubb isn’t far behind with eight sacks, and Malik Reed is projected to produce as well, but Miller remains king.
One surprise from Denver’s defensive projections is that Josey Jewell and Alexander Johnson are expected to be the team’s starting linebackers, however it seems likely that either Justin Strnad or Baron Browning steal Jewell’s starting job by season’s end, which could make the Broncos defense even more deadly than Clay is expecting.
Now that is a scary thought.
