Where do the Denver Broncos 3 Super Bowl winning teams rank by DVOA?
It’s a question that was answered by Aaron Schatz on ESPN today.
Schatz ranked all 60 Super Bowl winning teams by DVOA after the 2025 Seattle Seahawks historically great season. Last night it was capped by blowing out the New England Patriots 29-13 in Super Bowl LX.
Where do the Denver Broncos 3 Super Bowl winning teams rank by DVOA?
According the Schatz on ESPN, the Broncos Super Bowl winning teams rank 50th, 20th, and 11th in DVOA.
What is DVOA?
DVOA is a rating system for teams or players, that takes into account every play from a season and compares it to a league-wide baseline. How well a team or player does in that situation, with the context of field position, down and distance, and score, earns or loses percentage points.
For an offense, positive percentages are good, while negative percentage points are good for a defense.
Super Bowl 50 team
It was Denver’s worst of the three, coming in at 50th overall (20% DVOA). The Broncos offense was arguably the worst of any Super Bowl winning unit; they were 19th in scoring and 24th in DVOA that year.
They were also one of only nine Super Bowl winning teams to have a negative turnover differential.
Peyton Manning was injured all year, and lost the velocity on the football. He was benched in the middle of a 4-interception game against the Chiefs. Manning finally came back to the gridiron in Week 17 as Brock Osweiler was benched midway through the regular season finale.
The story of that season was the No Fly Zone defense, which was phenomenal. In fact, their defensive DVOA was 14th-best all-time among Super Bowl teams. Von Miller, DeMarcus Ware, Chris Harris Jr., Aqib Talib, and the list goes on of all-time Broncos greats on that defense.
Super Bowl XXXII team
The 1997 Denver Broncos, who won the franchise’s first Vince Lombardi Trophy 25 years to the day this recent team played in the AFC Championship Game, is 20th in DVOA (33.8%). The 1997 Broncos were one of only six teams to finish in the top-5 in DVOA in all three phases of the game per Schatz.
Yes, John Elway led the offense, but it was Terrell Davis who was the ultimate superstar of that team.
TD was a TD machine. He led the NFL with 15 touchdowns that year and rushed for 1,750 yards. That year, Denver was the No. 1 scoring team. It was one of the best coaching campaigns by Mike Shanahan in his long tenure. They were much more well-rounded than the 2015 team, too. The defense was No. 6 in scoring and ended up forcing three turnovers of Brett Favre and the heavily-favored Packers in Super Bowl XXXII. Davis took home Super Bowl MVP and even played through a migraine.
Hall of Famers from that team include: Davis, Elway, Shannon Sharpe, Steve Atwater, and Gary Zimmerman.
Super Bowl XXXIII team
Denver’s 1998 team, which was absolutely dominant, was their best of 3 Super Bowl winning teams. They come in at No. 11 in DVOA (40.0%).
Basically, everything that was just said about the 1997 team is also true of the 1998 team.
One major difference was Terrell Davis was at his absolute zenith in 1998. He became the fourth running back to surpass 2,000 rushing yards in a season, and led the league in yards, touchdowns (23), and yards per attempt (5.1). Davis was named first-team All-Pro, rightly so.
Thanks in part to Davis, and Alex Gibbs’ offensive line as well as Shanahan’s play calling, Denver’s offense took another step forward. The 1998 Broncos were an elite offense; probably the best in team history.
They were able to start the season 13-0 before losing a fluke to the Giants, and finished the regular season 14-2. It was the first time Denver won 14 regular season games in a season. This year, the Broncos tied that mark, but in a 17-game regular season.
Finally, the defense showed its grit in the playoffs; they forced an absurd 13 turnovers in three playoff games.
Denver wiped the floor with the Atlanta Falcons, winning Super Bowl XXXIII 34-19, with John Elway winning MVP.