At 1-1 overall, it’s difficult to know for sure where the Denver Broncos sit after two weeks of football.
Yes, they beat a terrible Tennessee Titans team despite Bo Nix’s awful play. But, last week they snatched defeat from the jaws of victory against the Colts.
It’s still early in the 2025 season and the team is trying to figure things out. But these following numbers and graphs tell us a good deal about where the Broncos are at right now.
Where the Denver Broncos sit after 2 weeks
Simply, the Broncos have one of the best defenses in the NFL, their offensive line is the best in the league, but the rest of the offense needs help.
Denver couldn’t run the ball in Week 1 until the fourth quarter, and they did worse overall in Week 2. Bo Nix was able to step up against the Colts, enjoying a 3-touchdown and 1-interception day. But tight end Evan Engram was nowhere to be found and that part of the offensive attack was supposed to be much-improved this year.
Defensively, the team hasn’t been perfect, either. They were gashed for 167 yards on the ground by Jonathan Taylor and the Colts. They also gave up too may explosive plays (5) in both the passing and run games. Let’s dive deeper and explore some graphs which help visualize where the Denver Broncos sit after two games.
Offense
Denver is currently 9th in points per game at 24.0 per contest. They are also tied for dead-last in turnovers with 5, with one happening on special teams. Their other offensive numbers are ho hum at best: 25th in passing yards, 10th in rushing yards, 15th in 3rd down percentage (41.7%), and 10th in the red zone (66.7%).
The biggest takeaway there is the five turnovers. Denver’s a net negative 6 points due to all the turnovers per this graph:
#Eagles have gained almost a net touchdown of expected points per game from turnovers so far, accounting for the difference in both wins.
— Deniz Selman (@denizselman33.bsky.social) September 16, 2025 at 9:21 AM
Sean Payton, on Monday, talked about the turnovers and also negative plays in the red zone affecting this offense:
Offensively or as a team, currently with five turnovers, four on offense, one in the kicking game, that’s at the bottom of the league as far as giveaways. Now it’s early in the season. In other words, when you look at rankings Week 2, they can be a little misleading. Nonetheless, that is what it is. Red zone offense, we preach all the time, no minus plays, no exotic snap counts, no turnovers, no sacks, and we had three of those yesterday. We had a sack, we had a turnover, we had penalties that are points taken away or certainly points made harder.
Another area where the offense is struggling is SUPLEX rates, or success plus explosive plays:
NFL teams early down SUPLEX rates, weeks 1-2.
To the right is better for offense (yes that’s the Colts offense). Higher is better for defense (yes that’s the Jags defense at the top).
— Nate Tice (@natetice.bsky.social) September 16, 2025 at 9:01 AM
If this one’s new to you, don’t worry, it is to me too. Apparently “success” is deemed gaining 50% or more on 1st down, or 100% of needed yards on 3rd down, etc. Explosive plays are runs of 10-plus yards and passes of 20-plus.
Denver’s typically struggled on explosive plays in recent years, and they are here, too. When adding in success rate, they are below the league average.
Also, for most of these graphs, up and to the right is good, down and to the left is bad.
Offensive Line
Denver’s O-line is arguably the best in the league when it comes to pass blocking. That per both ESPN’s Pass Block Win Rate and Pro Football Focus grades:
Measures of pass protection from two independent sources
— Ben Baldwin (@rbsdm.com) September 16, 2025 at 9:33 AM
Tackle Garett Bolles has a perfect 100% pass block win rate, while Mike McGlinchey has only missed one pass block and sits at 96%.
In terms of run blocking, the Broncos O-line is 10th, at 73%. The Cardinals, Bears, Bills, Jaguars, and Vikings each have top-10 numbers in both categories, too.
Bo Nix
Nix was awful in Week 1 and much better in Week 2, although his 4th-quarter interception helped the Colts steal the win.
Still, the graders at PFF are not impressed with his play, as he sits way to the left on this graph:
Quarterback grade and efficiency
Drake Maye szn?
— Ben Baldwin (@rbsdm.com) September 16, 2025 at 9:35 AM
In terms of other complex analytical stats, Nix is 21st in EPA+CPOE (0.061) and he’s dead-last in air yards at 5.5 per throw. More explosive pass plays will help his air yards average and the team’s SUPLEX rating. They only have three as a team out of 10 total explosives.
Defense
This is where things start getting good for Denver. While we’re still trying to determine how good the offense is, we have a pretty good idea of where the Denver Broncos sit defensively.
They’re the hardest team to earn a first down and/or touchdown against in the league right now:
How hard it’s been to earn a first down against each defense
The…Falcons? might have a defense?
— Ben Baldwin (@rbsdm.com) September 16, 2025 at 7:04 AM
This second graph shows basically the same information, but breaks it down by the down. Denver’s really hard to move the chains against, which is great:
Offensive and Defensive Series Conversion Rate.
— Deniz Selman (@denizselman33.bsky.social) September 16, 2025 at 9:30 AM
When looking at their simple metics, Denver’s defense is 2nd on 3rd downs (29.6%), 1st on 4th downs (0%), and 2nd in the red zone (25.0%). Those are all spectacular metrics. They’re allowing 20.5 PPG, which is 14th, and they rank 9th in passing yards allowed, but 20th in run yards allowed.
What do these numbers and graphs mean going forward?
While all of these advanced and even simple stats are just numbers, it’s nice when they align with what you see on the field.
If you’ve watched the first two Broncos games, you know this will be a team led by the defense first and offense second. The defense has kept Denver in both games and set them up to win against the Colts before an unfortunate miscue on special teams. It’s a mistake Sean Payton owned up to, too.
Many of the questions we all had during the offseason have yet to be answered. Will the Broncos find a consistent run game? That’s yet to be seen. Will they finally have a capable weapon at tight end? Not yet, anyway. Will Nix avoid a sophomore slump? It seems so, but it’s too early to tell for sure.
What they need are more explosives on offense, better consistency in the run game, better coverage on tight ends and running backs out of the backfield. Luckily, most of their issues seem fixable, especially if Dre Greenlaw returns from his quad injury soon.
Where are the Broncos overall? Well, still among playoff teams but not near the competitors:
~~ NFL Team Tiers Week 2 ~~
Sample sizes are so small here that opponent faced is doing a lot of work (eg the offenses that have played against the Dolphins)
That Giants-Steelers-Chiefs cluster lol
— Ben Baldwin (@rbsdm.com) September 16, 2025 at 7:01 AM
In Week 3, the 1-1 Broncos face the hot 2-0 Chargers in LA next Sunday.
