Getting Over the 2008 Broncos: The Numbers are So Much Worse Than You Think

As we approach game one of the Josh McDaniels era, one thing is clear: The new coach will be judged against our wildest dreams – and not the cold truths – about the 2008 team. It’s grossly unfair, but I understand the impulse. The 2008 Broncos left a greater impact on me than any Broncos team in memory, including all of the Superbowl teams and the 2005 team that came oh-so close. The roller-coaster nature of the season and, above all, the wild, reckless hope produced by the team’s new-found love of the passing game were riveting. Win or lose, I was hooked. Who could possibly stop thinking about a team that beat the Falcons on the road one week, got blown out by the Raiders at home the next, then thumped the Jets on the road the week after?

Like a flight that nearly ends in disaster, the turbulence of the Broncos’ season produced unusually strong memories. Not good memories, but strong ones. And when I have to reach for a memory of 2008, I come up with the wide-open passing game of the first three weeks. We all know the 2008 Broncos were the beauty that kills. I’m here to tell you how much. A lot of folks around here have done some legwork on this. We know that the team was outscored, and badly. We know that the players the team cut were bad. But a closer, statistical look adds an extra dimension of pain. For all the hope the passing game inspired, the 2008 Broncos were the worst mediocre team in memory. Mediocre and falling, like an anvil. I’ve crunched the numbers to document the pain.

First, I’m going to show you that the 2008 Broncos were the second-worst 8-8 team of the last 10 years. Second, I’m going to look at the current fortunes of 28 players who are no longer with the team. Here’s what I promise. No matter how bad you expect the results to be, they’re, so, so much worse.

What follows below is so bad, it should be NSFW.

Mediocre? We wish

In the 10 NFL seasons from 1999 to 2008, 38 teams finished with a record of 8-8.

Perceptions matter, and our first-blush perceptions from 2008 were compelling. The opening-night thumping the Broncos gave the Raiders lives in our memories. It should – in none of the following 15 games did the team play anywhere near as well. The 41 points the team scored that night were its highest total of the season. The 17 it allowed were the second-lowest total of the season. After dropping 39 and 34 in the next two weeks, the offense averaged less than 20 points per game the rest of the way.

We all know how bad the defense was. But when you combine a historically bad defense with terrible special teams and an average offense, you get the second-worst 8-8 team since Monica Lewinsky was the talk of the nation.

The 2008 Broncos in Context: Scoring Differentials of 8-8 teams over the past decade

Teams sorted from worst to best

Why are the Broncos only the 37th worst 8-8 team in the past decade, and not the absolute worst? Well, I adjusted the numbers to account for total league offense. The more points NFL teams score, the wider the spread we’ll see in scoring differential. If the “average” NFL team scored 3 points per game, the best scoring differential in the league would probably be 1 point. If the “average” team scored 1,000,000 points per game, the best scoring differential would be, I don’t know, several hundred thousand points. When we account for the fact that 2008 was the highest-scoring year in the past decade, the 2008 Broncos come in second to last, just below the 2006 Titans, as the worst 8-8 team in memory.

Some other fun facts: You’ll notice that the 2008 Broncos allowed 448 points, the worst figure on this list. You’ll also find that the second worst team allowed “just” 405 points. I could pull out the heavy-duty stats to explain how big that difference is, but I think you get the point. The 2008 Broncos’ defense wasn’t just bad, it was historically, epically bad.

On the flip side, if you look at the points for column, you’ll find that the high-scoring Cutler & co. bandwagon was outscored by 10 teams on this list, including such awesome juggernauts as the 2006 Jaguars and the 2004 Bengals. You’ll also notice that one of the highest-scoring teams on the list was the 2008 Chargers, who dropped 439 points (nearly 1/8 of them on December 28!) and outscored their opponents by nearly 100 points. In other words, the season-ending meeting between the two teams ended about like it should have: The 2nd-best 8-8 team in memory pounded the 2nd-worst.

Clayton’s Heroes

Oh, but it gets worse. On Sunday, we were treated to a new tongue-lashing by John Clayton, who invented some new metrics to bash away at the current Broncos. Clayton pointed out that only 8 Broncos on the current roster came to the team in 2006 or before, leaving the team with 15 new players per year over the past 3 years. The result he says, is that the Broncos have become a joke, an expansion team.

Cutting your players is only bad, of course, if the players you cut are good players. So, who are Clayton’s heroes? Who are these awesome Broncos, part of the formerly bright future, whom the ignorant new administration has cut loose?

I’m glad you asked. Here are the details. And no, don’t say I didn’t warn you:

McDaniels’ Cuts (Or, Victories Lost!)

Does McD-Bag know no mercy? Of 10 – TEN! – 2008 starters no longer on the team, one is a current NFL starter. Three if you count all of his chins. Beyond that, there are two back-ups. Seven – SEVEN! – players who started a lot of games for the Broncos last year are out of football. If we expand the list to the back-ups, you can see just how terrible last year’s team was. Nobody wanted the starters. Nobody wants the back-ups. I guess that’s good news for Coach Clayton. With the exception of one player, the Broncos can easily re-sign all of these fallen heroes.

I like the new Broncos, and I like them a lot. I’m optimistic. But no matter what your take on this year’s team is, it’s time to get over 2008. That team was going nowhere, and the long list of ex-Broncos on the unemployment line is the proof.