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Denver Broncos vs. Dallas Cowboys: "The Four Horsemen"

Well, I figured with our offense on record breaking pace, I might as well keep tabs on Demaryius Thomas, Eric Decker, Wes Welker, and Julius Thomas. Each week I'll bring you a summary of how they fared in the previous game along with updated statistics and projections.

Wesley Hitt

vs. Dallas

Julius Thomas was targeted the most out of any Broncos receiver. His 12 targets were good enough to net 9 receptions, 122 yards, and 2 touchdowns. Eric Decker was targeted 7 times with 5 receptions for 87 yards and a touchdown. Both Demaryius Thomas and Wes Welker were targeted 6 times with 5 receptions each.

Combined the quartet received 31 of 42 Peyton Manning pass attempts (73.8%), and combined for 24 receptions for 315 yards and 4 touchdowns.

On The Year

Player

T

Rec

Yards

AVG

YAC

TD

INT

Drop

Drop %

D. Thomas

43

34

450

13.2

261

4

0

2

4.7

Decker

42

29

427

14.7

168

2

1

6

14.3

Welker

42

31

315

10.2

142

7

0

4

9.5

J. Thomas

36

27

359

13.3

198

6

0

3

8.3

It still blows my mind that "The Four Horsemen" are all within 7 targets of each other and 7 receptions of each other. If you notice the target numbers from the three wide receivers, you'll notice that each one has been targeted almost identically.

Projections

Player

T

Rec

Yards

TD

D. Thomas

138

109

1440

13

Decker

134

93

1366

6

Welker

134

99

1008

22

J. Thomas

115

86

1149

19

Each will receive well over 100 targets apiece. Only Demaryius Thomas is still on pace to catch 100 balls with Wes Welker right behind him. All 4 are on pace to break 1000 yards receiving.

More accurate expectations would be for each to make at least 90 receptions, with DT, Decker, and JT all eclipsing 1000 yards receiving. Welker should be somewhere in the 900 range. It is very likely that we will see DT, Welker, and JT reach the double-digit mark in touchdown receptions.

Directional Receiving

I've gone ahead and made my own charts detailing each receivers success at different depths of the field and on different sides. I break things down into left of the hashmarks, between the hashmarks, and right of the hashmarks. You also have the following length breakdowns: behind LOS, 0-9 yards, 10-19 yards, 20 or more yards. I hope you enjoy this information, click each chart to "embiggen"

Dt_medium

Eric_decker_medium

Wes_welker_medium

Julius_thomas_medium