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We’ve compared both the offense and the defense to the 2015 team through 8 games and now we turn to the special teams.
A couple of notes on this one, I only really dug into the point kicking and punting game. Kickoff returns I have a hard time with trying to compare given how we had some significant rule changes so I decided to stick with the constants.
Let’s throw the stats down and see what we can see. Big hat tip to pro-football-reference.com for the stats. Any time you want to dig into the NFL game deeper, give them a click as they have a ton of deep, useful info to use for analyzing the game.
Place Kicking
2015 Place Kicking
| G# | XPA | XPM | FGA | FGM |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 1 | 1 | 4 | 4 |
| 2 | 4 | 4 | 1 | 1 |
| 3 | 3 | 3 | 1 | 1 |
| 4 | 2 | 2 | 3 | 3 |
| 5 | 1 | 1 | 3 | 3 |
| 6 | 2 | 2 | 5 | 4 |
| 7 | 3 | 3 | 2 | 2 |
| 8 | 3 | 3 | 1 | 1 |
| Ave | 2.38 | 2.38 | 2.50 | 2.38 |
| Total | 19 | 19 | 20 | 19 |
2016 Place Kicking
| G# | XPA | XPM | FGA | FGM |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 3 | 3 | 0 | 0 |
| 2 | 2 | 2 | 5 | 4 |
| 3 | 3 | 2 | 1 | 1 |
| 4 | 3 | 3 | 2 | 2 |
| 5 | 1 | 1 | 3 | 3 |
| 6 | 1 | 1 | 3 | 2 |
| 7 | 3 | 3 | 2 | 2 |
| 8 | 3 | 3 | 2 | 2 |
| Ave | 2.38 | 2.25 | 2.25 | 2.00 |
| Total | 19 | 18 | 18 | 16 |
Place Kicking Observations
- Our scoring output is very similar to last year
Really it is hard to find much of concern or interest in the kicking stats...they seem pretty static overall and will ebb and flow in alignment with the success of the offense. Since our offense is very similar to last year, our kicking game is going to mirror that.
Punting
2015 Punting
| G# | Pnt | Yds | Y/P |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 5 | 259 | 51.8 |
| 2 | 7 | 314 | 44.86 |
| 3 | 5 | 213 | 42.6 |
| 4 | 3 | 141 | 47 |
| 5 | 6 | 252 | 42 |
| 6 | 7 | 319 | 45.57 |
| 7 | 3 | 120 | 40 |
| 8 | 5 | 215 | 43 |
| Ave | 5.13 | 229.13 | 44.60 |
2016 Punting
| G# | Pnt | Yds | Y/P |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 5 | 253 | 50.6 |
| 2 | 6 | 255 | 42.5 |
| 3 | 5 | 221 | 44.2 |
| 4 | 6 | 290 | 48.33 |
| 5 | 7 | 330 | 47.14 |
| 6 | 5 | 231 | 46.2 |
| 7 | 2 | 98 | 49 |
| 8 | 3 | 140 | 46.67 |
| Ave | 4.88 | 227.25 | 46.83 |
Punting Observations
- We are punting just a hair less often than last year
- We are on average getting more distance out of our rookie punter
Final Thoughts on comparisons to 2015
The big thing I’m coming away with after some very basic analysis of stats (and those of you out there more inclined, please do chime in in the comments with more as we all learned a lot from that in the comments on the offense) is that this team looks like a team that hasn’t really changed much of its identity.
We have a fairly below-average offense that isn’t being asked to do a lot.
We have a dominant defense that is very strong against the pass while being a little weak to the run, but still is very good at creating turnovers.
Denver is still on track to be fighting in the playoffs which is what we are looking for every year being fans of the Denver Broncos.