Woe is the Broncos’ offense

The Denver Broncos have currently scored 311 points which is 23rd in the NFL. The highest rank in scoring that the Broncos have attained over the last six seasons is 22nd (in 2016). The 2016 Broncos scored 333 points in 16 regular season games (20.81 points per game - ppg). The 2021 Broncos are currently scoring 19.4 ppg. To surpass the 2016 Broncos, the Bronco offense would need to score 43 points on Sunday against the Chiefs. 311 + 43 = 354. 354/17 = 20.82.

How many of you think the Broncos can score 43 points on Sunday? It’s possible, but highly unlikely.

The Broncos have two games over the past six seasons where they topped 40 points scored: the 2017 win over Dallas (42-17) and the 2018 win over the hapless (at that time) Cardinals (45-10). That 2018 win was the last time the Broncos scored more than 38 points.

In Drew Lock’s first three starts against the Chiefs, the Broncos have scored a total of 35 points and been outscored 88-35.

During the Broncos 12-game losing streak to the Chiefs, the Broncos have turned the ball over 31 times while the Chiefs have turned the ball over 9 times.

Even if the Broncos score 30+ points against the Chiefs (which the Broncos haven’t done since the last victory over the Chiefs in 2015 - 31-24), the Broncos will most likely finish 22nd or 23rd in scoring offense for the season. The Steelers are currently 21st with 327 points scored. If the Steelers score 17 against the Ravens, that would put them at 344 points for the season, meaning that the Broncos would have to score 34 against KC to finish 21st in scoring. The last time the Broncos scored 34 or more against KC was 2013 when the Broncos had the most prolific scoring offense in NFL history.

With one regular season game remaining, here is the scoring rank data for the NFL 2016-2021

If you average the scoring rank over the last six seasons and sort from lowest to highest, you find the Broncos have had the worst average scoring offense rank in the league.

So the Bronco offense over the last six seasons has been bad. Let’s see how “bad” by comparing to the other “terrible” offenses during this stretch. To do this let’s look at total points scored 2016-2021 for the Bengals, Bears, Jaguars, Jets and Broncos. What we find with this is that the while the Broncos have been in the bottom quartile of the league in scoring over the past six seasons, they have never been so bad that the combined points scored over the past six years is as bad as the Jets and Jaguars (yay?).

However, unlike the Bears, who had one good scoring season in the past six (421 points in 2018), the season high for the Broncos in 16 games was in 333 in 2016. The 2021 Broncos need to score 23 points in the 17th regular season game to get more total points scored than the 2016 Broncos. The last time the Broncos scored 23 or more against the Chiefs was in the 2018 road loss (23-30). I should also note that the Jags had one good year of offense over the past six seasons (417 points in 2017), but that was not enough to offset five atrocious scoring seasons (at least by total points).