Stats embarrassing: A stat review of Broncos’ Game 3 loss to the Dolphins

I guess this wasn’t as bad as getting beat by a division rival 59-14 at home, but right now, it feels worse. The Denver Broncos gave up the third most points IN NFL HISTORY to the Miami Dolphins in Week 3.

To put the 70 points allowed in perspective, the 1977 Denver Broncos allowed 148 points ALL REGULAR SEASON (which was 14 games at the time). That means the 2023 Bronco defense allowed almost half of that IN ONE GAME.

But wait, there’s more!

Not only did we tie for third most points ever allowed, we gave up the most yards EVER allowed in an NFL game with 726. The closest in the modern era was 653 allowed by the 2012 Jaguars. That team finished 2-14 and their defense finished 29th in points allowed. The previous record was set by the 1951 New York Yankees (who apparently played football and baseball) who gave up 722 in their 14-54 loss to the Rams (who were in LA at that point) and won the NFL title that season.

Back to yards allowed, the Dolphins ran 73 plays and gained 726 yards. That’s 10.0 yards PER PLAY. That’s what BCS schools do when playing non-scholarship FCS schools (yes, they do exist).

Miami ran for and threw for over 300 yards, which was the first time an NFL team has done that. 350 yards rushing allowed was only the 36th worst ever. At least Tua Tagovailoa’s passer rating was not the maximum possible of 158.3, it was ONLY 155.8. That being said it was the highest for a QB with 20 or more passes since Matthew Stafford put up a 156.1 back in 2021.

Maybe if the offense had been able to generate more than 13 points the defense would not have been so thoroughly destroyed. I guess the 33 points that our offense put up last week were more illusion than reality. We shall see next week. The Bears defense is currently allowing the second most points in the league at 35.3 per game. The Bronco defense is allowing 40.7. The Bronco defense could shut out the Bears (not likely, but theoretically possible) and still be allowing 30.5 points per game. To put this in perspective, the Browns have allowed 32 points through three games or less than half of what the Broncos allowed LAST game.

The Bronco offense has scored 69 points through three games, which is currently 15th, but the Eagles, Rams and Bucs could all surpass us tonight and bump us down to 18th. Either way, the offense appears to be better than last season, when the team only scored 43 points through three games, but it’s really hard to see much of a silver lining with a defense that just had arguably the worst single game performance in NFL history.

When Chicago beat Washington 73-0 in the 1940 NFL championship game, Washington’s offense turned the ball over nine times and the Washington potatoes defense ONLY allowed 519 yards. When Washington beat the Giants 72-41 in 1966, Washington only had 341 yards of total offense, but they were aided by six Giant turnovers. The Bronco offense only turned the ball over three times and surprisingly only allowed one sack. The 1950 Baltimore Colts defense allowed 547 yards in their 70-27 loss to the Rams (who were still in LA). The Colts offense also turned the ball over six times.

So maybe the silver lining here is that our offense ONLY turned the ball over three times in this horror film disguised as a football game.