The Broncos are scoring like they haven’t in 10 years

On Denver Broncos coach Sean Payton’s play-call sheet sit the choices that have led to some promising tallies from an attack that sits poised to rank in the NFL’s top 10 in scoring for the first time in a decade, if it can hold its position in the next fortnight.

Of course, the words “RUN IT!!!” also lay there too last Thursday night. The Amazon Prime cameras, as plentiful in number as Chargers penalties were scant, had little trouble capturing them through their zoom lenses.

That didn’t make Sean Payton particularly happy.

“I don’t like the fact that the network-TV cameras feel like they can zoom into our call sheets, but it is what it is,” Payton said.

The result of what comes from the play-call sheet isn’t always elegant — and certainly, the Broncos ran the football less as last Thursday’s 34-27 loss progressed.

“The second half there were two series I kind of kicked myself where even when we did run it, it was the type of run we ran that wasn’t as effective,” Payton lamented.

But the larger-picture results beyond the micro of Thursday’s frustrating loss and the offense’s bouts with inconsistency reveal a team that has shed the desultory look of recent years, exchanging it for something more dynamic with higher expectations.

 

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33.2

Points per game scored by the Broncos in their last five contests. This marks the first time since Weeks 6-10 of the 2014 season that the Broncos have averaged at least 33.0 points per contest over a five-game span.

Denver has had at least one 5-game stretch with a 33.0 PPG average in six previous seasons: 1997, 1998, 2000, 2012, 2013 and 2014. (The Broncos also had a similar stretch in the early 1970s, but it spanned the 1972 and 1973 seasons and wasn’t confined to a single campaign.) In each of those previous six seasons, the Broncos made the playoffs, never failing to win at least 11 regular-season games en route.

Defensive touchdowns help; the Broncos have three in that span — two against Cleveland and one at the expense of the Las Vegas Raiders.

But the problem is that a once-powerful defense has been a bit more porous this month.

26.8

Points per game allowed by the Broncos in December, which is 6.5 points higher than its per-game average from September through November. The Broncos have allowed 3 touchdowns per game this month, nearly double the 1.58-per-game average of Weeks 1-12.

Across the board, the Broncos’ defensive metrics are off. They have allowed 5.72 yards per play this month — more than a full yard above the 4.68-yard pace of Weeks 1-12. They surrender nearly a football field and a half more than they once did as their per-game yardage average has spiked to 414 from 273.2.

The Broncos also allow nearly 1.5 more yards per pass play while conceding 299.7 passing yards a game in December — 99.9 yards more than their September-through-November average.

“When we shoot ourselves in the foot and allow them to drive down the field with mistakes that we made, I just think that that’s costly on our part,” cornerback Pat Surtain II said. “But we just gotta correct it and move on because obviously the season about to come to an end, but we obviously know we gotta finish the season out the right way to get toward where our destiny is taking us.”

The Broncos enter Sunday still in position for that destiny to involve their first postseason appearance since 2015. But there’s a smidgen more doubt than there needed to be.

2

Games this season in the NFL in which one team had more than 60 yards in penalties and its opponent had fewer than 10 yards in infractions. The Broncos had 61 yards on seven penalties Thursday, while the officials adjudged the Chargers to be guilty of just two infractions for 8 yards.

The only other time this happened in the current season was to Cincinnati in Week 8. That’s merely twice in 239 games.