Defensive snap percentage for the Broncos – season review

Who played and how much in which games?

The Denver Broncos defense finished 3rd in points allowed at 311. That’s 11 points more than the first place Los Angeles Chargers. Despite that both AFC West teams got blown out in their wildcard games. In fact, teams with scoring defenses ranked 1st, 3rd, 5th, 6th and 8th all lost in the wild card round. Four of the top 10 defenses are still in though – Eagles, Chiefs, Lions and Ravens.

As we found out painfully on Sunday, the Bronco defense had some holes that our defensive coaches were able to hide for most of the season. Those were at ILB and free safety. PJ Locke played the second most defensive snaps for the Broncos, yet was one of the worst starting safeties in the league. Cody Barton had the most defensive snaps, yet was one of the worst starting ILBs in the league (my opinion, but backed by data). Much like Alex Singleton in 2023, he filled the stat sheet with tackles, but was often lost in coverage and/or taking poor angles in the run game.

Barton had 4 TFL in 1053 total defensive snaps. That’s one more than Alex Singleton had in 190 snaps. Barton also only had 3 PBUs (1 defensed, 1 deflected and 1 batted). Admittedly, Justin Strnad only had 1 PBU in 676 defensive snaps. Both were replacement level (or worse) ILBs against the run and the pass. With at least one good ILB, the 2024 Bronco defense would have been elite. It would have made it much easier to hide the weak-link that was PJ Locke.

In terms of ILB pass coverage, the best pass coverage ILBs allow 75% deserved catch or less. Both Barton and Strnad were above 95%. The four All-Pro ILBs for 2024: Zack Baun, Bobby Wagner, Zaire Franklin and Frankie Luvu allowed 88%, 65%, 82% and 83% deserved catch respectively. They also tended to have plenty of TFL. Luvu had 16, Baun and Franklin both had 15, and Wagner had 14. Luvu could be considered a coverage OLB since he did rush the passer 37% of the time, but I don’t follow the Commanders closely enough to know his exact role in their defense.

The point remains the same though, our ILBs were not good in 2024. PFF gave Cody Barton an overall grade of 66.1 (81st of 189 LBs). Strnad graded out at 55.5 which was 140th. PFF’s top three for the season were Wagner, Baun and Fred Warner who were all at roughly 90 PFF grades.

So let’s with the actual snap data for whole bronco defense. I will show the ILBs first since I’ve already spent time discussing them.

Singleton played every defensive snap in the three games before he was injured (highlighted in the graph). While he was not great, Barton was a step down in my opinion, although PFF graded Alex at 62.9 for his three games, which was lower than Cody. PFF is garbage, but more on that later. Singleton did generate two pressures on only 17 pass rushes which was comparable to Barton’s 11 pressures on 89 pass rush snaps. Strnad was our best pass rushing ILB this season generating pressure on 13 of his 69 pass rush snaps (3.0 sacks). His 18.8% pressure rate was the best on the team for players with more than 50 pass rush snaps. That was near the top of the league for second level defenders who were primarily used in coverage on passing snaps. SIS numbers that show up on their site are almost all off by a little (high).

Our OLB group was much better and deeper than our ILB group. Baron Browning, who was one of the better pass rushers on the Broncos in 2023, was relegated to the bench and then traded after the emergence of both Jonah Eliss and Dondrea Tillman.

Browning’s ability to rush the passer was missing this season and he was sent packing. Four pressures on 72 pass rush snaps is terrible for edge rusher. That’s 5.6%, which is poor even for an IDL guy.

Tillman’s 14.9% was good for 8th among edge guys with a minimum of 100 pass rushes. Kaden Ellis led the league at 22.8% pressure (34 pressures on 149 rushes).

All-Pro Zach Allen was second in the league in total pressures according to PFR with 47 (Trey Hendrickson had 54). Allen had a crazy number of pass rush snaps – 586 – which was most in the league. Because of this, his pressure rate was not all that spectacular at 11.8% (69 pressures in 586 rushes), but his 69 pressures (according to SIS) was tied for 5th most in the league with former DPOY Myles Garrett. SIS credited Hendrickson with 85. Oddly enough, PFF does not like Zach, grading him out at 63.7 overall which is 61st (?!?) among 219 DL guys. In case you weren’t aware, I think PFF is a joke, but this proves it beyond the shadow of a doubt. PFF credits Allen with 75 pressures, which is first among DL guys. His 964 total snaps was also the most in the league among DL guys, yet somehow, they guy that THEY show as the league leader in pressures for his position is ranked 61st?!? I find it crazy that PFR, PFF and SIS all differ in the pressures that they attribute to a given player with PFF crediting Allen at 75, SIS at 69 and PFR at 47. It’s not like they are close. 75 is almost double 47.

Seriously, the stat sites for the NFL need to figure out what the definition of a QB pressure is and standardize it. This is laughable.

Our best DL player for generating pressure was John Franklin-Meyers in terms of pressure percentage. He had 347 rush snaps and generated 46 pressures according to SIS (13.2%). Eyioma Uwazurike got three pressures on only 22 pass rushes, but that could have been a result of playing against backups in the final game of the season so I wouldn’t read too much into that.

Malcolm Roach had a really high pass rush win rate for much of the season. ESPN only shows the top 20, but he was in the top 20 as of week 13. He finished the season outside of the top 20. The only Bronco IDL guy who finished in the top 20 in PRWR was Zach Allen who finished third with a rate of 15%.

Both Roach and DJ Jones finished in the top 10 in run stop win rate. Jones was 2nd at 45% and Roach was seventh at 38%.

Our cornerback group shifted dramatically during the season. We lost All-Pro Patrick Surtain for ostensibly two whole games. Which forced Levi Wallace into a huge role where he was exposed by Jerry Jeudy (who needs to send him a thank you gift for getting him into the Pro Bowl) then he was benched and inactive for the end of the season because he is terrible in man coverage. The Broncos saw the emergence of Riley Moss who did great as the target of many QBs who wished to avoid PS2. Ja’Quan McMillian had a worse season than he did as a rookie, but he was still solid as CB3 (slot corner). Kris Abrams-Draine looked decent in the two games where he was thrust into the spotlight. Former starting CB, Damarri Mathis was essentially relegated to a special teams role.

Among CBs PS2 finished third in passing rating allowed at 58.9. Moss finished the season at 95.4, which is a little above average. PJ Locke’s 125.8 was one of the worst among starting safeties in the league. He ranked 293rd out of 315. PFF gave him an overall grade of 57.5 which was 123rd of 170 safeties. PS2 was graded out at 85.6 which was first among 223 CBs that PFF graded. Brandon Jones 86.7 was fifth out of 170 safeties. Moss graded out at 60.5 which was 119th of 223. Ja’Quan graded out at 60.6 which was 118th. So PFF showed that we had two elite starters in our defensive backfield, two average starters and one terribad starter. I agree with their assessment here, although I thought that Moss played above average, but that might just be my homerism coming through.

Both Devon Key and Keidron Smith were terrible in coverage allowing passer ratings of 115.5 and 118.7 respectively although neither had much chance to play in pass coverage. Key’s man was targeted 11 times and Smith’s only once. Key allowed only five catches, but two of those were TDs. KAD and Mathis both had really good PR allowed values, but both were in fairly limited playing time, they allowed PRs of 34.6 and 39.6, but KAD’s man was only targeted 16 times (7 catches allowed) and Mathis’ man was only targeted six times (1 catch allowed).

Locke allowed the most passing TDs with four (tied with Moss). While his man was only targeted 54 times, he allowed catches on 40 of those, which was the highest allowed completion percentage among our starting DBs (74%). His 12.1 yards allowed per completion was also worst among our starting DBs. What’s scary is that his average depth of target was 8.0 yards, yet he allowed 12.1 yards per catch. That either means he was in coverage of RBs on outlet passes frequently, or that he was allowing a bunch of YAC. He only allowed 4.7 YAC/comp, which was lower than Brandon Jones at 5.3.

PS2’s 2.6 YAC/comp was tied for the fifth best in the league. Only Quinyon Mitchell, Chidobe Awuzie, Kristian Fulton, Cam Smith, and DaRon Bland allowed fewer YAC/Comp. Mitchell’s 1.8 was best in the league.

Singleton is the only ILB that the Broncos will have on the roster in 2025 and he could very easily be a cap casualty if the team were not so thin at ILB. Cutting Singleton would provide 5.6 million in cap savings, but then the Broncos would have no ILBs with any NFL experience.

I would love for the Broncos to draft a safety in the first round to pair with Brandon Jones. I doubt that Broncos will be able to get Xavier Watts with the 20th pick, but if he is there, the Broncos should jump at the chance to get the 2023 Nagurski award winner. Thankfully we should be able to plug the holes at ILB and safety with some astute draft picks on day two or early on day three.