Snaps and more from the Broncos win over the Falcons

who played, who didn’t and how the Broncos have become an elite team

The Denver Broncos soundly whipped the Atlanta Falcons in all phases on Sunday. The game-day inactives were Zach Wilson, Brandon Jones, Kris Abrams-Draine, Frank Crum, Calvin Throckmorton, Greg Dulcich, and Eyioma Uwazurike.

Offense

The only two offensive players who played every snap were Quinn Meinerz and Ben Powers. The rest of the starting offense got some rest at the end of the blowout. Jarett Stidham got his first offensive snaps of the season. Matt Peart got three snaps as the 6th offensive lineman and three as regular OL like Alex Palczewski and Alex Forsyth did.

The OL allowed a total of seven pressures but no sacks on 35 dropbacks. The Bronco front seven only got eight pressures on Kirk Cousins and Michael Penix on 32 dropbacks, but four of those pressures resulted in sacks.

Our running backs were led by Javonte Williams who was back in the RB1 slot with 32 snaps. Audric Estime got 14 and Jaleel McLaughlin got 9. Michael Burton got only five snaps, but got three touches on those five (accounting for zero total yards).

Adam Trautman got the most TE snaps with 37, but Nate Adkins got 30. Adkins was used as a FB on a few snaps as he is a better pass catcher than Burton. Lucas Krull got 18 snaps. Adkins got the only catch from the TEs this game when he was wide open on the beautifully designed play for the first TD of the game.

Courtland Sutton, Devaughn Vele, Lil’Jordan Humphrey, Troy Franklin, and Marvin Mims played 52, 42, 27, 27 and 14 snaps. Mims got used heavily on his snaps getting five touches. His three runs only gained a total of four yards (one was a big loss), but both of his catches were huge plays with the 37 swing pass and the 12 yard TD on the WR screen.

No offensive players played only on special teams.

Defense

For the first time this season, no defensive player played all the defensive snaps. That is a good thing. That only happens in a blowout with this defense. The defenders played all but the final series: Cody Barton, Riley and P.J. Locke. They all played 54 snaps. Interestingly Patrick Surtain got more rest than those three, he only played 46 (78%).

We played three other ILBs besides Barton, Justin Strnad, Zach Cunningham, and Levelle Bailey. They got 28, 11 and 5 snaps.

On the DL, Zach Allen still played a really high volume of snaps – 85% (50). John Franklin-Myers, Jordan Jackson, DJ Jones, and Malcolm Roach played 30, 14, 20 and 23 snaps.

The snap split among edge guys, Jonathon Cooper, Nik Bonitto, Dondrea Tillman, and Jonah Elliss was 37, 35, 24 and 22.

With Jones out Devon Key was the other starting safety. He got 48 snaps and didn’t look terrible like he did against the Ravens. JL Skinner got his first defensive snaps of the season with six. Keidron Smith got five.

Ja’Quan McMillian, Levi Wallace, Tremon Smith, and Damarri Mathis all got defensive snaps this game for the first time this year. They got 53, 36, 20, 5 and 5 respectively.

All active defensive players got defensive snaps this game.

Win Rates

I thought about making this an entire article, but decided to include it here in the snaps post. The Broncos are the only team in the NFL with a player in the top of EVERY group in ESPN win rates. Every team has at least on player in a group with the exception of the Patriots, which I find schaudenfraudalicious.

The Broncos also have FOUR interior offensive linemen in the top in pass block win rate. That’s astonishing since you only start three. Alex Forsyth was pass blocking at an elite level when he was starting.

If you want to understand what this metric is telling us below is the description:

Our pass rush win rate metric tells us how often a pass rusher is able to beat his block within 2.5 seconds. Likewise, our pass block win rate metric conveys the rate linemen can sustain their blocks for 2.5 seconds or longer.

In run stop win rate, a defender can earn a win by doing any of the following: beating his blocker so he’s in better position to stop the runner; disrupting the pocket or running lane by pushing his blocker backward; containing the runner such that he must adjust his running lane; or recording a tackle within 3 yards of the line of scrimmage. If a defender earns a run stop win, his blocker earns a loss — and vice versa.

The Bronco IOL is best in the NFL according to win rates. In terms of PBWR Luke Wattenberg, Forsyth, Meinerz and Ben Powers are 1, 2, 5 and 9. There are roughly 100 starting IOL players (3 x 32 = 96) in the NFL. For the Broncos to have four in the top 10 is astounding.

You could also argue that the Broncos also have the best starting OT duo in the league with Garett Bolles and Mike McGlinchey both appearing in the top in PBWR – 7th and 3rd. Bolles also shows up on the RBWR top 10 at 6th. Only two other teams have both OTs in the top of PBWR – The Lions and and Eagles.

The Bears are the only team with both OTs in the top in RBWR and the two teams with two IOL guys in the top of RBWR are the Chiefs and the Colts.

As of right now, the Broncos don’t have any defensive group with two guys in the top list, but we do have one on every list.

The Chiefs are a distant second with seven.

Of course, having elite players does not necessarily mean that the Broncos are currently an elite team, but when Team A has five more than Team B and Team B is 9-1, that’s a strong statement that Team A is elite, despite the 6-5 record.

If the Broncos finish at 11-6 or 12-5, I want folks to look back at this and see that signs were there after week eleven that the Broncos were transforming into an elite team.