I don’t know how to get into this Denver Broncos vs. Baltimore Ravens write-up.
I pour a lot of mental energy into these articles, but they’re a labor of love too. They carry a lot of my real emotions and feelings, and it’s admittedly hard to finish this piece now with the emotions I’m experiencing.
I understand probably around half of the people reading this will view those emotions as silly, as they believe dread would have only been understandable following the reverse outcome. I hope my fears are silly, but, nonetheless, I can’t mute them, so I have to vent a brief message before my brain allows me to indulge in the sweet and silly escape of sports.
Let’s Talk Sports, Let’s Talk Broncos, and Let’s Talk Buffs will always be safe and welcoming communities for anyone with a passion for sports. Community is always important, and I think that’s especially true when your back is against the wall. This community is here for you all. We care about you and your safety. You are welcome here.
Now, on with the football.
Previous Stock Reports
DENVER BRONCOS STOCK UP
P.J. Locke
The only person on defense getting a ‘Stock Up’ is P.J. Locke, because wow does it look like he was underappreciated the first eight weeks of the season.
Locke had barely appeared in this column through those first two months, as he didn’t seem overly impactful either positively or negatively. It’s pretty hard to hold that same opinion after seeing what his backup looks like.
Devon Key was an absolute disaster on Sunday and it often felt like the Ravens’ offensive gameplan was “go at No. 26.”
Piss poor effort from Devon Key pic.twitter.com/AiwLbAhWEK
— Broncos Buzz (@BroncosBuzz303) November 3, 2024
Key finished the day with a perfect passer rating allowed when targeted, with those targets totaling 98 yards and a touchdown, good for over a third of Jackson’s passing production.
Locke still needs to continue to grow into his role as the team’s long-term starter, but Key’s performances in recent weeks are an excellent reminder of how bad it could be in the wake of Justin Simmons’ departure.
Courtland Sutton
With seven receptions for 122 receiving yards on top of a gorgeous two-yard passing touchdown, Sunday was one of the best games of Courtland Sutton’s career.
Highest graded passer under pressure in Week 9: Courtland Sutton
— Mike Kennedy (@MikeKennedyNFL) November 3, 2024
Highest graded receiver on contested catch situations in Week 9: Bo Nix
Yes, you read that all correctly. pic.twitter.com/Pw3OiwuHFq
It also marked the first time in his career that he crossed the 100-yard threshold in consecutive games, which is hard to believe, even considering the Broncos’ shaky quarterbacking history.
Adding to the amount of appreciation and gratitude Broncos Country felt for Courtland Sutton was just how damaging the rest of Denver’s weapons were to their offensive efforts. Without Sutton as the lone, undoubted plus-starter, it’s hard to imagine Bo Nix finding much success this season.
Defensive Future
This Sunday was an ugly display of defense from the Denver Broncos, but on Monday, the franchise took a step towards cementing the bright, young future of their defense.
Jonathon Cooper wanted to thank everyone for getting this deal done. Added he can’t say how thankful he is for it pic.twitter.com/I8jQFgGKkJ
— Zac Stevens (@ZacStevensDNVR) November 6, 2024
By extending Jonathon Cooper, the Broncos can now focus on locking up other key elements of this defense to ensure they can maintain a high level of play, even if they’re unlikely to replicate this degree of dominance.
The Denver Broncos now have Cooper and Pat Surtain II on long-term extensions, while key cornerbacks Riley Moss and Ja’Quan McMillian and pass-rushers Nik Bonitto and Jonah Elliss are set to return for 2025 on cheap deals. The safety room is also locked-in for next season on deals likely below the market rate that both PJ Locke or Brandon Jones could sign for now. The defensive line could potentially lose D.J. Jones, but Zach Allen and Malcolm Roach make that much easier to stomach.
The team will have to continue to reload along the defensive front, to maintain the depth they’ve begun to build up there, but generally speaking, the Broncos have done a great job of building this defense with the future in mind, and that quality architecture is bearing fruit.
Bo Nix
Maybe this is a case of coping too hard, or maybe it’s a case of not being loyal to the structure of the article, but Bo Nix lands in the ‘Stock Up’ section this week, even despite his grisly second half.
This also is probably colored by some personal bias.
Through the first six weeks of the season, there were reasons to be optimistic about Bo Nix, but there were just as many reasons to doubt whether or not he’d even be able to hang around in the NFL as a backup. That’s not all that rare for a rookie quarterbacking campaign either. It’s only the extreme outliers, both positively and negatively, that offer their franchises an immediate concrete answer.
With that in mind, the fact Nix has now stitched together three consecutive weeks of functional NFL quarterbacking further improves his stock, as it makes it seem that much more likely he belongs in this league.
In the first half, before Nix found himself down 21 points to a seemingly unstoppable offense, Nix was ranked 14th of 30 qualifying quarterbacks in EPA/play. Again, that looks like a competent NFL starter, which is a welcome development, considering how Nix had been playing in the first halves of games.
Things only fell apart in the second half, when Nix was put in a horrific position.
Now, it’s still concerning that Nix flailed when he fell behind so much. If he is to be the Denver Broncos quarterback of the future, this won’t be the last time he sees a big deficit, and he’ll have to handle future situations much better if the Broncos want to dig out of those holes.
Nonetheless, from this vantage point, that seems like a secondary quest in the journey of quarterback development.
It’s easy to forget, but the landscapes these quarterbacks have to adapt to are forever-changing, by design. Patrick Mahomes and Lamar Jackson are deciphering different puzzles now than they were in the ninth start of their respective careers. “Can’t play from behind” was a label that hung around Lamar Jackson up until he won his second MVP award.
Bo Nix: 1.6% Turnover-Worthy Play Rate 🎯
— PFF DEN Broncos (@PFF_Broncos) November 6, 2024
Third lowest among all QBs this season pic.twitter.com/lNduyN4Ve4
Point being, this year is about Nix getting his feet under him, the NFL game slowing down for him, and proving that he’s at least worth the time investment that quarterback development requires. This performance, as warty as it might be, was another step in the right direction towards Nix proving precisely that.
DENVER BRONCOS STOCK DOWN
The Entire Defense
Analytics is hard to apply to football decision-making because there are countless variables at play and the samples are so small. A sport like baseball, with fewer moving parts and much larger samples, has become an analytic haven for this exact reason.
That said, it does still have its place in the NFL, and it has taught us some valuable lessons. Run-game proficiency has far more to do with line play than running back play; younger draft prospects have a better rate of development; explosive plays are some of the most impactful components of the game; etc.
One of these maxims is that a team’s defensive ranking is more connected to the schedules of offenses that team has played, rather than the actual quality of that team’s defense.
Lamar Jackson had a 99th percentile EPA/Play performance, Derrick Henry forced 13 missed tackles, and Zay Flowers went 5-127-2 as the Ravens put up 41 points on the Broncos
— Shawn Syed (@SyedSchemes) November 3, 2024
The Broncos had the #1 defense by EPA/play entering today pic.twitter.com/HQr7REPRCj
The Denver Broncos got a firsthand lesson in this notion on Sunday, against the league’s top offense, after facing the NFL’s sixth-easiest schedule of opposing offenses through the first eight weeks.
Now, don’t get it twisted. This is a great Denver defense, one of the best defenses in the league, and a unit that should continue to lead the Broncos the rest of the season, but prior to this week, it looked historically great.
Since the 2011 CBA, no team had allowed fewer yards per play than the 2024 Denver Broncos defense, prior to the Ravens game. At 4.4 YPP, the Broncos were tied with their own legendary 2015 defense and Seattle’s 2013 Legion of Boom.
This defeat helped re-contextualize things. While this is a tremendous defense, it is not a historic one.
On 10 drives, Baltimore tallied 41 points. 4.1 points per drive is a rate 28.5% higher than what the NFL’s highest-scoring offense is currently producing.
Unless you have a top-five quarterback on your roster at the peak of his powers, you cannot win like that, and even then, your margin for error is slim.
All that said, the Denver Broncos can make this section of the column look very very silly if they can shut down Patrick Mahomes and the Kansas City Chiefs, returning themselves to the status of ‘elite’.
The Denver Broncos’ Weapons
The lack of any ‘juice’ coming from the Broncos’ skill groups on offense has been a problem for years now, but it reared its head on Sunday.
Beyond Courtland Sutton, the Denver Broncos have failed to provide Nix with any semblance of security.
Lil’Jordan Humphrey continues to be a large part of the offense, which is a tremendous indictment on those buried behind him on the depth chart and continues to make back-breaking mistakes. This time, his dropped pass bounced up into the air and right into the mitts of a Baltimore defender.
Broncos WR Lil'Jordan Humphrey, on an INT that skipped off his hands on the game's first possession: "Try to go make a play. Obviously didn't, and that's on me. I know better. I got to put two hands to the ball, and — you know what I mean? … It was a mistake on me." pic.twitter.com/cSnydFAbTd
— Andrew Mason (@MaseDenver) November 4, 2024
After Humphrey and Sutton, the Broncos are left with little else. The dip from Humphrey’s 331 snaps to Franklin’s 184 is much steeper than the post-Humphrey drop-off should ever be on your receiving depth chart and just goes to show that Denver really has nowhere to turn beyond Sutton.
Even if you look beyond the receiver position, there is little hope.
The Broncos have the worst collection of tight ends of any team in the league, and it’s time to give up on Javonte Williams returning to his pre-injury form.
Thankfully, Nix has a solid line, but Denver will have to overhaul their collection of weapons this offseason.
