Breaking Down the Stats: An Insightful Review of the Denver Broncos’ Game 2 Performance in 2024

The Denver Broncos have now scored 26 points through two games.

While passing offenses have been down throughout the league (66 passing TDs with 48 INTs), scoring so far has been at a fairly good pace with 1324 points through the first 31 games (21.4 points per team per game). There are currently four NFL teams without a passing touchdown: Denver, Washington, Chicago and Carolina. Those teams have combined to throw nine picks. The 1.37:1 ratio of passing TDs to interceptions if any of the three rookie starters had played above terrible so far.

The No. 1 pick from 2024, Caleb Williams, is not playing well right now, but he still has only started two NFL games. Meanwhile the No. 1 overall from 2023, Bryce Young, just lost his starting job to 37-year-old Andy Dalton who hasn’t been a regular starter since 2022 and has only started 30 games over the last four seasons.

Jayden Daniels is the only one of the three rookies who is playing well and he has yet to throw a TD similar, to Bo Nix, Caleb Williams and Bryce Young.

One reason Bo Nix has not looked good is that Broncos run game has been inept. The Broncos have run the ball 44 times and have gained two yards or fewer on 20 of those run. Nix, Audric Estime and Tyler Badie have combined for 90 yards on 12 carries (7.5 YPC) while Javonte Williams and Jaleel McLaughlin have run the ball 32 times for 74 yards (2.3 YPC). Nix has five rushing first downs, the rest of the team has seven.

Of course this could be attributed to Nix’s inability to push the ball down the field so far. The Broncos have the third-worst ANYA so far this year at 2.3. Only the Bears (1.4) and the Panthers (1.1) have been worse. The Saints are leading the league at 11.8. In terms of yards per completion, the Broncos are currently fourth worst at 8.3.

The Browns, Bears and Panthers are worse. The inability to push the ball down the field has led to stacked boxes for the Broncos and that has hurt the running game, but the run blocking has also been inconsistent so far.

Nix currently has 11 completions for 10 yards or more, but he also has 9 completions for 2 or fewer yards. His passing chart looked much better in his second game (above) relative to his first (below).

Nix was terrible on throws beyond 10 yards from the LOS in Game 1 (2/12 with 2 INT). The second INT in the second game really doesn’t count since it was on a Hail Mary pass, but Nix was a little better in the second game going 4/12 with 2 INTs (1 really). I expect his intermediate and long passing to get better assuming the run game starts doing better than it has.

According to PFR, Nix has only been pressured on 17.0% of his dropbacks which is average. Will Levis has been pressured on 28.8% and Jared Goff on only 5.7%. Nix’s on-target % of 36.4% is bad but it’s only 19th so far.

Before tonight’s final game of week 2, the leader in on-target % among starting QBs is Derek Carr with 53.8%. Anthony Richardson’s 18.9% is comically bad.