3 New Year's Resolutions for the Denver Broncos

It's a new year, and that means it's time for everyone to descend on their local gyms to try and conquer their New Year's resolutions.

What resolutions should the Broncos be working on to get into championship shape? Let's look.

1. Quit Giving Up Long Conversions

Over the past month and a half, the Broncos' defense has regressed from its exceptional level of play to performing more like an average NFL defense, which is concerning, considering this should be the team's defining strength as they jockey for a Lombardi trophy.

Fortunately, that regression feels much worse than the team's down-to-down performance would suggest.

Since Week 11, the Broncos' defense ranks 10th in defensive success rate, which indicates they're still keeping the offense behind the sticks at a high rate and are generally performing well. Yet, the defense has also slipped to 22nd in EPA allowed per play.

Why is there such a disparity there?

Think of success rate like batting average and EPA per play like slugging percentage. The Broncos aren't allowing a lot of hits, but when they do allow a hit, it's either going for multiple bases or sailing over the outfield fence, and those back-breaking hits are primarily coming on high-value third and fourth downs.

If you isolate the post-Week 11 defensive performance to just first and second down, they still look the part of a great unit, ranking fifth in success rate and 12th in EPA/play allowed. On third and fourth downs though, they're performing like one of the league's worst defenses, allowing the 11th-worst success rate and the third-most EPA per play.

To make a championship push, they have to play better on the game's most important downs.

2. Find an Explosive Element on Offense

The Denver Broncos are set to be one of the least-explosive offenses in the playoffs, which is a major concern considering the slate of defenses they might have to face.

The Texans, Chargers, Jaguars, Seahawks, Rams, and Eagles all boast opportunistic defenses that create sacks and takeaways at a high rate. They want nothing more than for an offense to try to beat them with a 15-play drive, because they know they'll almost certainly create a drive-killing play before you get in the endzone.

While Denver's offense has improved a lot since the mini-bye, it has remained unexplosive. Since Week 11, the Broncos rank 22nd in explosive play rate, 23rd in explosive rush rate, and 19th in explosive pass rate.

Unfortunately, the rushing element appears unlikely to improve much until JK Dobbins' hypothetical return. RJ Harvey's explosive carry rate of 3.1% is dwarfed by Dobbins' 7.8% rate, so Harvey would need to make a tremendous in-season leap to bridge the gap himself. Jaleel McLaughlin's inflated role could help in the meantime, as he's offered a 6.5% explosive carry rate over his meager sample of 31 carries.

That means the pressure to create explosives will largely fall on Bo Nix, and, fortunately for Broncos Country, he appears up to the task.

From Weeks 1-10, Nix was one of the least effective downfield passers in the NFL, but that's changed since the mini-bye. His adjusted completion percentage (which factors in drops and throwaways) is up nearly 10 percentage points to 50.0%, he's averaging six more yards per deep pass attempt, and his only turnover was the flukey deflection the Chiefs came away with last week.

If Nix can maintain that level of effectiveness while making those downfield targets a larger part of the passing game's diet, the offense should become explosive enough for a championship push.

3. Start Dominating Lesser Competition

Now, unlike the first two resolutions, this problem area won't be as much of a worry for the remainder of this campaign. Barring a Divisional Round matchup with the Steelers, the Broncos will be done playing blatantly inferior opponents after this weekend's game against the Chargers' backups.

With that in mind though, this weekend would be the perfect opportunity to set the table for a new mentality towards weaker competition.

Sure, the Broncos choked out the Chiefs last week, gaining dramatically more yardage and dominating the time-of-possession battle, but still, Kansas City was on the doorstep of pushing the game to overtime with its third-string quarterback. That matchup shouldn't have been that close.

The trend of the Broncos playing down to their competition has to change heading into next season, because their remarkable close-game luck likely won't carry into next season. With 12 one-score wins, the Broncos are tied with the 2022 Minnesota Vikings and the 2024 Chiefs for the all-time single-season record, and both those teams missed the playoffs the subsequent season, partially due to their regression in close games.

Considering the likelihood that Denver is closer to .500 in one-score games next season, it would be wise to limit their exposure to those games, and beating up on the league's bottom-feeders is an easy way to minimize those stressful finishes.