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Broncos Roundtable: What player has improved the most as the season has progressed?

December 18, 2020

DENVER — For the first time in his NFL career, Josh Allen returns to the Rocky-Mountain region, where he became a first-round pick at the University of Wyoming.

Will the ultra-talented Allen leave Colorado a Rocky Mountain high with a win, or will Drew Lock stay hot another week?

The DNVR Broncos Crew breaks it down and discusses which Broncos have improved the most during this season.

WHAT BRONCO HAS IMPROVED THE MOST DURING THE SEASON?

Zac

Melvin Gordon — The past month of the season, there’s no question the first-year Bronco has been the best running back on Denver’s roster. In fact, in that timespan, Gordon’s looked like the $8 million back he is.

Melvin told us he was going to heat up, too.

“Starting Week 7 or Week 8 is when I kind of turn up and get things going,” Gordon said on Oct. 28. “It’s not too late.”

Now, it took until Week 11 for Gordon to hit full speed, but since, he’s been hard to slow down. In his first eight games with the Broncos, Gordon averaged 65 yards from scrimmage and 4.1 yards per carry.

However, in the past three games, not including the game against the New Orleans Saints in which the Broncos didn’t have a quarterback, Melvin has kicked it into a new gear.

In that stretch, Gordon is averaging 106 yards from scrimmage and a whopping 6.6 yards per carry. What makes those numbers even more impressive is he’s had his fewest snaps of the season in all three of those games, meaning he’s maximizing his opportunities.

Phillip Lindsay was certainly the hot hand for a few games earlier in the season, but Melvin Gordon has been on fire the past month.

Mase

K.J. Hamler — The moment a hamstring injury felled Hamler in training camp, the expectations for his rookie season dropped. A redshirt rookie season seemed to be a possibility for the second-round pick if his hamstring issues persisted — especially given that a similar problem had already kept him from running at the NFL Combine last winter.

But the Broncos were patient. Hamler worked his way back. And so far, good health has blessed their fastest player, culminating in a 2-catch, 86-yard, 2-touchdown performance in last Sunday’s win at Carolina.

Some of Hamler’s play is due to Jerry Jeudy’s success at forcing safety help to rotate in his direction, opening up downfield territory. But it’s also a function of Hamler’s speed providing a perfect complement to Jeudy’s route-running. Once Hamler beats a cornerback in coverage — as he did on his first touchdown last week — any help that arrives is bound to be too little, too late … as long as the pass is on-time and accurate.

Hamler has 29 receptions for 377 yards and three touchdowns in 11 games played. If he simply maintains that per-game pace for the final three weeks, he will finish with 37 receptions, 480 yards and four touchdowns. This would make him the 16th receiver of 68 Round 2 wideouts taken since 2006 with at least 35 receptions, 450 yards and four touchdowns in their first seasons.

But if Hamler maintains the pace of the last five games the Broncos played with their quarterbacks available — an average of 3.6 receptions, 54.4 yards and 0.33 touchdowns — he would finish the season with 40 catches for 540 yards and four touchdowns. This would make him the 15th Round 2 receiver with at least 40 catches, 500 yards and four scores as a rookie, placing him above 79 percent of the second-round receivers since 2006 in rookie-year production.

Considering that the names of receivers to reach these rookie standards include current stars such as Michael Thomas, Jarvis Landry, Courtland Sutton, JuJu Smith-Schuster and D.K. Metcalf, that sort of first-year production would leave Hamler poised for big things in 2021 and beyond.

Ryan

Drew Lock — If the question was who has progressed the most since last year, the answer would obviously be Garett Bolles, but Bolles has been great since Week 1, so his in-season improvement hasn’t been all that dramatic.

But Dramatic improvement is exactly what Drew Lock has shown since Week 11. It’s no secret that Lock struggled mightily over the first 10 weeks of the season, and the key metrics may ever have been harder on him than some of the harshest fans.

In fact, Lock struggled so much early in the season that even after his improvements over his last three starts, he still ranks 28th in the NFL in total QBR, which tracks several key components of quarterback play, and even adjusts for the difficulty of the defense faced.

But if you zoom into that stat which he struggled so mightily in over the early part of the season, you see that since Week 11, Lock ranks fourth in the entire NFL in Total QBR, trailing only Aaron Rodgers, Patrick Mahomes and Ryan Tannehill over that time span.

That is some dramatic improvement that, of course, directly coincides with Pat Shurmur scheming to Lock’s strengths more over the course of his last three starts.

Now, this is not to say that the job is done for Lock. Because his early-season struggles were so concerning, he certainly needs to continue this trend for the rest of the season, but the seismic shift for Lock over the last three games makes him the answer to this one for me.

FINAL SCORE PREDICTIONS VS BILLS (-6.5)

Zac

Bills 27, Broncos 21 — This one is going to be incredibly difficult for Denver, to say the least. At 10-3, Buffalo is one of the best teams in the entire NFL. If that wasn’t tough enough for the Broncos, the Bills are a terrible matchup for Denver right now on both sides of the ball.

Coming off his first game without an interception since Week 2, Drew Lock has a very unfriendly matchup against the Bills, who rank in the top 10 in that department. Another clean game from No. 3 against Buffalo would be extremely impressive. Unfortunately for Drew, the Bills will put Lock in uncomfortable positions and force him into a mistake or two.

On the other side, the Broncos even more daunting of a task. Without three of their top cornerbacks—A.J. Bouye, Bryce Callahan and Essang Bassey—and multiple depth corners out—Duke Dawson and Kevin Toliver—the Broncos have to try and contain one of the best passing attacks in the NFL.

Josh Allen ranks in the top seven in the NFL in yards per game (280), completion percent (68.6), passing touchdowns (28), passer rating (103.3) and QBR (75.9). If facing a borderline elite quarterback wasn’t tough enough, Allen has one of the best-receiving duos in the game.

Stefon Diggs leads the NFL in receptions (100) and is third in receiving yards (1,167). He’ll be a huge nightmare matchup against Denver’s backup cornerbacks. Along with Diggs, Cole Beasley is having a tremendous season with 838 receiving yards on 71 catches.

It’ll be just too tough of a task for Vic Fangio to slow that lethal unit down enough for Denver to win. However, the Broncos will fight and keep it close.

Mase

Bills 29, Broncos 23 — Don’t be surprised if the Broncos defense bends, but rarely breaks. Against Kansas City in Week 13, the Broncos allowed six scores — but just one of them was a touchdown; the rest were field goals. In this prediction, the Broncos yield seven scores, but only two touchdowns, as Denver’s defense concedes yards but makes life rough for the Bills in the red zone — even with Allen’s red-zone rushing proficiency in play.

If Denver can limit Buffalo’s damage early, the Broncos can stick with a similar game plan to the ones they had against the Dolphins, Chiefs and Panthers, focusing on establishing the run with play-action passes and other short-to-intermediate throws. If the occasional; deep shots can be as effective as they were against the Panthers, the Broncos have a chance at an upset. But Buffalo’s cornerbacks, led by 2019 All-Pro Tre’Davious White, are far more effective than Carolina’s and could limit the effectiveness of Lock’s long strikes.

Ryan

Bills 30, Broncos 27 — The Broncos are starting to click in several areas, and if you take out the absolute sham that was their game against the Saints, they’ve won two out of their last three, with their only loss coming in close fashion to the Kansas City Chiefs. This team looks like they are ready to compete at a high level, but unfortunately, they are extremely shorthanded across the board.

While I think this one stays close, I see Josh Allen’s ability to keep plays alive being too much for Denver’s decimated corner group to handle.

Allen makes big plays late to lift the Bills over the Broncos in an entertaining Saturday showdown.