BSN Analytics Phase Four: Broncos stats like you’ve never seen

Not one, not two, not three…

After bringing you basketball stats, the first all-encompassing hockey metric, and our most extensive database in baseball, we’re taking another step. This time, for our fourth stats roll out, we’re ready for some football and Denver Broncos stats.

With football, we’ll have the largest number of unique statistics of any sport, offering things like sacks allowed by offensive linemen, run stops by defenders, game-by-game third-down percentages for quarterbacks, receiving yards allowed by defensive backs, and a whole lot more for each position. 

A big part of our in-house statistics in the trenches, is how they’re focused around winning and losing at the line of scrimmage, an aspect that’s lost on conventional stats like tackles—which don’t differentiate between a tackle at the line of scrimmage or 20-yards downfield.

All those unique stats can be found in our game logs after every game, which you can find in our player profiles for each Bronco that sees the field this season. In those profiles, you’ll find both the season totals for that player and their game by game production. 

Gone are the days where you had to search the web for the snap counts and the number of targets a player had on three different sites, now you’ll have them all in one place, forever. 

Our game logs and overall stats also have our analyst game grades in them, which are totaled for an overall grade for each one of the Broncos, too.

Unlike other sites that grade player performances, these all have an author and an in-depth explanation of how that player earned that grade, putting things into perspective from a scouting eye. After all, every good NFL front office has both an analytics and a scouting department that work in unison with each other.

We’re also unveiling our all-encompassing metric DPR (Dynamic Player Rating), which we’ve already published for the three other sports. For those of you who aren’t familiar with DPR, it’s an all-encompassing metric developed with a complex algorithm to rank players on a scale of 0-to-100.

The DPR scale is the same in football as it is in basketball, baseball, and hockey, making athletes across all those sports comparable now. 

What makes the football version of DPR unique, is that instead of having three variations based on position, like the other sports, football has 10. You now have a quarterback rating, WAR, or PER-type metric for every position in football; QB, RB, WR, TE, OL, DL, EDGE, LB, S, and CB. 

In Week 1 of 2018, the highest offensive DPR was produced by Emmanuel Sanders who went off for 92.12, an elite score, edging out Garett Bolles’ 83.50. The highest DPR by any defender on the Broncos was an off-the-charts 160.55 by Von Miller, in a spectacular performance. Yes, that’s right, DPR allows for scores that go “off the charts” as Miller did on Sunday, making sure a freak like Von can’t “break” the scale.

For a greater number of players to compare the Broncos to, on our stat page, you’ll also find the DPRs for every AFC West player as well. Those which will be available in the next two weeks when we have an appropriate sample size. 

Of course, this is only the beginning, only the first version of everything, so expect additions and improvements as we move forward into the season.

For a little history on some of the stats well be using and what we found in 2017, read this.

As always, a big thank you goes out to the entire BSN team for their support and hard work. A special thank you goes out to Andrea Cornaglia, a true mastermind, who was absolutely essential in developing all the different variations of DPR, plus so much more, as he was essential in figuring out the logistics that go into everything you see. 

Also, a special shout-out goes to our interns John Simmer and Henry Chisholm. John and Henry watched tons of film over the summer, giving us a greater sample size in developing our stats, allowing us to develop the DPRs. 

Now there’s nothing left for you to do than click on the links in this article, or go to our Broncos page and click on the stats or player profiles. To make sense of it all, may we suggest going to our glossary.

Happy stat hunting!