BSN Breakdown: 7 stats that the Denver Broncos need to improve in 2015

Numbers do lie, stats can be spun and metrics can be molded to fit the particular message.

If we’ve learned anything as consumers, voters and sports fans caught up in today’s non-stop spin cycle, it’s all the above.

Still, there are numerals and rankings where the truth is pretty much self-evident, and for Broncos Country right now with the start of the 2015 preseason a little more than a week away, we spotlight seven stats from a season ago that the Orange and Blue need to improve for the coming campaign:

• In 2014, the Broncos gathered 25 takeaways. That was a middle-of-the-pack figure (tied for 13^th) in the league last year and was comprised of 18 interceptions (7t) and only seven fumble recoveries (27). We’ve covered the turnover ground before on this site, but it bears repeating as it’s vital that Wade Phillips’ crew becomes more opportunistic – particularly when it comes to forcing and coming up with more fumbles – and climbs into the league’s upper-echelon in the takeaway department.
• The Denver kick-coverage units certainly were nothing special last season, ranking 24^th in opponent kickoff returns, allowing 25.9 yards per runback, and 29^th in punt-return coverage with foes averaging 11.2 yards a return. Those figures don’t get the pub that the offensive and defensive numbers do, but that’s simply too many extra yards of starting field position to give the opposition in a field-position game, and it’s up to new (and renowned) special-teams coordinator Joe DeCamillus to clean that up.
• Speaking of gratuitous yards allowed, here’s this: The Broncos finished 2014 with a minus-229 yard penalty differential or an average of negative-14.31 yards per game. Ouch. Only the Seahawks (130 penalties), Bills (124) and Rams (123) were flagged more times than the Broncos’ 120 infractions. And somewhat surprisingly, most of the penalties (75) were assessed on the Broncos’ offense. That definitely needs to be cleaned up.
• In the yards-allowed department, the Broncos were more than OK, ranking third in the league with an average of 305.2 allowed per game. But, in case you haven’t noticed, there’s a little flaw in the way the NFL measures defensive success as game scores aren’t total-yardage tallies. So in terms of actual points allowed per game, the Orange and Blue gave up 22.1 an outing, tied for a very-mediocre 16^th in the league. The Broncos can do – and should do – a lot better.
• Thanks largely to a late-season surge powered by C.J. Anderson, the 2014 Broncos finished in the league’s upper half (15^th) with 111.6 rushing yards per game. However, the Denver ground game still was lacking in overall effectiveness as the team ranked 20^th with an average of 4.03 yards per rushing attempt. And despite a young and reconfigured offensive line, count on Gary Kubiak, Rick Dennison and the return of the zone-blocking scheme to boost that figure this fall.
• If the Broncos can lift their rushing effectiveness, it’ll go a long way in helping them better control the clock, move the chains, play keep-away and give their D and – maybe most importantly – a certain 39-year-old quarterback some extra rest. That didn’t happen much a season ago, as the Broncos only had 21 5-minute-plus offensive drives (out of 198) to rank 21^st and 25 drives of 10 plays or more (again out of 198) to rank 25^th.
• Von Miller, DeMarcus Ware and Co. notched 41 sacks last season to tie for the ninth-highest total in the league. Not bad. But the impressiveness of that total fades quickly when you factor in that the Denver D faced the most passing attempts (by a full 22) in the league last season at 641. Add the 41 sacks, and that computes to a 6.0 sack percentage which ranked only 21^st in the league. Perhaps this is where first-round pick Shane Ray comes in.