Despite negative national narrative, Broncos’ offense ready to make "a tremendous jump"

 

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The 2016 Denver Broncos are ready to move on. They are defending World Champions but would rather focus on the new task at hand.

Everyone knows the defense, in historic fashion, led the team to a title last season. This season, just one day in, the national narrative seems to be that the offense will be even worse and as a result, the team will fade from contention quickly.

Wednesday, Fox Sports’ Colin Cowherd predicted the defending Super Bowl champions would finish 6-10 and Thursday USA Today predicted the Broncos would finish third in the AFC West. Many more pundits have already negatively weighed in on the team’s chances. Now, predictions are a dime a dozen but the overall sentiment is that the Broncos offense is a liability. The leaders of the 2016 Broncos’ offense do not see it that way.

The leaders of the 2016 Broncos’ offense do not see it that way.

“They said, ‘we can’t’ last year too so we’ll just keep can’t-ing our way underneath the radar and keep can’t-ing our way to championships,” C.J. Anderson said Thursday, confidently.

Most predictions of the team’s impending doom stem from either the departure of Peyton Manning, his impending replacement or the sentiment that the team was lucky to win so many close games. However, the Broncos believe the simple fact that they won it all in spite of their often horrid offensive play, coupled with this being the second year in the system, bodes well for a better display offensive display in 2016.

“What we try to do is look at if we’re a better football team than we were last year,” General Manager John Elway said Wednesday. “It’s hard to compare it to [2015], but I think we can be better offensively. If you look at it as a whole where we are and the injuries we had on the offensive line, we expect some of the guys that we drafted this year to come in and help us. I think it’s going to help having a year under our belt with the offense and with what [Head Coach] Gary [Kubiak] likes to do and what [Offensive Coordinator] Rick [Dennison] likes to do on the offensive side. Being familiar with the offense is only going to help us.”

The players, who have praised their defensive teammates since capturing the Lombardi Trophy, have the all the confidence in the world that they can be better than anyone expects.

“I think that we are going to make a tremendous jump, and I’m looking forward to proving it,” Emmanuel Sanders said Thursday.

The offense hovered around the middle to bottom third of the NFL throughout last season’s run to Super Bowl 50. They finished the regular season averaging 22.2 points per game (19th), 355.5 net yards per game (16th) and ranked 25th and 28th in third down and red zone percentage respectively. That will certainly have to change if they wish once again compete for a championship but tight end Virgil Green believes, with some hard work, it will happen.

“[The offense] does obviously want to be better, contribute more to the team and we have the right guys, and it is the second year in the system,” he declared Thursday. “If you watch film of last year, we were just a hair away from breaking a big run, a hair away from catching a deep ball so I think with us being able to fine tune the details, hone things in, I think we can do that.”

Kubiak acknowledged that he needs little in the way of motivation after so many years in the NFL but did discuss the outside world’s view of them to the team last night and carried it over to training camp.

“We’ve been patted on the back a lot this offseason,” told the head coach. “But we’ve also kind of had to listen to what people don’t think what we can do next and that is a motivation for us because I think we have a good team.”

While the offense will look very different up front, the skill positions at running back and wide receiver remain largely intact. Fowler, an undrafted college free agent in 2014 and now the probable third wide receiver has big plans for his team.

“The offense? The sky is the limit,” he declared Thursday when asked about the offense’s self-imposed pressure to contribute more in 2016. “I see it as good pressure. If we can match the level of intensity of our defense, as good as they are, that is a great team all around.”

The plan is certainly to run the ball more effectively, and that will open up the passing game. Anderson will likely be running behind starters from last season, Matt Paradis and Max Garcia, and three other players yet to be established. The quarterback competition is currently in full swing but no matter the signal caller; they believe they certainly are contenders and prepared to be much better.

Demaryius Thomas, an often soft-spoken superstar and now longest-tenured Bronco on offense, said it best Wednesday.

“I think we can be better than last year,” he stated simply. “Thinking it is not much, but once we get on the field, we will know.”

Predictions are far from fact but the players, not Cowherd or anyone else, will decide their fate on the field. Anderson commented again on the offense after day one, earnestly saying, “It can’t be worse. That is how I look at it. We have no choice but to get better.”

If 2015 taught the prognosticators anything is that betting against these Broncos can be a costly mistake.