The Broncos are averaging fewer points than they did last year. But here's why that's not what it seems

ENGLEWOOD, Colo. — This summer, I noted that 420 points should be a goal for the Broncos offense. It would represent 24.7 points per game, a figure that would place a team 15th in the NFL. Very average, yes, but, for a team with a top-shelf defense, it would have been perfectly fine.

That very Colorado tally appears to be beyond Denver’s grasp. With just 19.6 points per game, the Broncos are on pace for 334 points this season; to hit 420 points, the Broncos would have to average 29.2 points per game the rest of the season.

Considering that no team since the start of the 2017 season has fewer games with at least 29 points than the Broncos — just seven times hitting that mark in 72 games — reaching 420 points is a long shot, at best.

But these Broncos have actually improved — if slightly – in their points-per-game ranking, even though their average per game has dropped by 0.6 points per game. Last year, averaging 20.2 points per game was good for 28th; this year, a 19.6-point pace is good for 23rd.

And perhaps most interesting of all is the fact that the Broncos have dramatically improved on a per-possession basis.

Last year, they finished 28th in the NFL, averaging 1.87 adjusted points per non-kneeldown possession. (Adjusted points eliminates special-teams considerations, thus, all attempted field goals count for 3 points and all touchdowns count for seven points, regardless of PAT outcome.) The Broncos were also 29th in yards per possession, averaging 30.3 yards per series. These end-of-season rankings represented slight improvement over where they stood after eight weeks last year: 30th in adjusted PPP (1.85) and 30th in net yards per series (28.9).

This year, longer drives, fewer three-and-outs and fewer giveaways have resulted in measurable improvement — although not to the degree Pat Shurmur and the offense want to see. Denver is up from 30th at this time last year to 23rd in net points per possession (2.06) and 14th in net yards per possession (34.8).

The Broncos also play a deliberate game; their average of three minutes and seven seconds per drive ranks fifth in the NFL. Last year, at the same stage of the season, the Bronco ranked 28th, holding the ball for just 2:31 per drive.

Meanwhile, the defense ranks seventh in adjusted points per possession allowed (1.95) and 10th in net yards per possession (32.7).

So, how do the Broncos have fewer points with all this?

Because they have 2.0 fewer possessions per game than they did through eight games last year, when they had 94 non-kneeldown drives — an average of 11.75 per game. This year, they have 78 possessions — an average of 9.75 per contest.

“It’s a weird year that way with regard to possessions. It’s very low, from what you’re used to seeing,” Shurmur said. “I used to say it was a 12-round fight; you get 11 or 12. We’ve had a couple of games this year where [it was] eight or nine.”

Shurmur is correct on this, as the data compiled from pro-football-reference confirms.

But at the same time, the last two to three years have seen an acceleration of gradual trends.

Teams are holding the ball for longer. As the average yardage per non-kneeldown drive in the first eight weeks of the season has steadily increased — from 26.5 yards per series in 2001 to a 21st-century high 35.6 yards last year and down a bit to 34.1 yards this season — the average number of possessions by each team in a game has decreased.

From 2001 through 2018 in Weeks 1-8, there was a league-wide average of 10.98 to 11.82 possessions per team per game. That dropped to 10.7 possessions per game in 2019, 10.24 in 2020 and 10.35 this year.

Drives are getting longer in average distance and longer in terms of the number of plays per series. From 2001 through 2019, the range of plays per possession in Weeks 1-8 was 5.40 in 2001 to 5.95 in 2016 and 2019.

But in the last two seasons, that rate shot up, to 6.36 plays per possession in Weeks 1-8 in the pandemic-altered 2020 season and 6.19 per game in 2021.

Scoring has never been higher than it has in the last three years, but the possessions have not been fewer in at least the last 20 years.

This makes the NFL’s offensive explosion of recent years all the more dramatic — even though the Broncos continue to lag. Simply finishing better, however, would fix the glitch.

“When you have low possessions like this teams are driving and moving the ball around,” Shurmur said, “but when you get down close, you have to score.”