Let's go right to can'a commasp a hotline though, and bring on our guy Ryan Michael.
At you, Ryan Michael on the Twitter machine? Ryan, how you doing this evening?
I'm pretty excited, Ben after our win on Thursday night, so excited about this upcoming in terms of a stretch of two games. It can't be too much more excited than a very winnable game coming on Sunday. So looking forward to talking about it.
Sh I do say that, of course if we lose that how devastated and disappointed will we all be if we lose to the Carolina Panthers, now that we've hyped that up.
But we're gonna, we're gonna we're just.
Move past that for now and just pretend that it's continue to say that it's a very winnable game before I get into it.
Did you I don't know if I've asked you this before?
And now?
Have you ever watched the TV show Psyche?
Oh? Yeah, of course it's It's been a good probably fifteen years since I've seen an episode.
But yeah, okay, well it is a cinematic masterpiece that it is great to show of all time.
Whatever. Yeah, I loosely based my life on the character of Sean. I.
I was trying to tell the guys I was going to make them some food. I remember how the discussion came up last night that they didn't, you know, believe I cook or whatever, and I do enjoy cooking. So I'm going to make them from the Cinnamon Festival episode, the cinnamon pie from that episode. So that's gonna be something that's on the docket for next week. And one of the listeners actually got me the recipe.
I have no idea what episode you're referencing, but it sounds good.
It's a Twin Peaks spoof Dual Spires.
But all right, anyway, let's get right into it here a little bit. I talked about this Broncos defense during training camp to prestige. I said, they're going to sneak up on people that go to surprise people. It's gonna be a very good defense. I may have undersold. According to your chart on Twitter, am I correct in saying that this year's defense might be the best pass defense over the last decade, even better than the No Fly.
Zone statistically speaking, yes, And when I dig into the numbers, I'll get to that in a minute. It's actually even more impressive than the wrong numbers. So what I did in my chart is I charted all of our past defenses over the last ten years, so including this year, dating back to Super Bowl Championship year in twenty fifteen, and I ranked them by adjusted net yards per attempt on defense. So that's factoring in completion percentage, yards for
passing a tep touchdown, passes, interceptions, and sacks. It's a pretty good on puppeteing metric, and so far our adjusted net yards per a tent mark this season is four point two, So if you look to the chart, our lowest mark over the previous ten years was four point four. By the twenty sixteen squad was actually slightly better than the four point seven that we put up our Super
Bowl Championship winning year. We've been dominant in the statistic Curry number of years, second in twenty fifteen, number one in the NFL in twenty sixteen, third of the NFL in twenty twenty two. We dropped all the way down to twenty eighth last year, and now we're back up to second place this year. And I also threw in just for fun, where we rank as far as quarterback hits and pass defensive exp which is expected points added per Pro Football Reference. We're number one in the league
in both two of those category. So you know, depending on the statistic of measure you're choosing, you're certainly an argument to be made this is the best we've seen over the last decade.
So, Ryan, why do you think the Broncos are playing better this year defensively opposed to how they played defensively last year? Last year, to be fair, they did have their moments where they play well. As a group, they.
Did, and I think it's a combination of scheme, personnel, and just having another year under the belt for Van Sursus to really implement and run this defense the way he likes to. You know, obviously, it's going to be impossible to run away from the comparisons to the twenty fifteen squad. We don't quite have the personnel that we fielded in twenty fifteen, and for that reason that I can make the argument that I'm even more impressed with
what we're able to do. Obviously, Patsotan's the best corner in the league. I've been saying that since the summer, and even with him out on Thursday night. Granted it was against a very beat up New Orleans team, but we didn't miss a beat. So this defense has been so dominant that if you break down the quarterbacks that we face, and they share with you some numbers that to me make what we've been able to do all
the more impressive. In the season. Opener Gina Smith, who's the NFL's leading passer, we held them one hundred and seventy one yards. He's been averaging three hundred and two point three passing yards per game in all of the
other games. What kind of difference is that if you take that pace and you spread it over seventeen games, it's the difference between twenty nine hundred and seven passing yards a year, which would be nineteen seventies numbers, or in terms of what he's averaging outside of the games against Denver five one hundred and forty yards. Baker Mayfield leads the NFL with eighteen touchdown passes. We held him to one. He's turned seventeen and the other six teams
that's almost three touchdown passes per game. And even more impressive, the Buccaneers collectively as a team, we held them to seven they've scored two hundred and two points in the other six teams, that's thirty three point seven points per game. We held them to seven. You know, the numbers in the rankings speak for themselves, but when you dig into the context of who we've been facing and just how well we've been playing, I'd make the argument there even better than the Ron Hubs.
Well that certainly as impressed.
They're talking to Ryan Michael at v Ryan Michael on Twitter, how much of the credit goes to Vance Joseph for turning this thing around?
And I want to tack on Jim Leonard.
As well, because that addition seems to have really helped with the secondary.
Unquestionably, and for me, it's one thing if you have an established culture of excellence and something that we're trying to take for granted. Nick, I'm sure you can relate to that because of how dominant the defenses were the
years that you've played there. But I don't think people fully appreciate just how much the team struggled last year because we did have the bright spots, but at the end of the day, we finished twenty seventh in points per game, surrendered, one of the lowest marks and franchise history. We're third in the league right now. If this was happening on the other side of the ball, it would be the story of the NFL this year. For whatever reason, we don't give defense the same amount of love that
we give offense. But clearly it has just as great of an impact in terms of wins and losses. Because we're sitting at four and three after going through some fairly tough games with some pretty big upset wins. So it's tough not to be jazzed about it.
Ryan, I'm glad that you said that, because you're absolutely right, and this where where we live to talk about the quarterback sell them.
Do they give the.
Defense their props? Because the last time I check, the saying is very true. Defense wins championship. So with that being said, looking at this lay of games that the Broncos have coming up, they get the Panthers on Sunday, they have Baltimore, they have Kansas City. Is this Broncos team or Kansas team actually be a playoff contender?
It's certainly possible. So again, you know, Ben, we don't want to take for granted the game against Carolina. It's the NFL. Any given Sunday, anything that can happen. But let's say we do beat the Panthers, we advance to five and three. That's when we get into the meat and potatoes of the schedule. It's going to be very, very difficult. But if you look at the schedule as a whole, there are a number of winnable games. Atlanta has a winning record, but they're twenty second and points
per games surrendered only fifteenth in scoring. That's a winnable game. The Raiders is a winnable game, The Browns, the Colts. You know, if we want all of those games, that would get us to nine. If we pull another upset, maybe take one from Kansas City, that would be ten. So looking at the schedule as it is, and this is provided that we take care of business against Carolina, I would say that seven to eight wins would be conservative,
and that's of course exceeding the expectations. Right with five and a half, we're going to move past that, And I would say, on the optimistic side, it's possibly you could get nine and ten and possibly sweak into the postseason. What we would do there certainly remains to be seen. And I agree with what Ben's expressed in terms of
the upcoming schedule. Even if we don't win our games against Kansas City and Baltimore, I'm going to be paying very close attention to how we could be because if we get blown out, that's going to be a sign of things to come. But if we're competitive, I think we can carry that momentum and to see to pick up some late regular season wins.
Well, in order to even be competitive or get those wins, we're going to need to see quite a bit out of bo Nicks. We're seven games into his NFL career. What do you make of the rookie quarterbacks so far?
You know, statistically then it's obviously a disappointment relative to my preseason projections. There's no running away for that. But when you're looking at a seven game sample size, it's important to know that any number of games that are really bad ton exkew the efficiency. So you look to the extreme low safetyguards per attempt, the only average three point three versus Seattle, A future two point four against the Jets, you know, completed forty eight percent of his
passes against the Jets. So those are the kind of things then that statistically will kill your season. Efficiency marks, so the overall raw numbers are not pretty. On the flip side of the coin, there are the hinds. Right, we expected, though, to be a quarterback who was difficult to sack. I don't know if we expected his hack percentage to be this good. At three point eight six percent,
he's fourth in the league. He's number one in the NFL once quarterbacks who have thrown two hundred or more passes. He threw four picks in his first two games, sure, but then one interception over the next five. So right now we're having a guy who with his legs, I think we get all three of us can agree he's exceeding expectations there. And maybe you're the only person who had the hope to see him as good of a duel threat as he's been. But in my view, he's
exceeding expectations on the grounds. He's virtually impossible to sack, which is also certainly a credit to the offensive line, and over the last five weeks he's been almost impossible to intercept. He's caught some breaks. So you look at just the one interception over the five, that could have been a few thrown in there. But overall, there's a clean, a clean play of football that we've seen over the
last five games. And if that's a sign of things to come, I think Broncos country has something to be excited about.
What do you make.
Of what we saw last Thursday and what I mean by that to put it in context, We saw some things that vot Nicks in office was running that we have been seen, I mean this year, well we didn't even see last year but Russell Wilson. But it made the offense a little more creative and it also open up the field for Bow to make play. So once again, I mean, what did you see or what do you think led to that kind of creativity that we haven't seen around here in a while.
Well, he's he's explosive, a different style of runner than Tim Tebow. But imagine if Tim Tebow had the pass accuracy to complete some difficult passes. That is a lot more explosive than I think people gave him credit for. In his second to last year of college football, he led all of the NCAA in terms of the quarterback position of Russian touchdowns. To believe he had fourteen. So we shouldn't be as shocked as we are to see
that he leaves the league in rushing touchdowns. So far he leads the league, rather leave the Broncos in rushing touchdowns. For three he's averaged five point four yards per carry, that's number one on the team. His success percentage running is fifty five point three percent, that's the best on the team. So certainly it's going to open up paints for the passing game. It's really the passing game where
we need to see him develop. So as great as it is to see that he's avoiding facts and avoiding picks, at some point he's going to have to put the team on his shoulders. Having a defensive dominants what we've had at Swardson, the luxury of not having to do that. Think of what Mark Sanchez got to work with in his first two years in the league. And certainly hope that Bow ends up a better quarterback than Mark Sanchez.
But what's going to happen when he has to throw thirty five or forty times a game and actually carry the team remains to be seen. Because it wasn't pretty at the beginning of the year when he was throwing.
One designed quarterback keep running left side.
It's a block from boles Nick is free instead of twenty five to twenty. He stumbles, he's inside of ten, He's hit from behind and knocked to the turf inside the five. That was a designed run and a run of thirty three yards for bow Nicks.
Always love Dave Logan on the call, there Odix on the scramble. Talking with Ryan Michael at the Ryan Michael on Twitter contribute to the Pro Football Hall of Fame. I mean, the Broncos do beat Carolinas, we kind of expect do they have a realistic shot at competing for a playoff spot?
I think it's possible. Obviously, it's going to depend completely upon how the other teams in the AFC play, and the AFC is obviously a tough conference to be a part of. So I think as Broncos fans, we should temper our expectations because at four and three we're already exceeding them. If we're fortunate enough to win that fifth game next week, we would continue to be exceeding that. And you know, the Panthers defense is dead last in
the NFL. They're giving up thirty four point seven points per game, and they're just atrocious through the air and on the ground. The average passer rating against that Panthers defense is one hundred and eleven point eight. They're also dead last in the league and rushing yards and rushing touchdown surrendered to giving up one sixty two point one
yards in thirteen rushing touchdowns. So whether Bose beating them with his arms or his legs, this might be an opportunity if we put some points on the board early in the game for him to test his limits and kind of see what he can do in a little bit more of a comfortable atmosphere. Playoffs, it's possible. The old cliche taking it one week at a time, I think it needs to be our mentality.
What do you think about what we saw last Thursday?
Because I like to go back to that because Javonte Williams and he's been really criticized early on the early part of the season because most people didn't think that he was bouncing back the way they wanted him to. And you go back to that Jets game and then and I sat there and once that Jets game and it looked like Tayler but Dave was going to be the guy, but he was moved out. Javonte is getting
more carries. Do you think that this part of the game for the Broncos and how they ran against the Saints, do you think that is sustainable?
You know, we put up two hundred and twenty five rushing yards against the Saints, So you certainly can't expect that every week. Your quarterback's not going to run for seventy five yards himself every week. But Savante had a heck of a game eighty eight yards on the ground, two touchdowns that he caught all three of the passes
that were sure on his way. So you know, those are lofty expectations, neck But I think as Javante continues to return to one hundred percent health and get his feet wet, and as we can balance what we're doing between the rushing and the passing game, which bo is evolving as a passard, it's going to open up to run. So we just have to continue to play complimentary football.
Are Ryan. We're almost at the midway point in the season here. What's been your biggest surprise, What's been your biggest disappointment thus far?
That's a tough one. I mean, I would say the biggest disappointment for me would be the lows that Bow they hid early in the year. I didn't expect seeing that, And you know, for all of the positives that I'm mentioning, they're not necessarily the positives that I was expecting, certainly production on the ground. So it's kind of a mixed bag when I take a look at where he is
seven games into his NFL career. You know, as far as a disappointment, I would say that I wish that we got more production in terms of yards after the catch and yards after contact from some of our receivers. I understand our offenses and structure to be that kind of animal, but at the same time, I don't see our receivers making a kind of plays after the ball is in their hands, So I think there's a room to improve in that regard. And part of that's on
the quarterback too. I mean, if you see it and throw it kind of guy I receive, it's going to get tackled, not really facilitating yards after the catch opportunity. So it's really just a matter of you know, working out there's kings and fleshing out the offense to be more of a balanced animals the season goes on.
Ryan, we we appreciate the time has always got to hit a break here man, But looking forward to what you're cooking up for us after this hopeful Panthers victory. Victory over the Panthers, I should say, Ryan Michael, let you Ryan Michael on Twitter, contributor at the Pro Football Hall of Fame, always deep diving into the data for us