Broncos Finish 2024 Season Top-6 in Crucial Football Metric

The Denver Broncos have come a long way.

Jan 5, 2025; Denver, Colorado, USA; Denver Broncos wide receiver Devaughn Vele (17) celebrates his touchdown with tight end Nate Adkins (45) and tight end Adam Trautman (82) in the second quarter against the Kansas City Chiefs at Empower Field at Mile High. / Isaiah J. Downing-Imagn Images

The Denver Broncos exceeded expectations this season, given that many pundits projected them to have five wins. Even those who thought they'd do better than that didn't see the Broncos making the playoffs this year.

But the Broncos came through with a 10-7 record and their first playoff trip since 2015. The defense, which plenty of pundits thought wasn't going to be good, turned out to be pretty efficient (by most measures, it was top five, though that didn't make it an elite unit).

The Broncos offense had its ups and downs but rookie quarterback Bo Nix, after a rough start to the season, settled down and played well overall. Although Nix did make some crucial mistakes late in the season, he played better than many analysts expected and gives the Broncos hope that he's the guy to build around.

These factors all played into a strong step forward for the Broncos, who were expected to be rebuilding after parting ways with former quarterback Russell Wilson to the tune of a massive $53 million dead money charge and nearly $35 million in cash commitments.

This was also reflected in DVOA, a top football metric. The Broncos were one of four teams who made an impressive turnaround in the rankings. Last year, Denver ranked 24th overall, and this year, it finished sixth overall.

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Of course, some context is necessary because a big reason why the Broncos moved up to No. 6 was because of their performance in Week 18 against the Kansas City Chiefs. As everyone knows, the Chiefs rested their key starters while many others saw limited snaps.

The end result was the Broncos finishing with the third-highest single-game DVOA at 140.9 percent. That even comes after opponent adjustments, accounting for the Chiefs playing Carson Wentz instead of Patrick Mahomes, but it still considered that Kansas City had lost just one game up to that point.

In other words, one probably shouldn't read too much into the Broncos' DVOA ranking. However, it's certainly possible the Broncos would have given the Chiefs a game — and even win — if Kansas City had played its starters, given that a.) the Broncos nearly beat the Chiefs last time with only a blocked last-second field goal denying them a win and b.) Kansas City was going to sit at least a couple of starters, regardless of playoff status, because of injury.

Also, even if the Broncos don't get to No. 6 in DVOA, they would have shown much improvement from 2023 anyway because of how the defense and special teams performed throughout the year. The Broncos finished fourth in defensive DVOA and fourth in special teams DVOA.

Once again, credit goes to the coaching staff and front office for finding ways to assemble a quality roster, getting the most out of players and keeping the team focused. It wasn't a strong season overall, but it was a good one — the Broncos took care of business in the majority of games and punched their ticket to the playoffs.

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