ESPN’s NFL tipster has good / bad news for the Broncos – DenverFan

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(Photo by Dustin Bradford / Getty Images)

How will the Broncos behave in 2021? Well, according to the interviewee, the predictions run the gamut.

Here at Denver’s Sports Station 104.3 The Fan, on-air entertainers are everywhere. They range from 6-11 on the low end to 10-7 on the high end, with lots of 8-9 and 9-8 finishes mixed in.

Chad Brown – 9-8
Goodbye Zach – 8-9
Sandy Clough – 8-9
Shawn Drotar – 9-8
Mike Evans – 8-9
Nick Ferguson – 10-7
Nate Jackson – 10-7
Dan Jacobs – 7-10
Cecil Lammey – 9-8
DMac – 9-8
James Merilatt – 6-11
Tyler Polumbus – 8-9
Mark Schlereth – 9-8
Brandon Stokley – 10-7

Well, it looks like those who believe the Broncos are getting the better of a .500 football team are on the right track. At least according to one of the crisp numbers.

Mike Clay is ESPN’s NFL tipster. Today he released his projected records for all 32 teams, based on his attacking, defense and special teams rankings from each club.

How did the Broncos behave? Well, Clay’s formula wins them 8.8 games. Since the real world doesn’t allow fractional wins, this results in a 9-8.

Last year, the Dolphins finished 10-6 and did not make the playoffs. Even in the expanded seven-game field, they failed to advance to the AFC playoffs.

Based on Clay’s projections, however, things will be different in 2021. A 9-8 would earn the Broncos the No. 6 seed in the AFC.

This is the good news. Denver’s four-season streak under 0.500 would come to an end, as would their five-year playoff drought.

But all is not positive. There is a downside to this kind of finish.

The Broncos are very likely to make their way through the Ravens, Chiefs and Bills in the playoffs. It’s a glove that probably won’t result in the team ending up in the Super Bowl.

So Denver would win, but they wouldn’t win big. And that would create problems.

First off, Clay has the Broncos taking the 18th overall pick in the 2022 NFL Draft. It’s a tough place to land a franchise quarterback, if Denver is still in the market for one.

This leads to the second problem. Finishing 9-8 would be a 3.5-game improvement over when the Broncos arrived in 2020. Would that, combined with the end of two years of long-standing trivia, cause Denver to stay in key positions? ?

Teddy Bridgewater is in the final year of his contract, so the Broncos should decide whether they want to re-sign the veteran. This would most likely require a multi-year commitment.

Considering Denver wouldn’t be in a good position to draft a rookie QB, that would be a very real possibility. It’s highly questionable whether Bridgewater is the long-term fix for the Broncos, but it would be difficult to go from someone who led the team to their first taste of success in nearly half a decade.

The same can be said for their head coach. A 9-8 season would put Vic Fangio at 21-28 during his three seasons in Denver, barely a brilliant CV. But there will be signs that he has righted the ship.

Much like Bridgewater, it would be difficult to go from a head coach who guided the Broncos to the playoffs, even if he was a weak seed. To make matters even more complicated, Fangio would enter the final year of his contract in 2022, leaving the Broncos to make a decision. A lame duck season is something most teams, or head coaches, like to avoid.

It’s hard to argue that going 9-8 and making the playoffs is a bad thing. Winning is always good.

That said, that level of victory, which puts the Broncos in the world of mediocre NFL teams, does create some problems. Namely, it would create a situation where George Paton has to interpret the data.

The GM must decide if 9-8 is the stopping point on a trajectory up to 11-6 or 12-5, or if it is the plateau with Bridgewater, Fangio and the current base players. It will be a difficult thing to determine.



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