What’s good and bad about the Broncos offense this year

Or from the I have a headache and I am avoiding work file…

I have been meaning to write an article about Jay Cutler’s stats this year, which are absolutely phenomenal, but it has taken me a few weeks to get to it.

Perhaps it is just as well that I waited. Everyone was on the bandwagon three weeks ago, and the Bear’s loss was hard to swallow but everyone came away agreeing that we should have won that game and losing it was not entirely a team failure. But this week, well, the whole team looks bad. Cutler had a bad day. Marshall had a bad day. The defense had three bad days all rolled into one. Except for one great looking drive to open the game, the Broncos simply did not look good.

And as a team, they are good; but they are young. They are still learning to work together. It’s all small stuff now, but it’s that small stuff that counts. Every down, every play.

But what’s good? Jay Cutler. And not just the basic completion rate, QB rating stats, but the stats where they matter — 3rd down completions, average length of play, and how they compare to the rest in the league. The short story is that Jay is a top 10 quarterback, right now. He is not the quarterback of the future, he is the quarterback of today. Yes, in his second season — and his first season as the full time starter — Jay Cutler is a top ten quarterback. Don’t believe me? Football Outsiders have a fantastic statistics compilation system that rates players based upon their value every play. As of right now (and as I write this the stats are probably not updated for the Raiders’ loss and may change a bit because of it), he has a DPAR (Defense-Adjusted Points Above Replacement) of 55.3 — this stat means that over the course of the season, Jay Cutler has scored approximately 55.3 points where an “average” quarterback would not have scored. This number is the 11th in the league right now, just ahead of Ben Roethlisberger and just a shade behind Matt Hasselbeck. For comparison, Tom Brady is rating the highest ever at 156 points and Peyton Manning is coming in at a more realistic — and still incredibly good — 74.3 points. (That still puts him behind Romo, Palmer, Anderson, Favre and of course Brady).

That’s not the only stat, though. There is also DVOA (Defense-adjusted Value Over Average) which is a different stat that says roughly the same thing. In this stat, Cutler is ranked 9th in the league with largely the same group of quarterbacks ahead of him.

Cutler is both helped and hurt by Marshall — Marshall who is running good routes and making great plays but has a couple more drops than he ought to have — and he his hurt by not having Walker out there. Stokley has helped pick up the game, but having him in the slot is where he shines, and having Walker there to attract the best corner away from Marshall makes him better. Walker isn’t 100% yet, and it’s really shown the last couple games. Cutler tried to force a couple of balls to him, and it just wasn’t there.

But the other thing that the stats show, and it’s something that’s been true all season, even before Henry got hurt, is that our power running game sucks. You know the one, where you run up the middle to get 2 yards for the first down, even when they’re lined up against you, knowing it’s coming. That was our bread and butter when Mike Anderson was our power runner. In theory Henry should have been able to be that guy, but our O-line hasn’t been doing it. According to Football Outsiders, our Power Success Rate is 41%, and despite that we’re ranked 13th in run blocking because of the fantastic long runs that Young and Hall have been able to pull off. For comparison, at 13 we’re at 41%, ranks 32 in the league. You have to go down to the 21st ranked to find a team whose power success rate is in the 50% range; every other team above 20th is above 60%. That’s huge. Also, that probably means 20% more punts.

This low success rate makes the success of Young and Hall even more impressive, I think; usually a lot of a back’s success could easily be laid on the O-line. And while that’s still true, I think this year a lot less of the success can be credited to the linemen, and more of it can be credited to the backs themselves.

So what’s good? Cutler. Marshall. Stokley. Scheffler. Graham (sure, his numbers aren’t sexy, but he’s a key reason Cutler has a relatively low number of sacks this year). Young, Hall.

What’s bad? Henry hasn’t been the stud, even when he was healthy. I don’t think he’s the answer. Cecil Sapp — I don’t see how he was better than Kyle Johnson. And the offensive line, in general, is a bit weak.

However, statistics show that no one factor is more important to the success of an offensive line than consistency, which is to say, a unit that plays together and stays together. Part of being a good linemen has a lot to do with knowing what the guy next to you is going to do, and that only comes through experience. Lots of experience. As the games have progressed, this line has improved. Jeff Legwold noted that defenses attacking Myers and Kuper have backed off that tactic. Consistency builds a better line.

If we keep roughly the same line in next year, I think they’ll be much better, due to their experience together. This might mean letting Nalen retire. This might mean keeping Erik Pears even though he’s pretty average — a better player may not be a better player in his place, at this point. It means someone will have to step aside to let Hamilton back in, assuming he recovers from his concussion, but that should be ok. Everyone on the line has experience with Hamilton.

When I look at this team, I do see some problems, but I see a team with a lot more youth than they had last year, and at key positions. And I see that youth playing tough and strong and largely not flaming out. I see far, far better drafts in the last two years than the rest of the decade, and another solid draft can set this team up to return to the days of being in the playoffs every year. I see Cutler to Marshall as being in the same league as Manning to Harrison. I see a good team that had too much youth and too many free agents to start the season strong, and alas has had too many injuries to finish the season strong. But the team can still finish this season, and if we have a similar team next year, I see a strong start out of the gate.