Ian Allan turns the spotlight on Denver's defense and concludes that the Legion of Boom isn't the only good secondary in the game on Sunday. The Broncos got knocked around early in the year but are playing very good ball now.
Most of the focus for this Super Bowl has been on Denver’s offense going against Seattle’s defense. That’s fair. Peyton Manning’s a Hall of Famer, and this appears to be one of the top-5 offenses ever, while the Seahawks might have one of the top-10 defenses of the last 30 years. I poked around with some of those numbers late last week.
But let’s look for a moment at the other side of the coin. Denver’s defense (I think) is pretty good, and it doesn’t seem to be getting quite enough credit.
The Broncos are pretty stout against the run. They ranked 8th in the regular season, giving up only 102 rushing yards per game. Then they gave up only 65 and 64 yards in their playoff games against the Chargers and Patriots. If you include the playoffs, believe or no, Denver has allowed fewer rushing yards than Seattle.
In regards to pass defense, the Broncos allowed more passing yards than all but four teams in the regular season, way up at 273 yards per game. But don’t take that as a big piece of evidence that Denver has a bottom-5 pass defense. Straight yards is a poor measure of the quality of a defense, just as you wouldn’t try to make the argument that Matthew Stafford and Matt Ryan were the 3rd- and 4th-best quarterbacks last year because only Manning and Drew Brees threw for more yards.
To grade a pass defense, you have to look at more of the numbers. And they are as follows …
58.2 percent completions. Only five teams allowed a lower percentage than the Broncos (who actually finished ahead of the Legion of Boom in this category).
84.5 passer rating. This is the one that’s an average of yards-per-attempt, completion percentage, touchdown percentage and interception percentage. You get between 0 and 39.6 in each of those four categories, making a perfect score something like 158.3. It’s a system that could be improved, but the league has been using it for years and years. The Broncos grade out at 84.5 in that system, which is right in the middle – better than 15 teams and worse than 16. Seattle (No. 1 in yards and interceptions) finishes No. 1 in passer rating.
7.1 yards per attempt. For whatever reason, we like to look at yards-per-attempt with running backs and yards-per-catch with receivers, but we tend to ignore it with quarterbacks. Denver is at 7.1, which is another middle-of-the-pack number. Better than 15 teams, and worse than 14 (tied with the Ravens and Jets).
What have you done for me lately. If you go back to the first two games of the season, the Broncos gave up 362 yards against Joe Flacco and 362 yards against Eli Manning (in this same stadium, no less). Then in Week 5, they had that crazy 51-48 win at Dallas, where Tony Romo passed for 506 yards and 5 TDs. But all of those games happened a long time ago, so who cares?
It’s the now version of the Denver Broncos that will play on Sunday, and they’ve been pretty good. In their last 13 games (including the playoffs), they’ve allowed an average of under 232 passing yards per game. That’s a number that would have ranked 6th in the regular season, lower than San Francisco or Carolina. Plenty of good quarterbacks in that sample set, including Philip Rivers three times, and a pair each against Tom Brady and Alex Smith. And I see 21 TD passes and 10 interceptions in those 13 games, which is just a little worse than average.
Seattle, recall, has had problems offensively for more than a month. It’s gone six games in a row without scoring more than 2 TDs, and Russell Wilson has been struggling to connect on much of anything downfield. If the Broncos have enough success that the Seahawks have to kind of open things up and try to get more done offensively to keep pace, that’s where Wilson could start pressing and really fall apart.
| Last 13 quarterbacks against Denver | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Passer | Yards | Pct | TD | Int |
| Henne | 303 | 64% | 0 | 2 |
| Luck | 228 | 55% | 3 | 0 |
| Griffin | 132 | 50% | 1 | 2 |
| Cousins (sub) | 48 | 56% | 0 | 2 |
| Rivers | 218 | 66% | 1 | 0 |
| A.Smith | 230 | 47% | 2 | 0 |
| Brady | 344 | 68% | 3 | 0 |
| A.Smith | 293 | 62% | 2 | 1 |
| Fitzpatrick | 172 | 54% | 1 | 1 |
| Rivers | 166 | 60% | 2 | 0 |
| Schaub | 176 | 49% | 1 | 2 |
| Pryor | 207 | 55% | 2 | 0 |
| Rivers | 217 | 67% | 2 | 0 |
| Brady | 277 | 63% | 1 | 0 |
| Average | 232 | 58% | 1.61 | .77 |
Remember the “yards per pass attempt” stat we were talking about, where Denver graded out as average? Well, if you look at just their last 13 games (which is damn near an entire season), they have allowed only 6.4 yards per pass attempt. That would have come in at No. 5 in regular season, behind the Seahawks (No. 1) and three other teams. If you want to also include sacks and make it “yards per pass play” than they come in at No. 7 at 5.6 (Seattle still first, at 4.8). But good numbers.
The Broncos lost Von Miller a few weeks back. That definitely hurts; he was their best pass rusher. But they’ve been able to overcome that so far (definitely in the playoffs). This isn’t a poor pass defense or even an average one – this is one of the better pass defenses in the league.
In my eyes, the Seahawks need to have success early with Marshawn Lynch, and I don’t have a lot of confidence they will. Denver had the one really bad game against San Diego on a Thursday night in December, but otherwise they’ve been tough against the run. If they can hold off Lynch for a half, then I believe Manning will have enough success that he’ll be able to stack them to maybe a double-digit lead. Then Seattle might get frazzled and start making mistakes.
Right now, it doesn’t look like the weather is going to be a big factor, and I think that makes Denver the favorite in this game. Not an overwhelming favorite, but the favorite.
--Ian Allan