2014 Record: 12-4, won AFC West, lost in Divisional round

Current +/- wins per Bovada: 10.5

Overall: Denver comes off another AFC West title and returns lots of high-profile pieces. Peyton Manning remains the consummate field general at quarterback, and in Demaryius Thomas and Emmanuel Sanders he has two great targets. C.J. Anderson burst onto the scene with 425 yards in a three game span (with one clunker in between), and he has the potential to lead the league in rushing yards.

The defense doesn’t get the ink, but Von Miller is a perennial Pro Bowler for a reason at one pass rushing spot. Adding DeMarcus Ware on the other side worked well, as both hit double digits in sacks. The starting 11 on defense is one of the best in the NFL right now.

A listless playoff loss led to a coaching change, with Gary Kubiak taking over for John Fox, now Chicago’s head coach. Many observers felt like Fox was unfairly made the scapegoat for Manning and the defense both coming up short in the playoffs. Kubiak was hand-picked by GM John Elway and the theory is the two former teammates can keep the window of Super Bowl opportunity open one more year with Manning and the high-priced roster still intact. 

Five Questions

1. Can the offensive line hold up?

The offseason got off to a bad start when news broke that star left tackle Ryan Clady will miss 2015 with a torn ACL. Clady was handily the best returning lineman, especially since left guard Orlando Franklin and center Manny Ramirez both left via free agency. So did top interior reserve Will Montgomery, who capably started at center when Ramirez kicked over to right guard to help remedy injury issues on the right side.

Now Denver must replace the best three starters up front from a year ago. The pressure is really on rookie Ty Sambrailo, who takes over for Clady at left tackle. A second-round pick from Colorado State, he moves well in short areas and is good at steering edge rushers wide around the outside. That’s exactly what Peyton Manning wants from his tackles. But Sambrailo is spotty with his hands and had major trouble handling power even at the college level. I think this sums up Sambrailo nicely…

 

He needs to be ready. Fortunately the Broncos scored a major coup in plucking Evan Mathis off the street. Eagles coach Chip Kelly apparently had no use for the 2013-14 Pro Bowler and Pro Football Focus darling, and Mathis bided his time before selecting the Broncos. He’s one of the very best left guards in the game and should greatly help Sambrailo as the rookie to his left gets his feet wet.

Where Mathis should shine is in the run game. Nobody moves people or locks up second-level defenders better than Mathis. He’s never been better than an average pass protector, as his aggression causes problems against craftier rushers.

Mathis might need to help to his right, too. Matt Paradis takes over at center after spending his rookie campaign on Denver’s practice squad. When at Boise State, Paradis was stylistically similar to Ramirez; strong, upright, immobile, tenacious. He’s also about 25 pounds lighter, and that matters when facing 0 and shaded 1 techniques. He’s an unknown commodity at this point, but it’s a stretch to think he’ll leap straight from the practice squad to being a quality starter.

The right side offers much-needed stability. Louis Vasquez settles back at guard, where he’s a perfectly adequate starter. He played some tackle last year, as right tackle was a jumbled mess. Fortunately Ryan Harris is back for his third stint in Denver. He’s a journeyman talent but tends to play his best at Mile High, where he was a starter from 2008-10. Harris spent two seasons in Houston playing under Coach Kubiak, though he wasn’t very effective there or in Kansas City last year. The depth at tackle is 2014 3rd round pick Michael Schofield, who did not see active duty as a rookie. Denver must feel good about him, as they dealt away safety net Chris Clark to Houston.    

2. Who steps up beyond the starters?

Even with the turmoil up front offensively, the Broncos still field one of the most impressive starting 22 players in the league. From an impressive pass/catch combo of Manning to Demaryius Thomas and Emmanuel Sanders to rising star C.J. Anderson at RB, the starting offense should rock and roll.

Defensively, the first men up look great. Von Miller and Demarcus Ware are both premium pass rushers. Malik Jackson and Derek Wolfe are a strong DE combo. Danny Trevathan and Brandon Marshall are a very sound ILB duo. Chris Harris and the secondary look great (more on them later).

The problem is if anyone gets hurt. Losing guys like Orlando Franklin, Terrence Knighton, Julius Thomas, Nate Irving and Wes Welker pushes a lot of guys up the depth chart. They’re replaced by unknown, unproven commodities.

Take the receivers, including tight ends. After Sanders and Thomas, who remain one of the top 5 duos in the league and perfectly complement one another, it’s underwhelming veteran Andre Caldwell and his 22 catches in three seasons in Denver. Next up is Cody Latimer, who has disappointed as a 2nd round pick last year:

 

Nobody else has ever played in an NFL game. Manning is an exceptional talent, but should Sanders or especially Thomas go down for an extended period Manning will be tasked with turning ramen noodles into lobster linguine.

To replace Thomas, one of the most skilled receiving tight ends in the league, GM John Elway imported Owen Daniels. Let’s compare them over the last two seasons…

 

Receptions

Yards

YPC

TD

Thomas

109

1282

11.8

24

Daniels

72

797

11.0

 7

Daniels is 33 and has had at least several knee surgeries dating back to his college days at Wisconsin. He knows Kubiak’s offensive system to a “T”, having played under him in Houston and following him for a year together in Baltimore, where the coach was the Offensive Coordinator last year. OD is a wonderful character but has never been a good blocker. Meanwhile, Thomas is one of the most dynamic red zone threats in the NFL. He’s 27 and has seam speed Daniels lost with his knee issue in 2009.

The backup TE remains Virgil Green, a blocking specialist (and a very adept one) who caught exactly 6 passes last year. He’s not apt to catch double figures this year, either. Marginal NFLer James Casey, another Kubiak import, is the only other player with any experience and he’s not likely to survive the final cut.

Running back is the only exception on offense. Anderson has to prove he’s not a one-year wonder, but the half-season he was the featured back was fantastic. Ronnie Hillman and Montee Ball aren’t dynamic runners like the diminutive but powerful Anderson, but they both can create something on their own and take advantage of good blocking.

The defensive front should be okay, as long as Wolfe doesn’t get hurt again. Veteran Antonio “Ninja” Smith is yet another former Kubiak Texan, albeit one like Daniels at the very end of his career. He’ll play hard and bring energy. Rookie reserve nose tackle Darius Kilgo, a 6th round pick from Maryland, looks like a keeper. Journeyman Vance Walker is on his fourth team in as many seasons, but he’s functional as a rotational interior rusher.

Behind that line the depth chart might as well be a cliff. First-round pick Shane Ray offers promise, though he was a widespread choice as potential draft bust. He’s impressed in preseason so far, and he appears healthy. But Lerentee McCray? Shaq Barrett? Todd Davis? These are 54th men on 53-man rosters. Maybe the Broncos get lucky and Barrett proves a capable sledgehammer rusher as a sort of hybrid OLB/DE. They’d rather not find out on the fly. 

3. How good can the secondary be?

Denver’s defensive backfield does not get enough credit. Corners Chris Harris and Aqib Talib, nickel back Bradley Roby, and safeties T.J. Ward and Darian Stewart are a very impressive unit.

Harris is an analytical darling, the top-rated cover corner at Pro Football Focus. He achieves that honor by never getting beat deep. Ever. He’s not the most athletically gifted corner but he has an innate understanding of the opposing offensive concepts and how to play the intended route. Harris is also good at preventing YAC. Another strong year and he’ll start to get the notoriety his great play deserves.

Talib is more hit and miss, but he’s a playmaker. His volatility makes him a dangerous commodity. He holds a lot and earned 6 flags last year. He guesses at times and will give up the post move a little too easily. But he’s also tough, irritating to play against and capable of making the great play. He and Harris have a kind of good/bad cop vibe to them, and it works.

Roby is the third corner. He’s coming off an up-and-down rookie campaign, where he was Denver’s first-round pick. The team loves his aggressive run support from the slot and his closing speed. His processor runs a little slow at times, though he climbed over the rookie wall and finished strongly in that regard. His arrow is pointing up. The fact he can play outside adds insurance if Talib or Harris misses a game here or there.

Ward made a pretty strong run defense a great one in his first season in Denver. He’s a pseudo linebacker with his big hitting and intimidating presence in the box. Working with the solid up-the-gut defenders in front of him, Ward helped lower the yards per carry to 3.6, tied with Seattle for 3rd in the league. The Broncos did a good job of keeping him from having to cover down the field, and that’s something new Defensive Coordinator Wade Phillips needs to embrace.

Stewart is the lone newcomer, defecting from Baltimore after a year. On paper he’s the weak link, but if he’s the sore point in the group it’s a strong group. The veteran is a solid all-around safety who showed some playmaking skills for the Rams in his tenure in St. Louis. Kayvon Webster is an adequate third safety with some experience, too. They’ll need him for the opener as Ward is suspended.

They are definitely helped by the tremendous presence of Von Miller in front of them, often speeding up the opposing QB, but this is a talented secondary capable of saving the day when the Denver offense is sputtering. 

4. What is Gary Kubiak’s impact?

The prodigal son returns home. Gary Kubiak spent years carrying John Elway’s clipboard as the backup QB in Denver. After time away, he was the QB Coach and Offensive Coordinator for 11 more years before landing the Head Coach gig in Houston. One year as Baltimore’s OC was enough time for Elway to call his old consigliere back to the Broncos family and replace John Fox.

Kubiak is perhaps the most predictable coaching entity in football, sort of the offensive version of Rex Ryan…if Ryan had the charisma and aggression of a box of generic oatmeal. Every so often he’ll throw in a few raisins or brown sugar, but the underlying flavor is always bland. Then again, sometimes the game plan calls for a hearty bowl of oatmeal instead of an ostrich egg/ghost pepper omelet with feta cheese and fresh squeezed acai pomegranate pulp.

Kubiak runs the offensive system of his mentor, Mike Shanahan. Denver fans know this scheme well, but Kubiak keeps the governor on his quarterback even tighter than Shanahan did. It could be a function of being saddled with mediocre talents in Houston, where Matt Schaub was decent before his foot injury and then the Texans situation was sad chaos. Denver will run a power zone run game with a lot of play action, bootlegs with receivers running leveled drags, and a whole lot of outside hooks and hitches. Kubiak was candid in a radio interview in his Houston days in laying out his principle: the goal is to put playmakers in position to make a play without trying to force the play itself.

Despite his stoic, almost disinterested sideline presence, he can be quite animated with players in practice and the locker room. But it always has a purpose, and that should play well with the veterans on the team who tired of John Fox cursing at them when his soda didn’t have enough ice. The calming, measured presence on the sideline could work nicely. The fact he has several former Texans all over the roster to help spread his gospel will help ease the transition. Heck, both his coordinators held the same job in Houston under him.

There is a redemption story here too. Kubiak pushed hard for Manning to come to Houston, believing (probably correctly) that adding him would have put the Texans over the top. It didn’t happen, and neither Kubiak nor the Texans were quite the same after it. Now he’s finally got the quarterback of his dreams, the perfect man to operate his offense. A year in Baltimore working with a risk-taker like Joe Flacco just might have convinced Kubiak to unleash the hounds more frequently. If so, this can work very, very well on offense.

5. Does Peyton Manning have anything left?

This is a difficult question to even ask. Manning is a living legend, one of the all-time greats. He’s two seasons removed from the most prolific passing output in NFL history.

It is also a difficult question to answer, an uncomfortable topic with no real clear outcome.

Manning is coming off the worst of his three seasons in Denver. The completion percentage, yards per attempt, INT percentage and first downs per game all declined, and not just from the record-setting 2013. He looked tired, old and increasingly frustrated with all the goings on around him. After he lit up a good Miami defense in Week 12, Manning was largely average. In the win over Buffalo and the loss to Cincinnati, he wasn’t even that good. The playoff loss to his old team, Indy? That was Michael Jordan in a Wizards uniform, offering glimpses of the old all-timer but grounded by the reality of the aging process.

As noted above, his frontline weaponry remains strong. But it’s not nearly as deep as Manning has had in recent seasons, and at a time where he progressively needs more help. He talked openly with Rich Eisen about not having feeling in his fingertips, which helps explain the off-center wobble which is more prominent on his throws lately.

Because he’s Peyton freaking Manning, he gets the benefit of the doubt. He’s earned it with one of the greatest careers in the modern era of professional sports. Still, it’s worth noting that several other quarterbacking legends fell off at the end, often precipitously. Check the final years of Dan Marino or Dan Fouts, two other hugely prolific passers who never recaptured it once the slide started. Manning will still rank in the top 10 in passing yards and make some highlight-worthy throws, no question. The worry is they will be more fleeting and not enough to carry a thinner cast to meet lofty expectations, a weight he’s struggled with in a few too many postseasons already.

Forecast: Super Bowl or bust is a dangerous concept, yet it’s pretty prevalent around the national media. The groupthink says that this is Manning’s last real shot at an elusive second title.

I don’t see it happening. Manning will still be good, but I’m not sold he can be great anymore. This team suffered a very tangible net loss in talent on offense even after Evan Mathis fell into its lap. The depth appears to be a big problem. Manning doesn’t have the fastball with any consistency any longer, either. The defense is good enough to finish in the top 10 again, and that might be enough to get them into the playoffs.

The early schedule presents some issues. They could very well open 0-3 in hosting Baltimore before trips to Kansas City and Detroit. The final three games, which might very well need to be a 3-0 sweep to make it back to the postseason, are at Pittsburgh before hosting dangerous Cincinnati and San Diego.

I’m going out on a limb here, but my gut tells me Denver is in for a surprising fall. Would it surprise me if they went 11-5 and hosted a playoff game? Absolutely not. If Manning is sharp and the injury bug stays away, that’s probably a worst-case. But I’m not sold that Manning will last another rigorous 16 games. I’m not sold the running game will be able to contribute like it did last year. I’m not sold on Kubiak as the head coach. I’m fearful of a tough schedule that sees them play every playoff team from 2014 except Carolina and Arizona. Denver finishes a disappointing 8-8 and misses the playoffs.