Since I did a fair amount of research on the DTs, LBs and RBs available in this draft.

MLBs

RBs first one

RBs second one

DTs first one

DTs second one

I wanted to share my thoughts on the Broncos picking up Wolfe, Hillman and Trevathan. I will also discuss Blake a bit since he plays the position(s) that I know best from my playing days.

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I'm going to be blunt here. The draft value chart was developed by Jimmy Johnson (or at least he is given credit for it) in the early 1990s. You remember the early 1990s, right? That was before e-mail, facebook, twitter, cell-phones, wifi, hybrid cars and the TSA. My point - it's horribly outdated, kind of like this

Ok, so how do we evaluate the moves that the Broncos made if we don't want to use the ancient "dead sea scrolls" draft value chart? One way is to use the one developed by the guys over at draftmetrics, who spend an unhealthy amount of time analyzing the NFL draft.

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My therapist told me that my obsession with defensive tackles is unhealthy and I need to spend some time seeing another position.

So I've chosen to look at another position of perceived need to the Broncos - RB. I've done the same type of analysis that I did with the DTs - comparing their combine results and their in-game production. In-game production is much easier to quantify with RB's but the problem of the level of the competition still rears its ugly head. So first we'll take a look at the top 20 RBs in this year's draft and then we will look at the past five drafts to see what are the chances of finding a pro-bowl caliber RB in the 4th or later.

via a.espncdn.com

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Almost all of the recent discussion on MHR has focused on the draft. One big point of debate has become where the Broncos should spend their high draft picks - on the defensive side of the ball or on the offensive side of the ball. I decided to look back at the last decade of superbowl winning teams to answer 2 questions:

1. How did they rank offensively and defensively (in terms of points scored/allowed)

2. How did they spend their picks in the first 3 rounds during this past decade? I focus on the first three rounds because these are the rounds in which the majority of the starters in the NFL are selected.

Make the jump with me and lets learn from the winners...

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If you don't know that the Denver Broncos are in dire need of some talent at the DT position, then you probably are a Raiders fan whose greatest lifetime accomplishment was completing seventh grade.

I did a fanpost about a month ago looking at the top 6 DTs in this draft and comparing them to the top 5 from 2011. To continue my unhealthy obsession with the defensive tackle position, I expanded my scope to analyze the top 20 defensive tackles in this years draft. I also started looking back at combine results from previous years to see if things like Explosion Number (EN) and Lateral Agility (LA) could be used to predict NFL success. If I had more time, I would have continue to go back in time and see how predictive (or not) the combine results are. I found some flaws both the EN and the LA (inherent mathematical flaws - the issue of applicability will be left to others to debate).

Keep in mind that this is solely looking at combine results which really should not be used in a vacuum. In-game statistics and game-film MUST be used to temper the assessment of any college player. I am not advocating that combine results alone should be used. I am, however, advocating that if you are going to use EN and LA to evaluate the relative merits of player A and player B, then you should modify them in the way that I have.

Make the jump with me to see what I found...

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Over at Mocking the Draft, they, of course, like to do mock drafts. Recently they held a live on-line mock in which a knowledgeable fan of each team served as the team's GM. Our very own Nick Cast was the Broncos GM for the this mock. With his blessing I am going to recap this mock since he has been busy with work lately. This mock allowed for trades to happen, but the Broncos did no get any offers that were to their liking so they stayed with the picks that they had

I think that EFX would be happy with this draft.

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Most of us here at MHR agree that there were some big holes in our defense last year. Our pass defense was either in the bottom half of the league or the bottom third of the league depending upon what stat you chose to cite.

stat - actual value (NFL rank)

opposing QB rating - 93.1 (28th)

passing TD allowed - 24 (16th)

passing yards allowed - 3704 (18th)

interceptions - 9 (28th)

net yards/attempt - 6.4 (21st)

completions allowed - 333 (18th)

passing 1st downs allowed - 182 (14th)

completion % against - 62.4% (23rd)

passes defended - 68 (29th)

passes >20 yds allowed - 46 (8th)

pass >40 yds allowed - 13 (29th)

sacks - 41 (T-10th)

Don't mistake my point here - as mediocre to bad as these numbers look, they are an improvement over 2010 (as sad as that may sound) in almost EVERY category. If you don't believe me on that, go look up the 2010 stats - just make sure that there is a trash can nearby as they are likely to make you vomit. Lets think about the factors that contributed to the 2011 numbers after the jump - and, of course, how we might improve on them in 2012.

(There is no Suh in this year's draft, and even if there were, he sure wouldn't be available at #25)

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I'd like to see us get one (as would half of the people on MHR who took the survey last week). So with that in mind and now with combine data in our grasp lets look at the tale of the tape for the top 6 DTs in this years draft along with some of the college stats. Then let's compare their data to the top 5 DTs drafted in 2011 and pair that with what those 5 DTs were able to do as rookies in the NFL.

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There has already been a great deal of discussion about what position/player the Broncos should draft at 25 or if the Broncos should trade down and out of the first for more picks in 2012. One option for the Broncos that has been discussed is to take a MLB prospect in the first round - Hightower. To get a good idea whether or not this will happen we need to assess three things:

1. What the Broncos already have on their roster at MLB (and we are weak here)

2. What players will likely be available who could play the Mike in the NFL

3. What Fox and Del Rio have historically looked for in Mike backers

Make the jump with me and let's dig into the position that is referred to as the "QB of the defense"

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We've heard it said so many times over the course of the 2011 season that most of us could recite it in our sleep - "The NFL is a passing league." Statistics back this up with not one, but two, QBs breaking the all-time passing yards in a season record this year. Flying in the face of that trend, you have the 2011 Denver Broncos. Whether it was based on coaching preference or necessity, the Broncos lead the league in rushing yards and were tied for first in rushing attempts (with the Texans). The Bucs had the fewest rusing attempts with 346. The Broncos also attempted the fewest passes in the league with 429. The 49ers had the next fewest with 451. Detroit lead the league with 666 passing attempts (I told you they were evil). So that was the offense in 2011. McCoy will again be the offensive coordinator, but it remains to be seen whether the pass/run ratio will change (or by how much) next season. I tend to think that the Broncos will still rely heavily on the run, but that we will not rely as heavily as we did in 2011. So the health and effectiveness of our OL and RBs is paramount.

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George Santayana was a famed poet, essayist, novelist and thinker. The often quoted phrase with many variants from which the title of this post comes, has its origins with him. His original quote is this Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it. So with that in mind let's take a look back at recent Bronco history. Hopefully in doing so we have help to avert result that occurred in 2008 and 2009, keeping in mind that this year's Bronco team is very different from the two teams which collapsed in the final three games. Make the jump with me and let's relive some painful shared history and hopefully learn why it won't be repeated....

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So after three games in 2010 the Broncos had the exact same record as this year, 1-2. Both years the sequence has been L-W-L. Both years the Broncos fans expected to win at least 2 of 3. There are a few more similarities, but there are a lot more differences as you will see after the jump. Hopefully those differences lead to a much better final record than in 2010.

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After hearing some calls to fire the strength and conditioning staff I decided to try and answer the title question. The infirmary report for the Broncos along with the rest of the NFL entering week two of the season will follow after the jump so that you can compare for yourself. This is just going to look at the total number of players each team has on IR, OUT or on the PUP list. I am not trying to assign value as some teams with fewer players total on the infirmary report might be in worse straights than the Broncos (see the Colts without P. Manning).

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Being an East coast Bronco fan, I had to stay up pretty late last night to watch the end of the game. In some ways, I'm glad I did because I got to witness the events that have lead to so much wailing and gnashing of teeth already. Coffee is my friend. Since we have already started the death spiral that is QB talk, I am going to focus on the other Broncos who played last night. There was some good, but a lot of bad.

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There has been a great deal of unneeded anxiety at MHR over the Broncos perceived lack of offensive line depth. That got me thinking about who in the NFL actually has offensive line depth. Somebody has to have it, right? So I started looking into the matter by looking at the guys who were the backups for the best five OL units in 2010 (according to PFF)

via www.jeffgothelf.com

1. Jets

2. Texans

3. Pats

4. Ravens

5. Bengals

The assumption being that to be a good line requires talent AND depth since injuries are going to occur. Make the jump with me and lets see what great OLs had on their benches in in 2010. I am not going to count long snappers.

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With no free agency to discuss and little else to talk about many here at MHR have been sustaining our football souls on history and speculation based on history - as meager as that sustenance might be. One bit of this speculation that has been repeated many times is this

"John Fox's teams don't use the TE for anything more than blocking, so Fox's Broncos will do the same"

In doing some research on this I started to want an answer to the broader question of how the NFL currently uses TEs - has it changed in the past decade? If so, what caused the change? Moving on from there I also wanted to know how much truth there is in the conjecture about Fox's use of the TE. I also wanted to compare the Broncos use of the TE over the same time period. Make the jump with me if you are not afraid of stats, graphs and Shannon Sharpe's massive guns

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Maxwellsdemon had a recent post about mobile QBs and how we define them.

Some Clarification is in Order: Offensive Trends Review

He focused on the ratio of rushing attempts to passing attempts. I thought it would be interesting to look at two stats, QB sacks and QB hits (which have only been recorded for the past 5 seasons) to see what we can learn about QB mobility/escapability. The sack rate is sacks/passing attempts. The hit rate is QB hits/passing attempts. A QB hit is defined as a play when the QB gets hit while throwing or immediately after throwing the football. I "created" two new stats to analyze an offense's ability to keep their QB upright - the punishment rate (QB hit + sacks)/passing attempts, and the avoidance rate (Qb hits - sacks)/passing attempts. The punishment rate gives a pretty good indication of which QBs are taking a beating and which are not. The avoidance rate is interesting, but confusing and not as useful as the punishment rate. Make the jump with me and we'll take a look at league trends, team trends and some individual player insights.

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Given the dearth of content and commentary on MHR recently, I decided to complete this fanpost which has been in the idea stage for some time. The assumption that many here are promulgating is that the Broncos will run the football more in 2011 because "John Fox likes to run the ball." So I wanted to look at his time in Charlotte to evaluate the veracity of this statement and ponder its application to the 2011 Broncos. Will the Broncos run more in 2011 than they have int he past 4 years? After the jump I will present some history, some explanation and some prognostication. A big assumption here is that the head coach will have some control over the offensive play calling, which Fox may not, but you can decide for yourself if he had that in Charlotte.

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If you read my last fanpost and looked at the poll, you would see that the majority of the MHR community graded the 2010 Broncos OL as a C (pretty good Bell curve).

http://www.milehighreport.com/2011/5/18/2175957/how-much-praise-of-blame-should-be-thrown-at-the-2010-broncos

A grade of C is average but the discussion (and the blog) brought up the context - two three main points of which are

1. The same five guys did not start at the same positions on the OL in 2010 until roughly mid-season (and the line played better in the second half of the season)

2. Two starters were rookies

3. Two guys were playing at less than 100% (Harris and Clady)

I wanted to dig further into what effect point 2 has/had on the play of the OL. What can we learn from history here? What have other teams done recently that have started two rookie OL? How does the 2010 Broncos OL compare? What has that meant for future OL performance (assuming the line is kept mainly intact)?

Make the jump with me and I will show you what I found...

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First let me start with a caveat - I played offensive line in college, so I am always ready to give the OL credit. 95% of the time the offensive line toils in obscurity and even if the line as a whole is having a great game, few, if any, notice, because the RB/QB/WR gets the glory when they score the TDs. So with that said, I wanted to look back at the play of the offensive line in 2010. The OL was often maligned last year because of poor running game, but a lot of credit has to given to the OL for allowing KO a fair amount of time to throw (stats to back this up later). Make the jump with me and we'll go position by position along the OL (excluding TE) and then look at some metrics to measure OL performance.

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Thanks to BroncoPH, I had a chance to look at some really interesting pieces of data that one could use to analyze what the Broncos have or don't have in KO. This is not intended to be a post to denigrate KO or to glorify TT. The numbers below are presented without comment for the MHR community (those who haven't already bothered to look them up) to evaluate.

Draw your our conclusions and remember the context in terms of running game and offensive line play.

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Ok, so we didn't draft a DT this year. That doesn't mean that we won't next year. Right now (since free agency has not begun), it appears that Broncos are going to have to draft a DT early in 2012 and fill out the 2011 DT spots with at least two possibly three free agents (Thomas is a RFA). However, the reason I asked the title question was that I wanted to know if there were examples of D lines that were part of top 5 front 7's which weren't composed of high draft picks at DT. It is extremely difficult to separate the play of the DL from the play of the LBs (Football outsiders doesn't, so I wont' even try) - hence I will talk about front 7 instead of just DL. I chose to focus on the teams who had the top 5 (as defined by Football Outsiders) front 7's in 2010 and 2009. I then looked at whether or not they had drafted DTs in 2000-2008 in rounds 1-3 and whether or not those guys were still playing for them. I realize that I am only focusing on the past two season and that examples may exist prior to that. I looked back at those 9 years of drafts due to the normal three year "gestation period" for a draft pick - even a first rounder - to become an effective DT in the NFL. 

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John Fox was hired as the head coach of the Carolina Panthers in 2002 so he was involved with 9 drafts for the Panthers. Given the level of consternation that has arisen around here about not selecting a DT in the draft, I chose to look back at what the Panthers did in the draft from 2002-2010 to see if this draft for the Broncos is similar to the way in which Fox drafted when he coached the Panthers.

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