Broncos Run Game Breakdown – Week 15 Part 1

So each week I’ve decide to break down about three to six rushing plays for the game that week so we can see how the offensive line, tight ends and running backs did that week. To do this I’ll take all the plays and randomly select three plays and add more depending on the time. I’ll take these plays and break them down using clippings from the game. For each play we will start with the down and distance, the personnel formation and grouping as well as the result of the play. We will also break the play into parts, the pre-play, mid-play, and the end. To get a better view of the image just click on it, it will open in a new tab. This will be the first running breakdown I do this season. Another feature is after going through each clip you can view it as a slideshow to see how the play progresses with the notes.

How to Understand the Images:
– Green lines are the path of the blockers
– The blue line represents the running back and his path
– The red lines are those of the defenders
– If a line is dashed that means a player has multiple options to choose from
– I include small caption boxes that help explain what is going on, pointing with black arrows to appropriate spots on the field.

This week I really wanted to show Broncos fans what I’ve been preaching this entire season and throughout this season. In past weeks I took 3-5 run plays at random and studied them, which lead to people saying it wasn’t a complete study so this week I am reviewing every run play to make sure people can’t claim I pick and choose my reviews. Since this is a very long project I’m breaking it into two parts so it’s not an overly long, run on, article. I likely won’t do this every week but this made a good week to do a show case.

Play 1

– Down and Distance: 1st and 10
– Personnel: 3 WR (2 WR’s and 1 TE with the 1 TE split out wide), 1 TE, 1 RB
– Result: 6 Yard Gain

Pre-Play:

The Broncos Numbers Updated With Week 15’s Data

While it was a tough loss to the San Diego Chargers, it doesn’t stop the march of the season or the collection of data so the pages have been updated:

– Broncos defensive line pass rushing productivity
– Broncos running back data including yards after contact, negative runs and long runs
– Broncos wide receivers, tight ends and running backs receiving data which includes yards per target, touchdown percentage and the passer rating when targeting each player

Enjoy! I’ll be reviewing more of the run game this week than normal since it’s a longer week and the longest run of the week was 6 yards. I’ll give some foreshadowing, the offensive line doesn’t look good. I’m also hoping to review the safety play as well if time permits.

Does Playing Thursday Games Really Impact Play On the Field?

After the terrible performance from the Denver Broncos coaches and players on Thursday night, many cried out that this was a sign that Thursday night games caused below-par performance from both teams and leads to less enjoyable games to watch. I wanted to look at this by studying the Thursday night games of this season. To do this I looked at a few key areas:

– Points per game- Total yards per game
– Passing yards per attempt
– Rushing yards per attempt
– Penalties per game

I looked at these five because points and yards are a decent indicator of the offensive play of the game while the two efficiency metrics (the two yards per attempt numbers) show if the teams were efficient in getting their yards and points. Lastly I added penalties because those are one of the bigger indicators of preparations and sloppiness of a teams play. These five are hardly perfect but provide a good sampling of what the game was like both in magnitude and quality.

I’ll take these and compare each teams performance on Thursday against their season averages to see if they are above or below those averages. Finally I’ll include a percentage difference, that this means is that I take the difference between their Thursday game and their seasons averages and then divide it by the season average to get a percentage difference.

For example if a team normally averages 25 points a game but had 20 points on Thursday, that’s a difference of -5. Now take that -5 and divide it by the season average of 25 and this team underperformed by 20%. Another example is a team that normally has 5 penalties but only has 3 on Thursday has a difference 2 penalties and did better by 40%.

Here is a link to the table.