Denver Broncos
At the beginning of the season there weren’t that many people that would have told you they had faith in the Denver Broncos making the playoffs. After week seven of the season though, the Broncos have proven to NFL fans around the world that they are for real. They have started the season with a 6-0 record and although they have had some last minute wins, they all count. So far it would seem that the Broncos have a strangle hold on the AFC West division as the closest team to them in the division is the Chargers at 3-3. One thing that should be noted though as well is that the Broncos have already beaten the Chargers which would help them in the event of a tiebreaker at the end of the season.
When Jay Cutler was traded to the Bears and Kyle Orton came to the Broncos I must say that I was a bit sceptical about how Orton would do. Orton has a career record, but his performance as a QB over the years has been anything but great. So far this season Orton has done a good job at keeping the offence on the field as long as possible and managing the game well. The Broncos didn’t expect Orton to come in and win them games by himself, but they did need him to manage the game and not turnover the ball.
So for this nfl draft season Orton only has 1 INT which is simply remarkable. If he can continue to keep the offence on the field and managing the games well they should have no problem making the playoffs. One thing that has helped Orton is the receiving core on Denver. Brandon Marshall leads the way on the WR core, but they have lots of depth including Jabar Gaffney, Eddie Royal and Brandon Stokley. Tony Scheffler who is the Broncos TE is having a breakout year as well and has really been helping move the ball down field.
The football odds running game has also been doing great as the Broncos have a balanced attack. Knowshon Moreno has 381 yards and 1TD thus far and Correll Buckhalter has 313 yards and 1TD. They could use some more TD’s from the run game, but they have been gaining over 100 yards a game on average between the two of them. The defence on the Broncos has also been a huge surprise to most people. They were near the bottom of the league last year in defence, but with some additions in the off-season they have formed an amazing group of guys.
So far this season in six games Denver has only given up a total of 66 points which is the least amount of points given up by any team in the league. To only give up about 10 points per game on average is unheard of in the NFL and it shows you just how good the Broncos defence is playing right now. If they want to make a stand in the playoffs this year then the team is going to need to make sure they continue playing inspired defence. The offence still has some work to do though, and will definitely need to become more efficient so that they can bail out the defence later on in the season if need be.