The Broncos offense started the year slow but has seemed to get things rolling in recent weeks and there is a lot of excitement around this team and rookie QB Bo Nix right now. A deeper look, however, shows us that Denver’s recent success has come against sub-par competition. Denver scored 34 points in a dismantling of the Raiders in Week 5 and 33 against an injury-riddled Saints team on a short week in Week 7, before scoring 28 points fairly easily against the Panthers in Denver last week. The team defense DVOA of those three teams is currently 26th, 32nd, and 31st. Meanwhile, the Broncos have faced two defenses this season who currently rank top-12 in the NFL in DVOA – the Steelers and the Chargers. The Broncos were held scoreless through three quarters in both of those games. To say that the Denver offense has been opponent-sensitive is an understatement. That brings us to the Baltimore defense, which has been terrific against the run (ranking 5th in run defense DVOA, 2nd in PFF run defense grades, and 1st in opponents yards per rush attempt) but has struggled – especially in recent weeks – against the pass. The Ravens have taken a step back without Mike Macdonald as their defensive coordinator and they have dealt with injuries in their secondary over recent weeks. This week they appear to be getting back starting cornerbacks Marlon Humphrey and Nate Wiggins, while the team brought in respected defensive mind Dean Pees to help iron out some of their defensive issues a couple of weeks ago. Baltimore is a well-coached team with a strong defensive reputation, we can expect them to be a better unit than recent games have shown. This will be a great litmus test for both the Broncos offense and the Ravens defense, as the Broncos will need to show they can produce against a quality opponent and the Ravens will look to bounce back to the championship-level defense they expect from themselves.
The Broncos offense has been so heavily focused on ball control and avoiding turnovers that they may have a relatively conservative game plan in this one. Bo Nix threw 2 interceptions in each of his first two games but has turned the ball over only once in the last six games. The Ravens are blitzing at a lower rate and generating less pressure than they did in 2023, which should relieve some pressure and allow Denver to not force the issue early in the game. Denver wisely let Nix cut it loose a bit in recent weeks against weaker opponents, but this is likely a game that Sean Payton will recognize the need to play things close to the vest in the early going. If the Broncos are aggressive early in this game, they may push Baltimore a bit or we could see Nix make some costly mistakes that give the Ravens short fields and put Denver into a negative game script in the first half. Sean Payton has been around long enough to know that is not a situation he wants to put his rookie signal caller in as it could hurt the confidence that has been built up in recent weeks. For as much negativity as the Baltimore defense is receiving right now, most of their issues have come up in the second half of games. Only the Bengals and Chiefs have scored more than 10 first half points against Baltimore this season. Baltimore is likely to play strong defense early in this game and the Denver offense will lean on their running game and, more specifically, the short area passing game by using a large variety of formations and personnel groupings to generate positive plays and move the chains. It is easy to think/hope the Denver offense will be aggressive and attack a secondary that has given up big numbers in recent weeks, but that situation is unlikely to evolve until the second half if Denver falls behind and in that scenario, it is hard to expect the same kind of success. Their best path to victory is a tight, lower-scoring affair.
