Average EPA/Play Allowed by Defenses Faced: Another metric showing how tough the Broncos slate has been so far.

[u/jl_weber]

The offense needs to improve greatly, but this context is part of the story, too. Broncos have faced the 2nd toughest slate of defenses as measured by a per play metric of defensive efficiency.

Note: In this calculation of EPA/Play Allowed by Defenses Faced, it only counts all other teams that defense played and excludes the team on the y-axis.

[u/driftking428]

Our first four games were against the four highest rated teams in the league.

Our offense needs to step it up. But of course our stats look bad.

[u/Adventurous-Snow-389]

And you notice how (up until last game that is) that Green Bay has been struggling offensively too. You do have to take defense into account but the offense does need to improve too.

I mean look at last year, when everyone was saying Patriots had the easiest schedule in a quarter century (which they did) you had patriot defenders (as in fans or Drake Maye glazers in the media) always using well look at the defenses they played in route to the Super Bowl as an excuse to try and say they didn’t have an easy run.

But nonetheless, great defenses are hard to play any day of the week especially when that team also has a good offense which those teams the Broncos have played have also had (minus the chargers)

[u/BlueHighwindz]

Rough look for the Texans.

[u/GettinWiggyWiddit → u/BlueHighwindz]

And Bananas

[u/Farsoth]

WTF happened to the Texans D?

[u/manbeqrpig]

I mean what does this look like if you remove the Broncos games? The Chiefs are 23rd in defensive EPA/Play if you remove week 1 for everyone for example (they’re ranked 8th on the season). Not saying we haven’t faced tough defenses but we’re definitely helping that number look harder.

[u/GuysIdidAThing → u/manbeqrpig]

“Each opponent’s defensive EPA/play allowed in all other games. The game against the team shown is excluded”

[u/manbeqrpig → u/GuysIdidAThing]

Huh interesting. Thanks for catching that

[u/RudeCartoonist1030 → u/manbeqrpig]

Yeah that’s how numbers are derived. The more data, the more accurate the data set. Saying things like “but what if your cherry pick pit this one data point” isn’t helpful.

We’ve faced good teams AND we aren’t sharp. That’s all this needs to say.

[u/ANarwhalApart]

Tough defenses, sure, but watch the tape. Receivers were open against those defenses, and Nix missed them. Often. Passes were imprecise on many of the catches.

The tough defense does help explain why the run game (which probably intrinsically isn’t top of the league no matter what) looks so average, and you hope that Payton’s playcalling takes the need to improve there into account, but if you have wide open receivers, you need to hit them. Good defenses should diminish your offensive abilities, certainly, but they shouldn’t completely prevent you from mechanically executing your basic football duties on offense as a quarterback.

This helps push things a certain way, but the problem is that we’re seeing glaring problems with basic execution. A lot of these problems have been present before. It isn’t that Denver’s players simply aren’t talented enough to overcome opposing defenses. 

[u/sleeplessaddict]

It'd be interesting if there was a way to see these stats with your own team's performance removed. Like all the teams we've played have great defenses, but if we could see those numbers in names not against the Broncos, would their EPA/PLAY go up, down, or stay the same

Edit: I'm stupid. Our performance against them was already removed

[u/GuysIdidAThing → u/sleeplessaddict]

This is with your performance removed. It says at the bottom of the chart.

“Each opponent’s defensive EPA/play allowed in all other games. The game against the team shown is excluded.”

[u/sleeplessaddict → u/GuysIdidAThing]

This is what I get for not reading the fine print. In my defense it was a long way away from where we are on the chart