Gone are the days of the Broncos’ elite and fantasy friendly offense. After years of struggling to find a replacement for Peyton Manning, the Broncos find themselves in an AFC West that’s full of offensive weapons, and an offense of their own full of promising young talent with premium draft capital.
Similar to the haul of wide receivers the division rival Las Vegas Raiders selected in this year’s draft, the Broncos selected two wide receivers in the first two rounds, giving second-year quarterback Drew Lock some shiny new toys to throw to. The other main addition to this offense is Melvin Gordon from the Los Angeles Chargers, who looks to take control of the starting running back role. With a plethora of youthful talent, is this Denver offense worth investing in, or is it set to disappoint?
Offensive Overview
In their second year under head coach Vic Fangio, the Broncos are getting a new offensive coordinator in Pat Shurmur to replace Rich Scangarello, who was fired at the end of last season. The offense can only improve with Pat Shurmur in control, given Denver finished 28th in points for and total yards last season. Shurmur has experienced success developing young QBs, and the quality of the Denver offense and the performance of its talented skill position players rely heavily on how well Shurmur can groom Lock and help him take the next step.
Quarterback
Drew Lock
With his 4-1 record in 5 starts last year, Drew Lock is a hot name in the fantasy football community this offseason. After taking over for Joe Flacco, Lock passed for 1,020 yards, 7 touchdowns, and 3 Interceptions, with a 64.1% completion percentage. With the addition of Jerry Jeudy and K.J. Hamler and a second year with both Courtland Sutton and Noah Fant, we can expect Lock to progress statistically. Just how much Lock progresses might depend on the offense that Pat Shurmur installs. It’s reasonable to expect at least a similar stat line as Daniel Jones’ from his 2019 rookie season, as I have Lock projected for 3,400 yards, 21 touchdowns, and 10 interceptions, which puts him as my predicted 20th ranked QB.
Personally, I think the hype is surpassing the realistic expectations of Lock at this point in the offseason. While Lock’s 4-1 record as a starter is promising, some of his advanced passing statistics should temper our expectations. In his 5 starts, Drew Lock had 4.7 completed air yards per completion, which measures the average yards the ball travels past the line of scrimmage prior to being caught per completion. Per Pro Football Reference, this is the lowest of all quarterbacks with more than 150 pass attempts.
Not only did Drew Lock not pass the ball far down the field, he had the 6th lowest average air yards per attempt of qualified quarterbacks. When he did throw it long, he was very bad at it. According to NFLfastR data, Lock had 12.7% completion percentage below expected on throws equal to or greater than 20 yards past the line of scrimmage. Lock has shown that he can throw deep successfully in college, so to truly “unlock” the full potential of the Denver offense, Lock will need to improve on these downfield throws. While I expect Lock to get better at throwing downfield, I imagine we continue to see a similar level on conservative pass selection during the 2020 season as the Broncos continue to lean on their talented defense, limiting Lock’s potential.
Drew Lock leads the draft class at QB in terms of passing grade on passes targeted 20+ yards downfield
His full draft profile:https://t.co/oHE1TuPD1D pic.twitter.com/bLxM3wTSsR
— PFF (@PFF) April 22, 2019
Running Back
It’s difficult to predict what the Broncos run/pass splits will be in 2020. The Broncos had the 10th highest run percentage in the NFL last season, and that’s after finishing with a 6-10 record and trailing for most of the season. While Shurmur will most likely push the Broncos to be slightly more pass friendly, I expect the Broncos’ rush percentage to only decrease slightly as Denver should be in more winning situations. Per Rotoworld, Denver only rushed 38% of the time when trailing last year compared to 45% overall. With a similar run/pass split as 2019, there’s plenty of opportunity in the Denver offense for the running backs, but a split in the carries between newcomer Melvin Gordon and Philip Lindsay might limit your ability to trust either of them in your fantasy lineup.
Melvin Gordon
Gordon comes to the Broncos from the AFC West rival Chargers after 5 years where he was consistently a top fantasy RB. Gordon has been a frustrating player for many fantasy managers to have, as he’s only finished one season with 16 games, which also was his only season with over 1,000 yards. Most of Gordon’s past fantasy value has come from his high usage, especially in the passing game. Gordon should see a decrease in both rush attempts and targets this season after leaving the Chargers and checkdown-heavy Philip Rivers. In my most recent projections, I see Gordon getting over 200 touches for the 6th consecutive season, but his split and reduction in pass game work leads him to scoring around 13.1 points per game in PPR scoring and 10.5 points per game in non-PPR.
Phillip Lindsay
Even though he has more 1,000 rushing-yard seasons than Melvin Gordon, Lindsay will most likely see a smaller percent of the rushing share for the first time in his career. That said, I believe the split will be more equal than what we saw for the Broncos last season, where Lindsay had 55% of the carries and Royce Freeman had 32%. Lindsay’s high number of targets, combined with the possibility that Melvin Gordon won’t be able to hold up for a full season, makes Lindsay an interesting target for fantasy teams that need running back help in the 8th and 9th rounds. I currently have Lindsay projected for 10 points per game in PPR, 7.8 in non-PPR, with plenty of upside if Gordon misses any time.
Receivers
As mentioned above, I believe with Pat Shurmur taking control of the offense we’ll see a slight increase in pass attempts in the Denver Broncos offense. The Broncos finished 27th in the NFL in pass attempts last season with 504. That number should increase this season, which could lead to enough volume for a successful fantasy season for several of Denver’s receivers.
Courtland Sutton
Courtland Sutton enters his third season with the Broncos as the alpha receiver in this offense. In his 5 games with Lock last season, Sutton averaged 8 targets per game. While that number will most likely decrease slightly with the new additions at wide receiver, I expect Sutton to remain Denver’s most targeted wide receiver by a healthy margin. I have him projected for just over 100 targets this season, which places him comfortably as a WR2. There’s some upside to that projection with the hope that Pat Shurmur will make this offense more pass heavy. Sutton is a prime medium- to high-floor target in the 4th or 5th round of drafts.
Despite catching passes from: Joe Flacco, Brandon Allen and Drew Lock – Courtland Sutton went 72-1112-6
2.48 yards per pass route (12th)
Top-20 in yards after the catch & Completed Air Yards. I like Jerry Jeudy as well but there should be no question who the alpha is in Denver. pic.twitter.com/ocvZgbbEEv— Ray G 🏁 (@RayGQue) August 3, 2020
Jerry Jeudy
The first-round pick for the Broncos adds some much-needed talent in the wide receiver group after Emmanuel Sanders left midseason last year. Jeudy was many analyst’s top wide receiver in this year’s draft, and he could immediately see enough targets to make him relevant, but should be considered more of a dynasty buy than a redraft buy.
K.J. Hamler
K.J. Hamler seems to be the forgotten Broncos wide receiver this season. Drafted in the second round, his selection underlines how badly Denver needed talent at the wide receiver position. The 10th rookie receiver selected, (before more discussed players like Denzel Mims and Chase Claypool) K.J. Hamler will fight with DaeSean Hamilton and Tim Patrick for the #3 WR position on the team. Although he should most likely end the season as the 3rd wide receiver on the depth chart, Hamler doesn’t look like he’ll see enough opportunity to be useful in redraft. In dynasty, he’s a screaming buy and stash worth inquiring about in your leagues.
Noah Fant
A year removed from being selected 20th overall in the 2019 draft, Noah Fant is an athletic monster (Just look at his mind-boggling athletic profile from PlayerProfiler.com below!) that’s looking to build upon a productive rookie season. He’ll be battling with Jeudy to be Drew Lock’s #2 receiver behind Sutton, a competition I see Fant winning.
Fant is a YAC monster that led the team last season with 8.3 yards after completion per reception. Fant’s yards after catch prowess is important for him to be fantasy relevant, as he had the lowest average depth of target for wide receivers and tight ends with more than 20 targets last season. Having the advantage of a full year with Drew Lock and head coach Vic Fangio over the highly drafted rookie wide receivers, Fant is a great late round tight end target that’s full of upside.
Review and Fantasy Outlook
With so much youth, it’s hard to predict how this offense and its players will produce this season without most of training camp and no preseason games. While Lock figures to stay conservative with his pass selection, improving his passing 20+ yards downfield combined with slightly higher volume in the pass game will most likely lead to him being a successful weekly streamer, but not an every-week starter. The split between Gordon and Lindsay will limit both of their upsides, but if you had to force me to take one, I would lean Lindsay at his current ADP considering Gordon might miss a few games. The talent the Broncos have in their receiving corps seemed to be priced accordingly, and they could easily beat their ADPs, with Sutton presenting a safe floor and medium/high ceiling if Lock keeps on progressing and K.J. Hamler as a massive buy in dynasty leagues. Finally, I am all in on Fant as a possible breakout tight end this season, as he has a solid floor that will have weekly upside based on his ability to create after the catch.
