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Denver Defense Has Been Great, But It's Not Historically Great

fieryprophet

By fieryprophet,
in Carolina Panthers

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fieryprophet

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https://www.numberfire.com/nfl/news/7518/the-broncos-defense-has-been-great-but-not-historically-great

One thing you can't take away from Denver is that they were by far the best defense in the league in 2015.

Our Net Expected Points (NEP) metric (which you can read more about here) measures how many points are added or subtracted compared to expectation level. When adjusted for strength of schedule, Denver dominated this metric, posting a Defensive NEP per play of -0.07 with the next best mark in the league being a -0.03 from Carolina.

They ranked fifth against the run with a -0.08 Adjusted Defensive Rushing NEP per play and first, by a wide margin, against the pass with a score of -0.10.

The distance between the Broncos and Panthers is part of makes what Denver is doing look special, but in reality, the gap is as much a reflection of their lack of competition for top defense than it is a reflection of their dominance.

Lack of Elite Defenses

As I mentioned, the Panthers ranked second in the league with a schedule-adjusted -0.03 Defensive NEP per play. While that's a solid number, this is the only time in the last decade that it would hold up as the second best in the league.

Over the last 10 years, their -0.03 would rank only as high as fourth (2014) and as low as ninth (2006 and 2007). On average, there would be 5.8 teams separating Carolina from the top defense in the league.

While this obviously doesn't say anything about the Broncos' performance, it does give us a bit of insight into why the Broncos may have felt like such an incredible defense when, as you'll see, the numbers say that they don't stack up as such over a larger sample in history.

 

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