Inside the Numbers with Ryan Michael Eric Delala here on Broncos Country tonight alongside Nick
Ferguson. Ryan, thank you so much for joining us here a Pro Football
Hall of Fame contributor. Are things going doing well? Eric? Nick?
How are you guys doing tonight? Things are good? Things are good?
Right. I want to start us off here with probably maybe the number one
cause for concern when you watch the twenty twenty three Denver Broncos from the quarterback
position, which was turnovers and taking sacks. I know you've kind of taken
a look at what the Broncos struggled with their last year, and I'm wondering,
where can the Broncos and how can the Broncos get those numbers down.
I know it's important to Sean Payton, I know it's important to Broncos Country
for sure. It is then, you know, for the folks who have
been listening to my spot on the show over the past few months, I've
really been a one eighty since the NFL Draft, and I went from being
as pessimistic as anybody you'll find to being as optimistic as anybody he'll find in
Denver, because I really think that the way we approached free agency in the
draft was to work with the deficiencies that we have in hand. We're in
salary cap hell, we didn't have a lot of draft picks, and what
we did with the opportunities we were afforded is we were looking to channel weaknesses
and the strength. And one of the biggest ones we talked about a lot
last year with sack percentage. Russell Wilson. For as much as I defend
him as having had a much better season than a lot of folks give him
credit, certainly sack percentage has not just last year, but always been the
greatest weakness of his game. So he finished last year ranked twenty seventh in
sack percentage. He went down nine point one percent of his dropbacks. That's
awful. And when you factor into net yards per attempt, which factors in
sacks along with yards per attend he finished twenty third in the league five point
seven to two. That's just above Aid and O'Connell twenty fourth five point five
to seven. Not where you want to be. So what does Sean Payton
do. He gets the antithesis of what Russell Wilson was in the pocket in
the form of Bonnicks bon Nicks, and last season, with four hundred and
seventy attempts, he was sacked only five times. At one point one percent.
Sack percentage was far and away the best mark of any quarterback taken in
the top fifteen over the last ten years. And so since Sean Payton's system
is predicated upon efficiency, having a quarterback who has that sense of awareness in
the pocket is going to make a tremendous difference. So I'm very excited about
that move. It's down the office side of the ball. Before you joined
us, Eric and I was talking about the Broncos running back room and how
competitive is going to be in training camp. But we know, whether you're
a veteran or you are a rookie quarterback, your best friend is a run
game. So how is it that this run game could it help out not
just Sean Payton as well? Absolutely, I mean, and that was really
the brain better of what you guys did so well during your time Nick with
the team under Mike Shanahan. So right now we're looking at a Broncos backfield
that last year, excluding Russell Wilson's work on the ground, rushed for only
five touchdowns in the seventeen games. So you bring in Audrick Estimate, a
guy who produced eight tuon rushing touchdowns last year, and he got particularly strong
as the season went on, scoring eleven touchdowns in his final five games of
college football. Again, it is if Sean Payton looked directly at our deficiencies
someone asked him, what are you going to do about it? We pick
up Audric Estimate. I'm very excited about what that will do to help alleviate
some of that pressure on bo Nick's particularly in red zone situation. I'd like
to see what that dynamic is going to look like this year between Estimate,
between some of the additions at the wide receiver position, how much does this
look to you like Sean Payton's type of guy on offense, and how much
improvement. Granted that there could be a rookie quarterback, a quarterback who is
new to the system, or a quarterback with just two starts in the system,
so granted that there might be some growing pains there, but when you
look at the additions, how much more is it realistic to expect out of
this Sean payn offense compared to what we saw last year? Well, I
think that what we're going to see. It's going to be tough to replicate
what Russell Wilson did well. So you're looking at a guy in Russe Wilson
who finished eighth in the league last year in passer rating, number one in
the AFC in touchdown past percentage. I don't expect, realistically bon Nicks to
match those strengths. But what I think we're going to see here's the antithesis
of Russell Wilson. I've been calling bon Nicks Drew Brees light, and I
consider that a high compliment given how highly I think of Drew Brees. You're
going to see efficiency. You're going to see sack of winness. You're going
to see god willing, a high completion percentage. You're going to see a
guy who's been incredibly efficient at avoiding turnovers and producing touchdowns. He led all
of college football with fifty one total touchdowns last year. So I think what
we're going to see is hopefully something that might be similar in terms of points
produced and totally as an offense. Hopefully we're going to produce more getting some
touchdowns on the ground, But the success that Bonnicks is going to have,
it might look similar in the box score in terms of points scored. He's
going to be getting it done very differently. And I think laying down the
bricks of that foundation for Sean Payton's system and running it the way that he
wants to run it is going to show greater games in year two for bon
Knicks Troy Franklin than the rest of the guys. Speaking of system, what
would that system look like? And the reason I asked because when anytime we
talk about Sean Payton in offense, it automatically goes back to New Orleans in
his time with Drew Brees, and we know that when you spending a lot
of time with any guy in any system, things kind of flow a different
way. But now we're talking about Zach Wilson, Bo Nicks and even Jared
Stidham, you know, being in this particular system, and neither guy I
would say this, we don't really know what they actually can be in this
system. So what are you predicting that we could see with the new additions
offensively? You know, I don't think realistically Zach Wilson is going to see
the field. He might see some preseason action, and you know, as
as Bennett mentioned, last week. There's no guarantee that Bonnicks will be TV
one week one, although that's certainly what I'm going to be pulling for,
because, in my view, Jared said him, even if he play as
well as going to be a short term solution at best, his ceiling is
far lower than Bonnicks's ceiling is. I think our goal for this year,
we'd like to win the Super Bowl, right, We'd like to knock off
Kansas City. We did it last year last year's rosters, so never see
never. But the goal was more about laying down bricks to build that foundation
for the future. And I think that if we produce something similar in the
wing column and perhaps score a bit more points and prevent more points, sure
we might not win the Super Bowl this year, but we might find ourselves
in really good position for twenty twenty five and beyond. Ryan curious, but
before we jump over to the defensive side of the ball, and here you
can choose a guy on defense if you'd like. But wondering one edition from
this offseason that from a statistical standpoint in terms of addressing a weakness then really
stands out to you as Hey, here's the guy that maybe fans haven't thought
enough about when they think about Like you mentioned that the Broncos weren't big spenders
like they were a year ago, but still made some moves in free agency.
Who's maybe the under the radar edition that fans should know ahead a week
one. Well, for me, I've been consistent in saying that Malcolm Roach
is my favorite free agent signing, and since the tackles don't traditionally get a
lot of love. But if you look at where we finished last year in
terms of rising yards per carry surrendered, we were dead last. We gave
up five yards per carry And to just put into context just how bad that
number is. The distance between thirty second and thirty first. Giving up four
point seven yards per carryus equal to the distance between thirty first and twenty second.
It's a gargantling gap. So sure the outlier massacre in Miami giving up
three hundred and fifty yards on the ground was a big part of it.
If you look at Malcolm Roach, and he's a guy who Pro Football Focus
had ranked number one in the NFL amongst interior defensive linemen and runstop rate at
seventeen point four percent in the same flast, year finished tied for fourth and
rushing touchdowns allowed, they only gave up ten. They finished eighth and rushing
the XP, which is an efficiency metric per Pro Football Reference. So he's
really the perfect edition in terms of addressing that weakness on the defensive side of
the ball. Now, obviously this past offseason, the loss of Justin Simmons,
you know, from an emotional standpoint and what he means to the team
from a community standpoint. Fans are still going through that. But now there
are new players who are going to be inserted into the lineup where they're going
to be as to carry that low and even take it to a whole different
level. How do you think Vance Joseph in his second year can actually help
those guys play better in the back end. It's stillosuming for me to talk
about losing Justin Simmons because he's not the kind of all player that you're going
to replace very easily, if at all. But I love the pickup of
Jonah Ellis. I think that we're going to turn our defense into strengths through
different areas. So we obviously need to generate pressure in terms of sacking the
quarterback, and he's a guy who last year finished seventeen college football in total
sacks with twelve, which was second amongst all players taken in the NFL Draft.
I think that we're going to see the Singer shutdown corner in terms of
what Patser can can do well. And I believe one made the point a
few weeks ago. When you're looking at Chris abram Strain, he's a guy
who's more of an aggressive defensive back who might be able to take some chances
and beat some people into throwing some picks. He finished tenth in the nation
and passes defended last year. So I don't see any route to replacing Justin
Simmons with the collection of talent that we've assembled through free and became the draft.
Least be hopeful that in Kris Joseph's second year we're going to be a
lot more efficient on the defensive side of the ball. Well, I do
want to jump back to the defensive line, just for one second second.
In my mind, it all starts there. How underrated? Maybe I know
Draft weekend gets crazy a lot going on, but to get a guy like
John Franklin Myers, just curious your thoughts on him. Angel Blaxon I mean
that wasn't like Malcolm Roach was the only guy They really made a concerted effort
to get better along that defensive front. How much of a difference in your
mind does a good defensive line make for both the linebacking corps and the secondary.
It's going to make everybody's life easier, so you know, stopping the
run is going to be king. Malcolm Roach certainly plugged that point of developing
pressure off the edge. It's going to allow our linebackers to be able to
scan the field and be able to adjust to the surrounding circumstances in a way
that enables them to play at their best if the dvs have a chance to
breathe and have a chance to be able to catch a posing quarterback out of
position because we're getting pressure to quarterbacks. Finally, this year, it's not
going to be the twenty fifteen Broncos, but it really is of the mold
of building that. Bully and I like everything that we've done. To be
honest, with the resources that we had, the money we had to spend,
I don't think we could have done much of a better job in creating
and seeing the draft. Brian so much about the NFL is about the offensive
side of the ball. And I have to ask you, like, like,
I played with Rod Smith and he was a very underrated guy. Do
you have any fun facts about Rod Smith himself and what he was able to
accomplish in his time as a Bronco? I do. Not only is Rod
Smith one of the most underrated Broncos of all time, he's one of the
most underrated wide receivers of all time. An undrafted guy, a guy who
proves how far you can come with hard work and just got given talent and
ability. So here's a stat for you. From nineteen ninety seven through two
thousand and five, so we're talking a nine year stretch, almost a full
decade sample size, he produced ten thousand, eight hundred and forty yards from
scrimmage. So if you adjust that to a seventeen game season, he would
have averaged one thousand, three hundred and seven yards per year every year for
nearly a full decade. That is Hall of Fame numbers for a guy we
certainly haven't gotten anywhere close to that degree of recognition one of my all time
favorite Broncos. All right, well, Steve, that water is with us
Earlier he's gone, so he can't hear you say nice things now. But
I want to know what you got on Steve the Smiling Assassin. You've got
some good stuff on Rod. You anything on Steve over there? You know.
I think when it comes to dvs, a lot of their greatness isn't
necessarily reflected in the box score because you want to throw away from those guys
and stee aatt Waters resume in Denver is very similar, in my view to
Barry sanators resume on the running back position in Detroit in the sense that every
year had a very very high ceiling. So from nineteen eighty nine through nineteen
ninety eight, all of his years in Denver, every single season he either
won an AFC Championship, was named to a Pro Bowl, was named All
Pro, or he won a Super Bowl. So his rookie year AFC champions
the Bronco was to the number one scoring defense in the league. He finished
second place in voting for Defensive Rookie of the Year nineteen ninety He made the
Pro Bowl ninety one through ninety two Pro Bowl and the first team All Pro
selection ninety three for ninety five Pro Bowl. Every single year ninety six Pro
Bowl and a second team All Pro selection nineteen ninety seven, won is for
Super Bowl nineteen ninety eight. Back to the Pro Bowl, and one another.
That's a Barry Sanders resume on the defensive side, including some rings.
Incredible resume. You know, that's very interesting because you absolutely right, Ryan,
defensive guys we never really get that much love because it's all about the
offensive guys, how many points that they can score. But listen, I
mean, if it's not for defense, a lot of teams wouldn't have championships.
So that whole phrase of defense wins championships, it's true. And you
just laid it out based on the stats about I mean, our great Steve
Atwater. I want to know if Ryan has my high school stats somewhere.
I think I had like three interceptions. Got that on the max preps or
something. Give me a week. We'll go inside the numbers, go inside
the numbers of Eric Delava. There's another Broncos defensive back that we wanted to
leave to the end of the segment. This was Ben's pick, so we're
trying to it as a surprise and I'm going to go with Nick Kurdson,
and so you know, We often see quarterbacks credited with wins and losses,
and we always say they get a little bit too much credit when they win,
a little bit too much blame when they lose. So if we're going
to look at wins and losses for individual players, I'm gonna use you Nick
as an example. From two thousand threety to two thousand and sixteen games that
you played in the Broncos finished thirty nine and sixteen. That's the seventy point
nine percent winning percentage. You finish top ten in points per game surrendered every
single season, and two against Peyton Manning, two against Drew Brees, three
against Tom Brady, including his first ever postseason defeat. So how do you
feel about those numbers? You know? Way, when you put it that
way, I'm like, man, it only frustrates me more that I wasn't
voted to the Pro Bowl. But I'll say this is that hearing those numbers
and playing on those teams, it wasn't just one person. And that's the
one thing I loved about playing on our defense. There were multiple people from
week to week that were counted on to make plays, and that's how our
defense was galvanized. If I'm not mistaken. One of those years we led,
I think we were in tops in the league as far as teams against
the rush, And for me, that was something that you know, both
John and myself and Al Wilson and Ian Gole. I mean, we took
the heart. We wanted to make sure that at the end of any game,
whether we want to loss, that opposing team had an opportunity to definitely
fill us. So I have to thank Ben for putting me in that mix
too as well. I think it's also worth noting that that it's not just
what you did statistically, but it's who you competed against. So during the
time that you played, I always say the two thousand and three to two
thousand and five Broncos one of my favorite runs ever. You were competing against
Peyton Manning at the peak of his power, Drew Brees, Tom Brady Ladini,
and Tomlinton Police Holmes. You weren't going and Division three teams out there.
You were going against some of the greatest players to have ever played the
game. And to pick up not just one, but multiple wins against guys
with those kinds of resumes, it's truly remarkable to testament to the team Coach
Sanahan put together and all of you guys collectively were able to achieve the team.
Well, Nick is just sobbing in here now and he's just overjoyed.
I did think he was going to say that when you said it gives me
regrets we didn't. I thought you were going to say, win the super
Bowl, but you went for the Pro Bowl. We went for the individual
honor there. Nick, that's okay because that one I don't want to do
that because that still hurts. Okay, it's I try not to bring it
up. I mean, Eric, I'm sorry, you know what. He's
walking out, he's walking sobbing. He was happy, Now he's sad.
Ryan, we appreciate you, we appreciate you joining us. I got to
go make sure that Nick's okay.