ESPN’s NFL prognosticator has good news / bad news for the Broncos

How will the Broncos fare in 2021? Well, depending on who is asked, the predictions run the gamut.

Here at Denver’s Sports Station 104.3 The Fan, the on-air hosts are all over the board. They range from 6-11 on the low end to 10-7 on the high end, with a lot of 8-9 and 9-8 finishes mixed in.

Chad Brown – 9-8
Zach Bye – 8-9
Sandy Clough – 8-9
Shawn Drotar – 9-8
Mike Evans – 8-9
Nick Ferguson – 10-7
Nate Jackson – 10-7
Dan Jacobs – 7-10
Cecil Lammey – 9-8
DMac – 9-8
James Merilatt – 6-11
Tyler Polumbus – 8-9
Mark Schlereth – 9-8
Brandon Stokley – 10-7

Well, it appears as those who believe the Broncos are right around a .500 football team are on the right track. At least according to one numbers cruncher.

Mike Clay serves as ESPN’s NFL prognosticator. Today, he released his projected records for all 32 teams, based on his grading of each club’s offense, defense and special teams.

How did the Broncos fare? Well, Clay’s formula has them winning 8.8 games. Since the real world doesn’t allow for fractional wins, that rounds up to a 9-8 finish.

Thread: It's time for final 2021 NFL predictions and #ClayProjections !!

We'll kick off with win total, scoring, playoff team & 2022 draft order projections pic.twitter.com/09PcD5XsuA

— Mike Clay (@MikeClayNFL) September 9, 2021

Last year, the Dolphins finished 10-6 and didn’t make the playoffs. Even in the expanded seven-game field, they didn’t qualify for the postseason in the AFC.

Based on Clay’s projections, however, things will be different in 2021. A 9-8 finish would earn the Broncos the No. 6 seed in the AFC.

That’s the good news. Denver’s streak of four-straight sub-.500 seasons would end, as would their five-year playoff drought.

But it’s not all positives. There is a downside to that kind of finish.

The Broncos would have to most likely navigate their way through the Ravens, Chiefs and Bills in the playoffs. That’s a gauntlet, one that probably won’t result in the team ending up in the Super Bowl.

So Denver would win, but they wouldn’t win big. And that would create some issues.

First, Clay has the Broncos landing the 18th-overall pick in the 2022 NFL Draft. That’s a tough spot to land a franchise quarterback, if Denver is still in the market for one.

That leads to the second issue. Finishing 9-8 would be a 3.5-game improvement over the Broncos finish in 2020. Would that, combined with the ending of two years-long streaks of futility, cause Denver to stand pat at key positions?

Teddy Bridgewater is in the final year of his contract, so the Broncos would have to decide if they want to re-sign the veteran. Doing so would most likely require a multi-year commitment.

Given that Denver wouldn’t be in a good spot to draft a rookie QB, that’d be a very real possibility. It’s highly debatable if Bridgewater is the long-term solution for the Broncos, but it would be hard to move on from someone who led the team to their first taste of success in nearly a half decade.

The same can be said for their head coach. A 9-8 season would put Vic Fangio at 21-28 during his three seasons in Denver, hardly a glossy resume. But there will be signs that he’s righted the ship.

Much like Bridgewater, it’d be hard to move on from a head coach who guided the Broncos to the playoffs, even if it was as a low seed. To make matters even more complicated, Fangio would be heading into the final year of his contract in 2022, leaving the Broncos with a decision to make. A lame-duck season is something most teams, or head coaches, like to avoid.

It’s hard to argue that going 9-8 and making the playoffs is bad thing. Winning is always good.

That said, that level of winning, which puts the Broncos squarely in the world of mediocre NFL teams, does create some issues. Namely, it’d create a situation where George Paton has to interpret the data.

The general manager has to decide if 9-8 is stopping point on a trajectory that can reach 11-6 or 12-5, or is it the plateau with Bridgewater, Fangio and the current core players. That will be a tough thing to determine.

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