Broncos in Dubious Company Based on Advanced Defensive Metric

It goes without saying that Week 3 vs. the Miami Dolphins was awful for Denver Broncos fans. But while one advanced metric gives the Dolphins the best offensive performance through the first three weeks of the season, that same metric doesn’t give the Broncos the worst defensive showing through three games, believe it or not.

Aaron Schatz, the man behind the advanced analytic DVOA, has the Dolphins with the best offensive performance ever through the first three games of a season at 62.3%. Interestingly, the Broncos made the list of best offensive performances through the first three games, ranked third for the 1998 season at 51.4%.

Getting to the Broncos defense, while it’s been awful, it’s still not the worst through three games. The Broncos' defensive DVOA is 39.8% (remember, DVOA is better for defenses when it is negative, not positive), which ranks as the fourth worst through the first three games.

That, of course, is no consolation, especially when you consider that, among the teams with the worst defensive performances through the first three games of the season, just one team turned it around to finish top 10 overall, that being the 1990 Seattle Seahawks, who were at 35.9% after three games but finished -7.9% for the season.

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As things stand, though, the Broncos are assured of finishing as one of the worst defenses in DVOA for the season. For those with the three worst defensive DVOA through three games, the 2006 Houston Texans finished the season 28th overall, the 2008 Detroit Lions finished 32nd overall, and the 2002 Kansas City Chiefs finished 31st overall.

For those wondering, the 2006 Texans had Richard Smith as defensive coordinator. It was Smith’s first season with the team and the first season that Gary Kubiak was the head coach. Smith was with the Texans through 2008 before Frank Bush replaced him in 2009.

The 2008 Lions, meanwhile, had Joe Barry as defensive coordinator, who was hired in 2007. Also, 2008 was the season that the Lions finished 0-16 under head coach Rod Marinelli and general manager Matt Millen — and it was Millen who got fired after Week 3 in his eighth year as the GM, with the coaching staff all fired at season’s end.

As for the 2002 Chiefs, the defensive coordinator was none other than Greg Robinson, who was the defensive coordinator for the Broncos from 1995 to 1999. That included the two years in which the Broncos won the Super Bowl and had a top defense both years.

While with the Chiefs, Robinson was the defensive coordinator under head coach Dick Vermeil and 2002 was his second season with the team. He came back in 2003, and the Chiefs won the division that year. However, the defense still wasn’t that good, and Robinson was not retained after the season.

Certainly, I’m not going to compare defensive coordinator Vance Joseph to Robinson, but it was a bit surprising that a former Denver defensive coordinator with two Super Bowl wins — and having a quality defense, too — went on to lead some bad units after he parted ways with the Broncos.

At any rate, the teams with a bad defense through the first three weeks of the season didn’t make immediate changes to their defensive coordinator positions. One can probably excuse the 2006 Texans because they were rebuilding under Kubiak. The Lions, though, had been a bad team for several seasons, and it was Millen who took the fall first in 2008.

If history is any indication, two things are clear: One, the Broncos are going to finish near the bottom in defense for the season, and two, it’s not likely Joseph will be gone before season’s end, though that doesn’t guarantee he’ll be retained after the season.

Regardless, the Broncos defense is bad, and there’s a lot of blame to go around for why that is.

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