Denver Broncos still have an obvious issue on offense that Sean Payton needs to get worked out despite scoring a season-high vs. Arizona
The Denver Broncos are 5-2, but their offense could still be better, even after scoring a season-high in points.
The Denver Broncos had themselves a week against the Arizona Cardinals. The Broncos tied a season high with 30 points against the Cardinals in Week 7, posting 377 total yards of offense after entering the week with the NFL’s second-worst total offense, averaging only 252.2 total yards per game.
This was the first time the Broncos scored at least 30 points and had at least 375 total yards of offense since their Week 15, 2025 win over the Packers. So, yeah, they had a great week of football. However, some concerns and obvious issues remain. This team still can’t get the ball downfield efficiently. And sure, they didn’t necessarily need to against the Cardinals. But they will need to against the Kansas City Chiefs next week.
Broncos need to improve their deep passing game behind Bo Nix
The intermediate passing game isn’t bad. On the first play of the game, Bo Nix delivers a stripe to Courtland Sutton on a 20-yard crosser. But anything beyond 20 yards, usually in that 30- 40-yard area, has been almost nonexistent. Later in the same drive, Nix tried to go deep to Sutton again, and it was nearly intercepted.
According to Next Gen Stats, quarterback Bo Nix completed 11 of his 13 under-10-air-yard attempts for 114 yards and a touchdown, and just four of his 12 downfield attempts for 108 yards. 66.2% of Nix’s passing yards came after the catch, and he’s now at 64.4% this season, the second-highest rate in the NFL behind only Jalon Daniels of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers.
This is even more disappointing than it should be because of what they did in the offseason to fix it. This was talked about relentlessly because it was the same issue last season. So, Denver went out and got Jaylen Waddle, one of the league’s best downfield receivers.
Denver ranks 31st in air yards with 489, per Sports Info Solutions. That’s how many yards the ball travels through the air on completions, not including yards after catch. They are also 30th in Intended Air Yards with 1,230. So not only are they not completing downfield passes, but they’re also not really throwing it downfield this season. Denver has the lowest Average Depth of Target at 6.4 yards.
This makes the offense extremely easy to defend. And sure, the offensive line hasn’t been quite as efficient as last year. But they’re not terrible. They have the 11th-fewest pressures allowed and an average time to throw of 2.96, the eighth-best. These numbers don’t tell the whole story, sure. But they do suggest the deep passing game should be much better.
