The following is an excerpt from Warren Sharp's 2025 Football Preview book. In addition to Warren's deep, detailed write-up on all 32 NFL teams, each chapter features page after page of full-color charts, stats, and heatmaps as well as penalty analysis from Joe Gibbs. Click here for a full FREE chapter from the 2025 Football Preview.
Penalties are an under-discussed aspect of NFL success and failure. Average teams can become playoff contenders with good discipline, and good teams can become great simply by winning the penalty battle.
Let's look at how the Denver Broncos performed from a penalty perspective in 2024 and where they can improve in 2025.
How Did Penalties Impact the Denver Broncos?
The Good
- The Broncos offense accounted for 43.5% of the team's penalties, below the NFL average of 51.7%.
- The offense ranked 27th in pre-snap penalties per game, an impressive effort considering Bo Nix was in his rookie season and Denver had nine road contests.
- The combination of offensive holding and false start accounted for just 30.5% of the Broncos' penalties, below the league average of 38.7%.
- When playing at home, the Broncos defense (and crowd) was a top-five ranked unit at generating delay of game and offensive holding infractions on opposing offenses.
- The defense was a top-five ranked unit at surrendering automatic first downs via penalty. This isn't necessarily bad if optimal strategy is enacted, which the Broncos did reasonably well last season. An above average 49% of automatic first downs surrendered by the Denver defense were committed on first down plays, compared to 31.5% for the rest of the NFL in this category.
The Bad
- The Broncos offense ranked 31st in beneficial automatic first downs via penalty.
- The Broncos averaged 7.1 yards per beneficial penalty, below the NFL average gain of 8.1 yards per penalty.
Grade: B+
Denver snuck up on opponents in 2024, but they won't benefit from that surprise factor in 2025.
The Broncos focused on improving their already elite defense in the off-season. That unit has no glaring weakness, and we may see a No Fly Zone 2.0.
Additionally, getting nine games at Mile High Stadium increases the likelihood of something special brewing on the defensive side of the ball, as there is tangible proof this unit is even better when playing at home.
The Broncos overachieved last season, and conventional wisdom would assume they fall back to reality in 2025.
Nix avoiding a sophomore slump, paired with a Denver defense that many believe is primed to be a top-three unit, would be enough to keep regression at bay this season.
Denver may be a year away from challenging the Chiefs for the division title, but it still has a great chance of being a Wild Card team in 2025.
This analysis continues in the 2025 Football Preview
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