Author: Jeremy

I think we all know that Kubiak has been able to get a lot out of his QBs, but I think few of us realize just how deep and impressive this accomplishment is. I did some research and looked up the stats of every QB who had started at least 4 games when Kubiak was either the HC, OC or QB Coach, and compared that QBs stats while playing for Kubiak, to the rest of their career. The results astounded me, and I found quite a few interesting bits of trivia along the way. It is incredible how Kubiak was able to elevate the play of so many different QBs, from the all-time greats (Elway, Steve Young), to the talented underachievers (Plummer), to the career backups (Frerotte, Brister, Rosenfels), to the first round busts (Carr), to the stagnated Veterans (Flacco), to the downright awful (TJ Yates), and everything in between.

Continue reading Cheers to the greatest QB Coach of a generation

To take our minds off a disappointing loss, I thought I’d share a piece looking back at a moment in recent Broncos history, that many fans seem to have already forgotten, October 2014.  I’m using IAOFM as a bit of a time machine, and will link to their content throughout the article.  (Many thanks to them for not only writing this content, but continuing to leave it up).

Setting the stage:

The Broncos were only 8 months removed from the disappointing end to the 2013 season.  The offense that had set records for most points and yards in a season had remained largely intact, losing only Knowshon Moreno, Eric Decker, and Zane Beadles, and filling those holes with Emmanuel Sanders and a returning Ryan Clady.  The defense that despite some overachieving performances had been called soft after the super bowl, had been retooled with additions of Bradley Roby, TJ Ward, Aqib Talib and Demarcus Ware.

The Broncos started the season well, opening 2 and 1 with wins against the Colts and Chiefs and a hard fought OT loss on the road against the Seahawks (who were in the midst of a 28-2 stretch at home.)  JT was off to a hot start with 5 TD catches in 3 games.

Continue reading Turning back the clock to October 2014

I thought I’d try out what might be a new series for me, taking a closer look at the most recent game and trends using Pro Football Reference’s tools to look at Snap Counts, play by play data, and historical data.  Let me know what you think and if you have any feedback and I might make this a regular occurrence:

 Looking at the Broncos Run Plays

The Broncos had quite a few long runs that accounted for most of their yards.  They broke off runs of 10 yards or more 6 times (22% of runs), and that accounted for 66% of their rushing yards.  I’m very excited about their ability to break off big plays.  On the flip side, they were stopped for 2 yards or less 12 times (44% of runs), and 1 yard or less 9 times (33% of runs).  Two of those plays were successful short yardage conversions (CJ’s 3rd and 1 and 4th and 1 conversions). Continue reading A closer look with Pro Football Reference

In light of the moves today (particularly the Bibbs over Hillman move), I thought I’d take a stab at projecting who the Broncos special teams contributors might be this year.  I’ve never coached or played organized 11-11 football, so I’m probably not the most qualified to look into this niche topic.  But I’m armed with special teams snap counts from Pro Football Reference and going to give it a shot.

Continue reading A look at possible special teams contributors for the Broncos

I received updates from a few players, so here is the updated roster breakdown.  Let me know if you see any errors. I updated these manually rather than use excel, so I could have missed something.  Nothing changed too drastically, but it was interesting to see what changed after Saturday.  Hopefully this is a decent guide for what to watch for on Thursday.

Continue reading Thin Air’s 2016 Broncos Roster Predictions – Updated

I’m curious to see how people’s projected rosters have differed after last night, especially at QB, RB, LB and Punter, so I’m gonna do a round 2.

You can copy and paste your old roster from the comments last time.  If at the top of your comment you can put what changed from your last roster to this one, it would be a big help when I compile these (ie Cut Sanchez and Colquitt, replaced with Watson and Dixon).  If you didn’t submit a roster last time, but want to this time, feel free (copy and paste roster below into a comment and delete out players you don’t want).  Since roster cuts down to 75 are due Tuesday, I’m going to cut this off at 6 PM mountain time Monday, and try and post an update that night.  Here’s a link to the last round.

One other thing, try and make it clearer what you want to do with the suspended Keo. If you think he’s going to earn a roster spot after his suspension, clarify what player you think he’ll replace.  If you think he’ll stay on the team but be cut after 2 weeks, note that as well.

Continue reading Predict the Broncos Roster, round 2

I thought I’d take a quick look at the stats for each punter through the first two preseason games.  The sample sizes are small, but trends are beginning to emerge.

Dixon has the slight edge in distance, but Colquitt has nailed 5/6 inside the 20.  As we’ll see later, Colquitt has had his average dragged down by several punts on the plus side of the field.  Encourginly, both guys have only given up a combined negative 1 yards in returns, and there have been no touchbacks.  The Broncos coverage team is doing a great job.

To go a step further, I thought I’d list every punt for both players.

Continue reading Checking in on the Punting battle

I wanted to go a little more in depth and provide a position by position break down of the community’s projections.  I’ll give a brief commentary as well.  I think I’m going to do another iteration of this next week. People can either leave their projected roster as is, or they can submit an updated post.  I’ll post another link after the game Saturday.

Continue reading Thin Air’s 2016 Broncos Roster Predictions

As discussed, I thought it’d be fun to do a predict the Broncos roster competition.

Because I want to see what people’s sentiment is after last night’s game, I’m going to leave this open until Tuesday night.  Then I’ll post how often each player is picked, so we’ll be able to get a feel for who people think will or won’t make the roster.  If we want to do another round after the third or fourth preseason games we can, but I’d figure we’d start with this.

I’ll post the roster below.  You can copy and paste it into a comment, and delete out the players you don’t think will make the team.  You can put the number of players you are keeping at each position group in that groups heading if you want to help count as you go and to help spur discussion.  If you don’t want to do the copy paste method, just list the players you want by last name (no nick names please).

Here’s links to the roster and depth chart.

Let me know if you have any questions or see any errors I made

Continue reading Predict the Broncos roster

The idea of a Broncos roster prediction competition has been thrown around in the comments section here at In-Thinair.  I think this could be fun both to see who’s best at predicting the roster and get some stats behind who people think will make the team.  Once everyone’s picks are in, I’d be willing to post numbers on how many times each players was picked.

I was hoping to get some feedback on this idea to make it go smoothly, get the most participation possible, and  yield the best results.  I was thinking I’d make it live after the preseason game on Saturday, and leave it up until maybe Wed evening, so we have some time to figure out the best way to do this.

Continue reading Predict the Broncos Final Roster Competition – Requesting Feedback