Don’t forget about the Broncos defense, one of the NFL’s best

After a little over 11 minutes Monday morning, it was adjudged by a Denver Broncos media-relations staffer that it was time for the question-and-answer teleconference between Sean Payton and some Denver-area media to end.

And following the announcement, Payton seemed a bit puzzled as his mind sifted through the queries asked of him.

“Nothing on the defense and holding the Falcons rushing down?” he asked. “It was a Bo Nix day, huh?”

Indeed, all of the questions had been about the offense. Of course, had the session been as extensive as his Wednesday and Friday times holding court tend to be, surely some questions about that side of the ball would have resulted.

But for a defense that took a thriving Atlanta Falcons ground game and drained it of life, it was a signature performance.

After allowing Baltimore to gash them for 5 touchdowns and 41 points in Week 9, the Broncos allowed just one touchdown in two subsequent games and none on Sunday. And that pushed it up the league rankings in a key metric.

1.64

That is the average number of touchdowns conceded per-game by the Broncos defense so far this season. This ranks third in the NFL, only trailing the Chargers (1.5 per game) and Detroit (1.6 per game).

Since Week 8 of last year, the Broncos have held opponents without a touchdown a league-leading 4 times. They share this distinction with Atlanta, Green Bay and the Los Angeles Chargers.

But that’s not to say Bo Nix will be ignored in this piece. Of course, you probably know about the stat line that is unlike any other achieved by a rookie quarterback in a single game in NFL history: at least 300 passing yards, four or more touchdown passes, a completion rate of at least 80.0 percent and no interceptions.

But the truth is, it’s not just about one game for Nix. He’s been building toward this. And by one measure over the last four games, he’s become one of the NFL’s most effective passers.

9.1

That is the completion percentage over expected (CPOE) figure for Bo Nix over the last four weeks, per rbsdm.com. This places him fourth in the NFL among eligible QBs in that span and is reflective of the accuracy that Payton lauded when discussing why he targeted Nix in the NFL Draft.

This is a near-complete reversal from the first seven weeks of the season, when Nix ranked 31st among 32 eligible QBs in CPOE, with a minus-4.1 figure that was better than only Colts second-year quarterback Anthony Richardson.

One way in which Nix’s improvement is manifesting in better results is on third downs, which saw the Broncos post their third game with a better-than-50-percent success rate in the past four weeks and their second-straight game above 50 percent.

11

Years that had passed since the Broncos had third-down success rates of over 50.0 percent at least three times in a four-game span.

You have to go back to 2013 — the year in which Peyton Manning broke a bushel of franchise and league records, most prominently in single-season touchdown passes thrown — to find the last time the Broncos did this. That year, Denver opened the season by converting on third down at least 50 percent of the time in its first six games.

The Broncos have more games converting at least 50 percent of their third downs in the past four weeks (3) than they did in the entire two-season Russell Wilson era (2).