Broncos 2025 Season in Review

68 sacks. The Denver Broncos defense got home 68 times in 2025 — number one in football, the hundredth percentile of the entire league. Here's how Vance Joseph's pass rush rewrote this team's identity, what Bo Nix actually was when the lights got brightest, and the one weakness that finally caught up with Denver in January. 14 three. AFC West champs, the number-one seed in the conference, a Divisional Round win over the Bills — and then a seven to 10 heartbreaker at home to the Patriots in the AFC Championship. The 2025 Broncos smashed. They just didn't quite finish.

Let's set the table with the team numbers. Offensively, Denver finished at +53.6 in total expected points added — how much every snap added to their scoring chances across the season — tenth in the league, 70-second percentile. The defense was even better: −92.7 in expected points allowed, and remember on defense that big negative number is elite — sixth in football, 80-fourth percentile. The schedule tells you this was a steady, grinding team, not a boom-or-bust one. 11 of their 14 wins came by eight points or fewer — the 33-32 thriller against the Giants in Week 7, the 13-11 dogfight at the Jets in Week 6, the 22-19 win over the Chiefs in Week 11. The third-down rate backs it up: 42.7 percent, eleventh in the league. This team stayed on the field, stayed close, and won the margins.

Now let's talk about the passing offense. Denver threw for 231 yards a game and finished at +54 total passing expected points added — plus point zero eight per attempt, ninth in football, 70-fifth percentile. Solid, not spectacular. Underneath the headline, Bo Nix's ball-placement numbers were below the league bar — completion percentage of 63.4 against an expected 65.5, a completion percentage over expectation of −2.1, 20-eighth among qualified starters. So how did the unit finish top 10? Volume, explosives, and one elite outside receiver. Courtland Sutton — 74 catches, 1017 yards, seven touchdowns — was the engine. Watch the Week 3 game at the Chargers: down 10-nothing late in the second quarter, fourth and two from midfield, Nix to Sutton on a deep ball down the left sideline, 52 yards, touchdown. That single play added more than six expected points and it tells you exactly what this passing game was — not surgical, but big-shot capable when Sutton ran underneath it. One real concern: Denver was sacked 23 times on 676 dropbacks, a 3.4 percent sack rate, 30-second of 32 — the third percentile. The pass protection was the worst-ranked unit in football by sack rate. They survived it. That's not a guarantee.

Now let's dig into the rushing offense. Split-personality story. The team total: 2018 rushing yards, 118.7 a game, 4.4 yards a carry, sixteenth in football. Total rushing expected points added came in at −9.3, fourteenth in the league, 50-ninth percentile — functional, not dominant. But the arc matters. Through Week 10, J.K. Dobbins was the back — 153 carries, 772 yards, 5.1 a clip, and a rushing yards over expected of +161, fourth among qualified runners in the entire league. That's elite. Dobbins didn't appear after Week 10 — likely injured reserve — and the workload shifted to rookie R.J. Harvey, who finished at 146 carries for 540 yards, 3.7 a carry, with a rushing yards over expected of −90.8. Same offensive line, very different output. The efficiency dropped when Dobbins went down, and you can feel it in the second-half numbers.

Next up, the pass defense. This is the headline of the entire season. Denver allowed 212 yards a game through the air and posted a passing expected points added allowed of −75.76 — 90-fourth percentile in the league. The engine was the rush. 68 sacks led the NFL outright, and 149 quarterback hits also ranked first — the hundredth percentile. Third-down stop rate sat at the 90-seventh percentile. Quarterbacks did not breathe in this defense. The one nit: only 16 takeaways on the year, 20-fourth in football, 20-eighth percentile — the pressure didn't always convert into the ball. But when it did, it was a haymaker. Week 8 against Dallas, fourth quarter, Denver already up 20, Dak Prescott trying to climb back from the 11-yard line — Dre'mont Tillman picked it off in the red zone and ran it 36 yards. That one play was worth more than seven full expected points on its own and it captured the defense's whole identity: relentless front, opportunistic when the rush met the route.

And the run defense. Quieter story, still good. Denver allowed 91.2 rushing yards a game and a rushing expected points added allowed of −17, 60-third percentile — above average, not elite, and steady week to week. Opponents averaged below the league norm per carry, and no single game blew up on them on the ground. The interior held up week after week — which is how you survive a year with only 16 takeaways. You don't let the run put offenses in easy down and distance. Solid, dependable, and a perfect complement to the league-leading pass rush in front of it.