Welcome to the AFC West version of Optimus Fantasy’s Team Previews! Today, we’re looking at the Denver Broncos. In order to best know where we’re going, we often need to study where we’ve been. With that in mind, I will cover what the team looked like in 2024, fantasy significant changes to philosophy and personnel, and what I expect from the team in 2025. Your fantasy drafts are coming. Stay ready, so you don’t have to get ready.

The Denver Broncos in 2024

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Team Stats
PROE	0.32
4th Down Go For It!	18.05
Target GINI	0.5199
Rushing GINI	0.5804 –
Plays/Game: Offense	60.9

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Let’s start off by defining a few things, shall we?

Note: Any stat highlighted green with a “+” means it’s significantly, at least one standard deviation, above average. Any stat highlighted red with a “-“ means it’s significantly below average. If the stat is highlighted in blue, it is within the standard deviation for that stat.

PROE – Pass Rate Over Expectation

2nd and 1 for the offense? Sure, it makes sense to run. 3rd and 12? Yup, absolutely reasonable to pass. PROE measures how often a team passes the ball when we would “expect” them to run. Such as on 2nd and 1. Obviously, this is our expectation, and part of the strategy is to do the unexpected. So it’s not a perfect encapsulation. However, over 17 games, this gives us a general idea of how an offensive coaching staff envisions their offensive strengths.

4th Down – Go For It!

It’s kinda just what it sounds like. Unlike PROE, there’s no “expectation” to this stat. Of all 4th downs, this is how often a team chose to go for it. Higher rates mean an offense has more chances to accumulate fantasy points. Conversely, it’s not as great for kickers. 

Target GINI

This is where my background in economics comes out. Without going too far down the rabbit hole, Target GINI is how concentrated a passing attack is among pass-catching targets. A Target GINI of 1 means every target went to one player. Perfectly evenly distributed targets among players result in a Target GINI of 0. 

Rushing GINI

The same as Target GINI, but for rushing. So a Rushing GINI of 1 means one player had 100% of the rushing attempts. A Rushing GINI of 0 means every player received an equal number of rushing attempts.

“Ok, I get what GINI is, but how is it helpful for us?” You know, you’re really great with these questions. Are you sure you’re not a fantasy football expert? At any rate, these metrics tell us how concentrated or siloed a team’s passing and rushing attacks are. For fantasy, we’re looking for them both to be as close to 1 as possible.

Plays/Game: Offense

Literally just what it sounds like, this is an average of how many plays per game a team’s offense runs. The idea is that more offensive plays equal more opportunities for our players to score fantasy points. Simple enough, right?

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Top Performers (HPPR 2024)
Bo Nix	QB7
Javonte Williams	RB31
Jaleel McLaughlin	RB49
Courtland Sutton	WR11
Marvin Mims	WR55
Devaughn Vele	WR76
Adam Trautman	TE47
Will Lutz	K5

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Significant Offseason Changes from ’24 to ’25

Lost: Javonte Williams

Added: J.K. Dobbins, RJ Harvey, Evan Engram

You can’t say the Broncos haven’t done a good job supporting their now-sophomore QB Bo Nix. You say RB and TE are a glaring weakness in terms of production? Time to throw quality draft picks and veteran signings at both positions.

When all five starters return from one year to another, it’s almost universally a really good sign. I’m only saying “almost” because I’m sure there’s some example out there where it’s not. Denver’s OL did overperform last year compared to expectations, but there’s no reason to assume it would fall off with another year together. 

Continuity is king in Denver, and that extends to the coaching staff. We can count on more of the same from an unchanged front office.

Looking Ahead to the Denver Broncos in 2025

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Lou’s Confidence Level 1 – 5
Bo Nix	4
J.K. Dobbins, RJ Harvey (R)	3
Courtland Sutton, Marvin Mims, Devaughn Vele	2
Evan Engram	3
Will Lutz	5

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Lou’s 2025 HPPR Rankings
Bo Nix	QB9
J.K. Dobbins	RB24
RJ Harvey (R)	RB25
Courtland Sutton	WR21
Marvin Mims	WR64
Devaughn Vele	WR83
Evan Engram	TE9
Will Lutz	–

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Week	Opponent	Expected W/L
1	Tennessee	W
2	@ Indianapolis	W
3	@ Los Angeles Chargers	W
4	Cincinnati	W
5	@ Philadelphia	L
6	@ New York Jets	W
7	New York Giants	W
8	Dallas	L
9	@ Houston	W
10	Las Vegas	W
11	Kansas City	W
12	BYE	–
13	@ Washington	L
14	@ Las Vegas	L
15	Green Bay	L
16	Jacksonville	L
17	@ Kansas City	L

Lou’s projected 2025 “fantasy season” record: 9-7

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OK, Now For the Important (Non-Kicker) Broncos

“Lou, you didn’t rank Will Lutz!” Very astute, and you are correct. I’m a big believer in saying, “I don’t know,” when someone asks me about things I’m ignorant about. I’m kicker-dumb. So if you’re here looking for insight on kickers, I’m very sorry. Will Lutz is certified #good, plays in a good offense, and gets to kick half his games in Denver. What’s not to love?

One of my favorite sayings is, “Give me the nuance.” There’s a story in that Rushing GINI stat, and that story is a team (Denver) was looking for a RB to take over (Javonte Williams, Audric Estime, Jaleel McLaughlin, Tyler Badie), and they couldn’t. They went out and drafted a RB with a Day 2 pick in the NFL draft in a deep and talented RB draft and signed the best free agent RB. If that’s not trying to fix a bad situation, I don’t know what is.

I touched on this earlier, but it’s almost heartwarming to see a team decide to make actionable moves to support their young QB. It sounds odd to say, but it’s rare enough that it’s worth remarking about. The RB and TE positions in Denver for ’24 were simply not good enough. So Denver went out and threw real assets at both positions. I don’t even know if I get these kinds of warm fuzzies at Christmas.

It might look like I’m overall down on the Denver offense this year, and I promise that I’m not. There are some aspects where I think improved performance at one position simply takes a few opportunities away from others. One example is Evan Engram being an actual NFL-caliber weapon at TE, taking a little shine off the WRs. Another example is J.K. Dobbins and RJ Harvey taking a little away from Bo Nix, thanks to a better running game. Overall, it’s a good thing for the offense, but there is only a single football to go around, after all.

One other thing that holds down the Denver WRs is that the depth chart appears very “flat” behind Courtland Sutton. “Lou, what in the Nine Realms does that mean?” Alright, that’s valid. Behind Sutton, we have Marvin Mims, the gadget player, Devaughn Vele, the second-year Sutton clone, Troy Franklin, the slight speedster, and Pat Bryant, the rookie Cortland Sutton/Michael Thomas mashup. You can make the case for any one of those four as the WR2 in this offense, and I think it’s reasonable. We could also see all four of these WRs end the year within 10 fantasy points of each other. That’s the definition of “flat.” 

If There is a League Winner In Denver, it’s…

I don’t particularly recommend him at current cost, but RJ Harvey is shaping up as the best case for “league winner” in Denver.

Now, to be clear – I believe people are taking Harvey a decent bit ahead of where they should. We have plenty of cases of Sean Payton talking up a player to the media, only to absolutely bury them on the depth chart. Remember Payton talking up Marvin Mims last year? What about Payton talking up Greg Dulcich as his coveted “Joker” role? We have to pay attention to what Payton does, not what he says.

Alright, that’s enough of the caveats. What if Harvey is exactly as advertised? Well, then we’re looking at Alvin Kamara‘s rookie year upside. For those of you who don’t want to look up what Kamara did in 2017, he finished as RB3 despite only 202 total touches. Kamara’s 101 targets and 82 receptions drove that finish. While Harvey is not as good as rookie-year Kamara, we need to acknowledge that a top-10 RB ceiling exists with him. 

Deep League Draft Target

I will admit, I don’t understand Devaughn Vele’s ADP. Right now, he’s outside of the top 300 according to FantasyPros.

As I mentioned before, I wouldn’t be shocked if the non-Sutton WRs all finish within 10 fantasy points of each other. Whichever is cheapest makes for a pretty decent dart throw for the end of your bench in deep leagues. As of right now, Vele is the one falling through the cracks.

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Lou Brunson is a Senior Analyst and THE social media brains for Optimus Fantasy. Find his dynasty stylings on right here and at draftbuddy.com.