# Denver Broncos 2026 Coverage Report: Right About the Division, Five Wins Short on the Number

*Published 2026-09-07 — MissedTakes*

Denver has **628 tracked takes**, which puts the club 16th of 32 by raw volume — dead middle. The graded picture is different: only **182** of those takes have a settled grade, which is **26th of 32**. The Buffalo Bills have 527 graded takes. The median club sits at roughly 222. Denver is about 40 short of the middle and about a third of the league leader.

![Denver's tracked file](/posts/visuals/d6d51f4e-316f-44fa-a02a-455af8e955c2.png)

Some of that gap is timing, not neglect. The three biggest Denver-heavy publishers in our index are the ones with the least settled: [Locked On Broncos](/nfl/teams/broncos) shows 89 tracked takes and **4** graded; Sports Illustrated shows 84 tracked and **10** graded. Meanwhile The Herd with Colin Cowherd has 80 tracked Denver takes and 45 of them graded, at 67.3 accuracy. In other words, the local, roster-level coverage we ingest is voluminous and mostly still open; the national, outcome-level coverage is what has actually been scored.

What has been scored has gone well for the pundits. Denver's graded takes average **68.9 accuracy** and a skill delta of **+33.9** over the naive baseline, which is the eighth-best team-level skill figure in the league — behind Seattle (+56.5), New England (+45.3), Miami, Chicago, the Rams, Jacksonville and Carolina.

The club's results were worth the attention. Denver went **14-3 and made the playoffs in 2025**, after 10-7 in 2024, under head coach Sean Payton.

## The cutdown: 76 calls, 14 grades, net skill of exactly zero

The 53-man deadline is the news hook for this series, and here the honest answer is that Denver's roster-spot file is barely graded. There are **76 tracked roster-spot calls** on the Broncos. **Fourteen** carry grades as of September 7; the other 62 are still pending. Fourteen is not a sample you can rank anybody on, and we won't.

Within those fourteen, the arithmetic is stark: **average accuracy 85.7, average skill delta 0.0**. Two calls beat the baseline by 200, two missed it by 200, and the other ten scored 100 accuracy for zero skill — because the naive rule ("he was on somebody's 53 last season, so he makes one again") already had them right. J.K. Dobbins, RJ Harvey, Evan Engram, Karene Reid, Kris Abrams-Draine, Jordan Turner and Devon Key were all called correctly and all graded at zero skill.

The two calls that actually carried information:

- [Zack Kelberman](/pundits/zack-kelberman) on August 18 wrote that Denver "may only end up keeping three RBs on their final, 53-man roster when it's finalized at the end of the month — Dobbins, Coleman, and Harvey being locks." [Jonah Coleman](/nfl/players/jonah-coleman) had no 53-man baseline; the call graded 100 accuracy, **+200 skill**. His two other names in the same sentence graded 100 for zero.
- [Bob Morris](/pundits/bob-morris) on August 16: "The same holds true for [Dallen Bentley](/nfl/players/dallen-bentley), whose play against Atlanta showed the Broncos might want to keep him on the 53-man roster." Also 100 accuracy, **+200 skill**.

The two zeros both come from one column — [Chad Jensen](/pundits/chad-jensen)'s [six-veterans-who-could-be-surprise-cuts piece](/opinions/bf6874aa-f305-4be2-a868-19591c49e724) of August 25. [Tycen Anderson](/nfl/players/tycen-anderson) ("I'll be surprised if he survives the final roster cuts") made the roster: 0 accuracy, **-200**. The [Troy Franklin](/nfl/players/troy-franklin) entry also graded as a predicted cut at 0 accuracy and -200, though the quoted evidence hedges the other way — "Again, I believe Franklin is making this roster... Don't count on Franklin being waived." Read the grade next to the quote before you hold that one against him.

Jensen's Broncos record is 6 graded takes at 66.7 accuracy and -66.7 skill, and his site profile is flagged **provisional** at that volume. [Cody Roark](/pundits/cody-roark) has the largest Denver roster file we track — 36 calls — and 4 grades so far, all at 100 accuracy and zero skill. That file will be the one worth revisiting when the rest of the grades land.

## The rest of the record: the outcome was easy, the size of it was not

Denver's graded claims break down like this.

![Denver takes by claim kind (graded count)](/posts/visuals/b0c83055-b890-4cac-b3b5-ffdb57154931.png)

The strongest single finding in the whole file: **division winners, 15 graded calls, 15 hits, average skill +184.2**. Every tracked pick of Denver to win the AFC West was correct, against a naive baseline that said Kansas City. [Chris Brockman](/pundits/chris-brockman) filed the earliest one on **March 17, 2025** — "The Broncos are gonna win the AFC West" — for +200. [Colin Cowherd](/pundits/colin-cowherd) ("I think the Broncos have the best roster"), [Manti Te'o](/pundits/manti-te-o), [Jamie Erdahl](/pundits/jamie-erdahl), [Matt Hasselbeck](/pundits/matt-hasselbeck), [Jason McIntyre](/pundits/jason-mcintyre) and [Rich Eisen](/pundits/rich-eisen) all landed the same call. Playoff picks are 15 graded at 93.3 accuracy; game outcomes are 51 graded at 86.3.

And then the number itself. **Season win totals: 8 graded, 22.5 accuracy.** Denver won 14 games in 2025; the six tracked 2025 calls were 11, 10, 10, 9, 7 and 7, and the field's collective miss was **5 wins** — tied for the second-largest under-projection in the league that season alongside New England and Seattle, behind only the Chiefs (-6.3).

![Accuracy on Denver, by claim kind](/posts/visuals/154ea17c-a32d-46f2-bc78-50e8c20c4834.png)

[Nick Wright](/pundits/nick-wright) filed two of the sevens — "it is more than on the board that this team goes seven and ten. They are more likely to go seven and ten than ten and seven" — and a Broncos under 9.5, all graded 0. [Brady Quinn](/pundits/brady-quinn) had "Broncos at seven and ten," also 0. The least wrong was [John Middlekauff](/pundits/john-middlekauff), who owns three of the six calls and whose most bullish version — "they're gonna win eleven twelve games" — graded 40 accuracy, +70 skill. His floor argument ("if you have a dominant defense with an offensive coach who's proven... your floor is immediately like ten wins") graded 20 accuracy, +30.

So the field got the shape of Denver's season right and the magnitude badly wrong. Mock drafts on Denver sit at 39.1 accuracy over 25 graded picks. Pro Bowl and All-Pro calls are 4 graded at **0 accuracy**, -75 skill — a real result, but four takes is four takes.

## Who has a named record here

Thirteen pundits clear five graded Denver takes. Nobody clears 12. These are records, not rankings — at this volume the ordering would flip on one call.

| Pundit | Graded | Accuracy | Avg skill |
|---|---|---|---|
| Colin Cowherd | 12 | 79.4 | +41.9 |
| Chris Brockman | 10 | 81.8 | +84.6 |
| Rich Eisen | 9 | 88.9 | +25.3 |
| Kyle Crabbs | 9 | 33.1 | +36.9 |
| [Gregg Rosenthal](/pundits/gregg-rosenthal) | 8 | 85.4 | +45.4 |
| Cynthia Frelund | 8 | 65.6 | +2.1 |
| Manti Te'o | 7 | 100 | +101.7 |
| [Marcus Mosher](/pundits/marcus-mosher) | 7 | 69.1 | +30.4 |
| Chad Jensen | 6 | 66.7 | -66.7 |
| Nick Wright | 6 | 32.5 | +26.8 |
| Jamie Erdahl | 6 | 75.0 | +135.3 |
| JP Acosta | 5 | 20.0 | -32.1 |
| Shannon Sharpe | 5 | 100 | +68.8 |

The pattern worth carrying forward: Denver is a club our tracked outlets talk about at league-average volume and grade at well below league-average volume, and the 62 open roster-spot calls are where that gap closes next. Full scoring rules are on the [methodology page](/methodology).