The Broncos returned to work Monday after their bye week sitting in terrific position.
They lead the AFC West by two games.
They’re a half-game back of New England for the top seed in the conference.
They’re 9-2 and have not lost since Sept. 21.
They’re also not perfect. Far from it, in fact.
When the team reconvened Monday after players had all of last week off, Sean Payton laid out the opportunity ahead of the Broncos.
“He just put all the information out there in front of us to know what we have in mind,” receiver Troy Franklin said. “He just basically broke it down to us, where we can end up being.
“He just laid out all the options and opportunities we have out in front of us.”
Payton, though, also talked through the issues that could prevent Denver from getting where it wants to go.
“It’s not like we’re at the halfway point (of the season), but nonetheless here we are in position to compete for seeding and there are two things that stand out,” Payton said.
Those things: A persistent penalty problem and mediocre results so far in the turnover department.
The Broncos through 12 weeks are the most penalized team in the NFL. They lead the league in penalties against (93), penalty yards (883) and total number of flags (113), which includes declined and offsetting calls, according to NFLPenalties.com.
“The penalties stand out,” Payton said. “If you said what’s the low-hanging fruit that you have to clean up to improve your chances of getting the best possible seed?”
They’ve improved mildly in some areas — 11 teams have more than Denver’s 29 pre-snap penalties, for example — but there are also several sore spots.
Perhaps chief among them at this juncture is defensive pass interference and particularly calls against third-year man Riley Moss. He’s been flagged for defensive pass interference a league-leading nine times (seven accepted) this season for a total of 158 yards. That included twice for 86 before the bye week against Kansas City.
“With Riley, sometimes it’s technique and sometimes it’s the traffic opposite of a real good corner,” Payton said Monday. “Now, Pat (Surtain II) hasn’t been healthy, but there’s things that I’m sure (Moss) will want to clean up and then there’s a few calls where we look at it and it’s tough to try to correct or clean up something if you don’t agree with it.
“Overall, the penalty thing is not just one player, though.”
Overall, Denver’s been called for defensive pass interference a league-leading 14 times, have benefitted from the call just six times and are minus-190 in yardage on that penalty for the season. That represents the majority of their overall minus-227 penalty yardage differential.
It’s also been a driver of some monster per-game numbers for Denver.
The Broncos had just four instances of incurring 121 or more penalty yards in a game over their past 10 seasons but have hit that mark three times since Week 5, including 10 for 137 yards against Kansas City.
They’ve come out on the wrong end of the penalty yards battle eight times in 11 games.
“It’s something that we as a collective have to get better at,” Payton said.
The turnover department hasn’t yielded such extreme results for Denver, but the numbers are middling at best.
The Broncos are tied for the 10th fewest giveaways at 12, but tied for the fourth-fewest takeaways at 9.
That leaves their overall turnover differential at minus-3, better than only 12 teams in the NFL.
Denver’s defense has thrived without taking the ball away much because it does basically everything else at an elite level.
They’re third in scoring and total defense and lead the NFL in myriad categories including yards per play allowed, net yards per passing attempt allowed, yards per rush allowed, sacks, pressure rate, third down rate and red zone touchdown rate.
If Vance Joseph’s group keeps playing like that, the Broncos are going to be in just about every game going forward. Payton’s point, though, is that in big games, the smallest margin can make the difference.
“We ended up plus-1 last week and that meant a lot,” Payton said. “We were close to being up two. In important games, that one possession can be the difference.
“Those were two of the main topics this morning.”
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