Denver's run defense is an average unit, drastically overrated because it faced so few attempts. Denver's pass defense is a dominant unit, drastically UNDERrated because it faced so MANY attempts.

If you honestly believe what you are writing here, I respectfully respond that you either haven't watched DEN play much this year or your understanding of the game isn't as acute as you would lend one to believe that it is.
Again... Denver faces the LEAST rushing attempts in the league by a large margin, and they allow one of the lowest rushing totals. They face the MOST passing attempts by a large margin, and allow one of the best passing totals. Coincidence? Most certainly not.As I said, Denver is in the middle of the pack in terms of rushing ypc against, but in the top 6 in terms of passing ypc against, completion percentage against, QB rating against, and INTs. The other defenses in similar territory, when it comes to passing defense, are: Chicago, Washington, Carolina, etc. I'd say that puts Denver's passing defense in some pretty elite company.
If you like Football Outsiders, they agree with me, ranking Denver 4th against the pass and 17th against the rush on a per-play basis.
Edit: And don't you DARE try dropping that whole "You obviously haven't been watching the games" crap on me. Because that's just what it is. Crap. I watch the games, thank you very much.
Oooooooh Football Outsiders, the be-all-to-end-all in football. "Don't you dare drop that crap".Here are the facts, my friend.
First of all, your initial position presupposes that most if not all of the HCs, OCs, & teams that DEN faced this year are stupid, in fact that they are much, much less knowledgeable about football than you.
If DEN were average against the run & great against the pass, other teams would scheme to run the ball down DEN's throat all game. HCs keep their jobs by determining where other team's strengths and weaknesses are and they scheme to exploit the weaknesses. To say DEN is much worse at playing the run than the pass and then to immediately afterward say that other teams run at DEN less than anyone else is completely and irrevocably contradictory. Unless, of course, we assume that you & the Football Outsiders know much more about football than NFL coaching staffs & players.
Are you seriously making this claim?
Now that we have examined the common sense side of the issue, let's look at the numbers side of the issue. In the first half of games, DEN has scored 224 points while surrendering 105 points. That means that DEN went into halftime up by more than a TD against their opponents. If the first half of games, all RBs for opposing teams rushed 164 times for 603 yds and 5 TDs against DEN. In the second half of games, all RBs rushed 146 times for 602 yds and 4 TDs against DEN.
That's a 3.68 ypc by RBs in the first half, while the RB ypc jumped to 4.12 ypc in the 2nd half. Despite running the ball better in the second half, opposing teams ran their RBs 11% less in the second half against DEN than they did in the first half. For RBs in the NFL with 100+ carries for the season, 3.68 ypc equates to the 35th best RB average per carry, while the 4.12 ypc equates to the average yards per carry of the 20th best RB. I think we can safely say that if teams are running their RBs with an average equal to the #35 RB in the NFL (with 100+ carries, of course) in the first half that the DEN run D is doing a pretty good job against the run. Would you agree?
How do we explain these
facts? Why would teams run less, but be more successful in the second half? Well, it was because they were behind in the second half of games and had to throw a lot more to play catch up. In almost half the games this year, DEN was up at halftime by 13 points or more. So, teams come out throwing more, DEN changes its D schemes to adjust to the additional throwing, playing nickel, big nickel, and dime packages, and while RBs get less carries because of the additional throwing, they gain significantly more yards because DEN is playing pass stop rather than run stop. That also explains why there were so many pass attempts against DEN. It also figures that opposing coaches went away from the run because they weren't very successful at it in the first half.
Consequently, that also explains the lesser ypa numbers, as with more DBs on the field a greater amount of the time, there is less opportunity to throw deeper downfield, and the holes in the pass D would be underneath, where the missing LB in the special packages would be. The short stuff would be much easier to get in the passing game than the longer passes with extra DBs roaming the field. It is also harder to throw completions against the pass packages. Of course the ypa numbers are good, it only follows the rest of the argument.
Here's another argument for DEN's run D. If other teams were playing against an average run D, and they saw how quickly DEN got out in the first half, it would make sense to run the ball more against DEN to try to slow the game down & keep the DEN offense off the field. You wouldn't see very few running attempts against DEN, you'd see a lot more. Teams wouldn't want to get into a track meet in the first half because they could see, just like anyone who looks at stats and watches the games, that DEN starts so well. Of course, that again predisposes that NFL coaches & players aren't stupid, which you apparently think that they are.
So I leave it you, my friend. The facts are on the board, and the football theory is on the board. Why don't you tell me exactly where I am wrong here, and why NFL teams know so much less about football than you.