100 Questions: Fantasy Football 2024 (Denver Broncos)

As we head toward the start of the 2024 NFL and fantasy football season, FTN Fantasy editor-in-chief Daniel Kelley is asking (and attempting to answer) the 100 most pressing questions in fantasy football. This is 100 Questions. Today: The Denver Broncos.

There are 30 teams in the NBA, and depending on how you define “postseason” 16-20 make the postseason. The end result of that is a lot of teams get a taste at the playoffs but get booted out unceremoniously without ever having a real shot at making a run. It’s led to criticisms of franchises creating rosters that can make the playoffs but that’s it, which means they aren’t good enough to contend or bad enough to get a high draft pick.

It’s not the same in the NFL, where there is no draft lottery and fewer playoff teams. But if purgatory in NBA is “8 seed and a 4-1 first-round exit,” purgatory in the NFL is “7 wins and hanging out on the ‘in the hunt’ graphic until there are two weeks left in the season.” In other words, purgatory in the NFL is the Denver Broncos.

The Broncos won the Super Bowl in the 2015 season. Since then, they’ve had at least 5 wins every year but never more than 9, and they only reached 9 in 2016. Nobody is necessarily saying a team should tank, because that’s such a depressing approach, but the Broncos are coming up on a decade now of just floating along in Irrelevantville, and maybe if they had torn it down at some point it would be different by now.

The Questions

32. Do We Even Care Who Wins This QB Battle?
33. Is It Marvin Mims Jr. SZN?
34. What the Heck Do We Do with This Backfield?

100 Questions for 2024: Denver Broncos

Do We Even Care Who Wins This QB Battle?

The Broncos have been a team at sea when it comes to quarterbacks. Denver has had 12 different starting quarterbacks in the last eight years (not even counting Phillip Lindsay’s de facto start in the Kendall Hinton game during the pandemic), with only Drew Lock (21), Trevor Siemian (24) and Russell Wilson (30) getting multiple season with a chance as a starter.

EUGENE, OR - OCTOBER 21: Oregon Ducks quarterback Bo Nix (10) reacts after a touchdown during a college football game between the Oregon Ducks and Washington State Cougars on October 21, 2023, at Autzen Stadium in Eugene, Oregon.(Photo by Brian Murphy/Icon Sportswire) — EUGENE, OR – OCTOBER 21: Oregon Ducks quarterback Bo Nix (10) reacts after a touchdown during a college football game between the Oregon Ducks and Washington State Cougars on October 21, 2023, at Autzen Stadium in Eugene, Oregon.(Photo by Brian Murphy/Icon Sportswire)

Now, the team has several bites at the apple. They drafted Bo Nix with the 12^th overall pick back in April, they traded for former second overall pick Zach Wilson and they signed Jarrett Stidham to a two-year deal a year ago. Considering their various pedigrees (Wilson crashed and burned in New York, and Stidham has four starts in five seasons), the normally obvious answer would be the team turning to Nix, especially given Nix is the third-oldest first-round quarterback on record, behind only Brandon Weeden (2012) and Jim Druckenmiller (1997).

In the end, though, how much do we care? And the answer is: Eh. If you told me there was a Broncos QB who finished as QB20 or better in fantasy in 2024, my answer would be Nix, but my answer would also include some variant of “Wow, um, OK, weird season.” Because the most likely outcome in Denver in 2024, even if things go relatively well, is the team winning a handful of low-scoring games and no quarterback, not even the rookie first-rounder, being fantasy-relevant more than a couple times all season.

Is It Marvin Mims Jr. SZN?

Courtland Sutton is more-or-less a known quantity. WR3/flex with upside, especially if he continues to score touchdowns. But after that, this receiver room is a big mystery. Tim Patrick hasn’t played in two years because of injuries but is beloved by the front office. Troy Franklin had an elite connection with Nix in college but fell to the fourth round. Josh Reynolds has never been great but also never been bad. Sean Payton absolutely cannot quit Lil’Jordan Humphrey.

And then there’s Mims, whose production:hype ratio has been absolutely disastrous for almost a year now. A second-round rookie last year, Mims (almost) opened hot — after a fairly anonymous Week 1 (2 receptions on 2 target for 9 yards, 2 kickoff returns for 55 yards), he erupted in Weeks 2-3 for 186 yards and a score on 5 receptions (7) targets, plus 13 rushing yards, plus a 99-yard kickoff return score. Only 12 receivers had more PPR points than Mims in Weeks 2-3, and he did it on only 31 offensive snaps, or barely more than one half of a busy game for most full-time receivers. You might think that production would lead to a leap in playing time for Mims, and if so, you would be a very different person than Sean Payton, because Mims didn’t top 20 snaps in a game until Week 8 and only played more than 32 once all season. After such a good Week 2-3, Mims’ rookie season failed to launch, and he totaled 182 yards the rest of the year.

The thing, though, is that if you tell me a non-Sutton receiver in Denver has a fantasy-relevant year and I had to put odds on who, it’s something like … 2% Josh Reynolds, 21% Troy Franklin, 0.001% anyone else and solidly close to 80% Mims. That’s not to say he will do it, but if it happens, it’s all but guaranteed to be him. You can take Mims as basically your last non-kicker/non-defense pick in drafts, and grabbing him, sitting him on your bench and watching the first two weeks to see if Sean Payton will give him anything like full-time snaps is essentially a no-risk strategy that I can get behind. If Mims starts out with the workload he had last year, cut him and move on.

What the Heck Do We Do with This Backfield?

At various times this offseason, Samaje Perine was definitely getting cut, Javonte Williams was right on the roster bubble, Audric Estimé was a redshirt candidate. It seems like the only back everyone has agreed all along will be on the roster in 2024 was last year’s rookie Jaleel McLaughlin, and as a certified Itty-Bitty (5-foot-7, 187 pounds), there’s plenty of warranted fear he wouldn’t be able to handle a full-time role and is just a receiving back. So what do we do?

Let’s start from the bottom and work our way up. Perine does appear to be the likely odd man out. He turns 29 next month and hasn’t topped 400 rushing yards since 2017. His primary skill sets are redundant in this backfield, and also he’s the most expensive running back in Denver, with everyone else on rookie deals. At this point, he’ll likely need someone to crash and burn (or get hurt) to stick around.

Next is Estimé, this year’s fifth-round draft pick. He’s got a spot on this roster assuming he’s healthy. Which is likely where the “Williams or Perine will be cut” murmurs came from, because Estimé, McLaughlin and FB Michael Burton are locked in, leaving one spot left. But does that mean Estimé will get enough playing time to matter? Likely not — he’s only 20 (21 in September) with essentially no receiving value (26 receptions in college) and as just a fifth-rounder, wasn’t selected to be relied on right away.

McLaughlin is the team’s receiving back. Sean Payton’s pass-catcher out of the backfield has always been a productive role, and as just RB52 in drafts, you can easily toss a late pick his way. But he’s just never going to be a productive between-the-tackles runner, and without that club in his bag, he’s locked into a low-upside role (how often does a back have 10 receptions for 80 yards and a touchdown?).

DENVER, CO - OCTOBER 03: Denver Broncos running back Javonte Williams (33) gets dragged down by Baltimore Ravens cornerback Marlon Humphrey (44) during a NFL game between the Baltimore Ravens and the Denver Broncos on October 3, 2021 at Empower Field at Mile High in Denver, CO. (Photo by Steve Nurenberg/Icon Sportswire) — DENVER, CO – OCTOBER 03: Denver Broncos running back Javonte Williams (33) gets dragged down by Baltimore Ravens cornerback Marlon Humphrey (44) during a NFL game between the Baltimore Ravens and the Denver Broncos on October 3, 2021 at Empower Field at Mile High in Denver, CO. (Photo by Steve Nurenberg/Icon Sportswire)

Which brings us to Javonte Williams. I’m a diehard believer in “the year after the year after” when it comes to ACL tears. Williams tore his ACL four games into the 2022 season. He returned for the start of last year but was a pale imitation of his pre-injury self, with his yards per carry falling from 4.4 his first two years to 3.6 last year. His PPR points per game went from 12.1 in 2021 to 11.2 in 2023, despite him splitting time with Melvin Gordon in 2021 and having the definite starting job in 2023. But while we know guys can come back more quickly than ever from torn ACLs, they often take that extra year to get all the way back. Adrian Peterson and Breece Hall are the exceptions. So I expect Williams to be back close to what he was pre-injury this year (with the “he could lost his slot” a misinterpretation of “Well, Estimé and McLaughlin and Burton are locked in, so…”) and returning pretty solid value on his RB33 ADP. And the beauty is, if I’m wrong, we’ll know pretty early, potentially as soon as the preseason. If he looks sluggish and can’t get going, well, I was wrong and move on. But you have the shot to get a top-15 or top-20 running back with a pick barely in the top 100.