Broncos historical pass-rush data could prove that the best is yet to come

For 2025 the Denver Broncos finished third in ESPN's Pass Rush Win Rate (pass rush win rate) and second in Pro-Football-Reference's Pressure Rate (pro-football-reference.com will be PFR from here on out). That means that both stats agree with what your eyes told you - the Broncos had a really good pass rush in 2025. But did these two stats agree for all teams in the NFL in 2025? Were there teams with defenders who were good at beating their blockers, yet bad at generating QB pressure? Were there other teams that were good at getting pressure while not being very good at beating pass blockers in 2.5 seconds? Read on to find out...

Pressure rate data from is PFR goes back to 2018. ESPN's Pass Rush Win Rate (PRWR) goes back to 2020. So let's look at all six seasons for which we have both data sets.

ESPN pass rush win rate and Pro-Football-Reference pressure rate - How have the Denver Broncos done 2020-2025?

2025 - Correlation of 0.57

The three teams that had the best team PRWR were the Minnesota Vikings, Cleveland Browns, and Denver Broncos. All three teams had pass rush win rates of 45 percent or better. According to ESPN, "our pass rush win rate metric tells us how often a pass rusher is able to beat his block within 2.5 seconds." Of those three, the Browns had the lowest pressure rate at 26.2 percent. That means that the Browns' pass rushers beat their blockers 46 percent of the time, but only about half of those resulted in QB pressures. The average defense had a PRWR of 37 percent in 2025.

From 2018 to 2025, the average pocket time (time in the pocket before pressure) was 2.56 seconds according to sumersports.com, and average time to pressure (pocket time) was 2.4 seconds according to NFL Next Gen stats. So even beating your blocker in less than 2.5 seconds might not result in pressure since the pass may be gone before you beat your blocker. Additionally, some QBs free a clean pocket even though they are not being pressured. Brady Cook had the fastest time to throw in 2025 at 2.26 seconds, while Brock Purdy and Shedeur Sanders took the longest to throw on average at 2.93 seconds. Back to defenses, though.

Subtracting the 2025 pressure rate from the PRWR gives us a view into how good defenders were at getting pressure once they beat their blockers. The Arizona Cardinals (20.8 percent) and the Tampa Bay Buccaneers (20.2 percent) were the only teams with a difference of 20 percent or greater. That is a combination of two things: poor ability to finish a pass rush, and poor team pass rush strategy (giving the opposing QB a lane to avoid pressure). The average defense in the NFL had a 14.0 percent difference. The Broncos were at 14.5 percent. The Indianapolis Colts had the lowest value at 5.7percent. This was mainly a function of how low their PRWR was at 29 percent.

2024 - Correlation of 0.43

The 2024 Broncos were second in PRWR and in pressure percentage. They had a PRWR of 46 percent and a pressure rate of 27.7 percent. The only defenses that were better in 2024 were the Texans at 49 percent PRWR and the Dallas Cowboys with a pressure rate of 30.1 percent. Relative to 2025, PRWR was significantly higher overall, while QB pressure average was a little bit lower (see the opening table). While there were only two teams with a difference of 20 percent or more in 2025, there were nine teams in 2024. There were only two teams with a difference less than 10 percent in 2024; there were six in 2025. There were no teams with a difference of 25 percent in 2025, and there were three in 2024 - the Houston Texans, Tennessee Titans, and Philadelphia Eagles. These three were the big outliers in 2024.

The Texans led the league in PRWR and only managed to get pressure on 22.8 percent of dropbacks, which was just about average. The Titans had one of the best PRWR's in the league at 42 percent, and yet were one of the worst teams in the NFL at getting pressure (16.7 percent).

2023 - Correlation of 0.12

2023 was just weird. The other six years in the study align fairly well with a good correlation (for sports stats) between PRWR and pressure. 2023 is the outlier. While no team had a PRWR of 50 percent in 2024 and 2025, three teams had 50 percent in 2023: the Broncos, Las Vegas Raiders, and Texans. Additionally, we had no teams with a difference of greater than 27 percent in 2024 and 2025, but we have two teams with a difference of greater than 30 percent - the Raiders and the Broncos. Both teams were great at beating their pass blockers, but poor at actually getting pressure on the QB.

Both teams had 50 percent PRWR, but the Raiders only got pressure on 19.4 percent of opponent dropbacks, while the Broncos only got pressure on a crazy 18.2 percent. Let's think about that for a moment. If the Broncos were rushing four defenders, that means two of them beat their defender in less than 2.5 seconds, but only about one of seven of those individual pass rushes actually led to pressure on the QB.

The 2023 Broncos finished with 42 sacks and 117 QB pressures according to PFR. That was Vance Joseph's first season back with the Broncos as the defensive coordinator. Zach Allen led the team with 27 pressures. The Broncos defense was 29th in QB pressures.

The strangest team from 2023 was the Jacksonville Jaguars. They were the worst defense in the league for PRWR at 27 percent, and yet they were above average in pressure rate at 22.6 percent. This would suggest that almost all of their pressures came from defensive line guys who weren't very good at beating their blockers. In other words, most of the pressures came from coverage and not quickly beating the opposing pass blockers. Josh Hines-Allen led the team in both sacks (17.5) and pressures (46)

The year-over-year improvement in QB pressure rate is one of the best in this whole study. Denver Broncos PRWR and pressure rate by season are shown in the table below.

2022 - Correlation of 0.44

The Broncos were 9th in PRWR in 2022 at 44 percent, but 26th in pressure rate at 18.3 percent. The Dallas Cowboys were the best team at generating QB pressures (25.4percent), while the Atlanta Falcons were one of the few teams in the study with a pressure rate less than 15 percent (14.6 percent). This season was fairly normal in that there were no teams like the 2023 Broncos (huge difference in PRWR and pressure) and no teams like the 2023 Jaguars (tiny difference). The Eagles and the Cowboys led the league in PRWR at 52 percent this season, while the Colts were the only team with a PRWR of less than 30 percent (29 percent).

2021 - Correlation of 0.34

The Broncos defense was dead last in PRWR in 2021 at 31 percent. The Los Angeles Rams led the league at 53 percent, with the Carolina Panthers (51 percent) and Browns (50 percent) not far behind. Despite being the worst team in the league at winning quickly on pass rushes, the Broncos were significantly better at getting pressure in 2021 than they were in 2022. The primary pass rushers for the 2021 Broncos were Dre'Mont Jones and Shelby Harris. Malik Reed, Von Miller (traded early in the season), and Jonathon Cooper were all not very effective as pass rushers for the Broncos.

The 2021 Broncos had 36 sacks, and no player had more than Harris' six. Miller had 178 pass rush snaps for the Broncos before he was traded to the Rams, and he still finished fourth on the team in pressures with 22. Jones had 33 pressures on 396 pass rush snaps. Harris had 28 on 337, and Reed had 27 on 376. Reed's 7.2 percent pressure rate was terrible for an edge rusher. Jones is now on the Patriots. Harris is on the Giants, and Reed is out of the NFL and has been since early in the 2023 season.

2020 - Correlation of 0.39

The Pittsburgh Steelers led the league in PRWR in the first season where ESPN was calculating it. They won 54 percent of the time. The Buffalo Bills (52 percent) and the Washington Commanders (50 percent) were also over 50 percent. The New York Giants were the worst at 31 percent. The Broncos came in at 24th in PRWR, but 7th in QB pressure rate.

The Broncos pressure rate was 26.2 percent despite having a below-average PRWR of 39 percent. Bradley Chubb (now on the Bills) was the primary pass rusher in 2020 with Miller out for the season. Chubb's 59 pressures (SIS) were the 6th best in the league. PFR only credits him with 34 pressures, which was tied for 15th in the NFL. I have no idea how the two sites can disagree that much on pressures. TJ Watt, who led the league in pressures according to both sites, had 77 on SIS and 61 on PFR. If you look at the SIS pressures top 10 for 2020, here's the comparison of QB pressures from the two sites

The only player in the top 10 in pressures who had a bigger discrepancy between the two sites was Emmanuel Ogbah who had a difference of 26. These differences between the two sites are most likely the result of how they score a pressure and whether or not they split pressures (as is done with sacks). SIS might give each player a pressure if they both get pressure on the QB, while PFR most likely only credits one defender with a pressure.

Today's best reads

• Broncos have a pair of defenders continuing to climb up team history
• Ranking Broncos players most likely to make the Hall of Fame one day
• 5 most important Broncos players as crucial 2026 season approaches
• Predicting the remaining Broncos players in the NFL Top 100 list for 2026
• Can the Broncos defense improve upon their 2025 performance?

This article was originally published on predominantlyorange.com as Broncos historical pass-rush data could prove that the best is yet to come.