Broncos’ roster ranked as the worst in the NFL heading into 2024

If the Denver Broncos are going to achieve any sort of success during the upcoming 2024 season, then they’ll have to overcome what PFF recently declared as the worst roster in the entire NFL.

On Wednesday, PFF’s Jim Wyman and Dalton Wasserman revealed their roster rankings for all 32 teams in the league heading into the upcoming season, and at the very bottom is the Broncos.

PFF also projected Denver to finish with fewer than its estimated win total for 2024, which is currently set at 5.5 wins. Wyman and Wasserman shared the following explanation for why they’re so low on the Broncos heading into next season.

“While Bo Nix seems to be set up nicely for success, Denver’s style of offense will struggle to keep up if the defense digs them into a hole. This offense isn’t built to play from behind. Unless several members across the defense step up in a big way, the team will struggle to make much noise in what is expected to once again be a strong AFC.”

It’s definitely going to be interesting to see how the Broncos perform in their second year with Sean Payton as their head coach. As bad as some might currently view Denver’s roster, it’s still led by one of the most successful head coaches in NFL history.

Ever since his first season in the league as a head coach in 2006 with the New Orleans Saints, Payton’s teams have won 62% of their games during the regular season. His career winning percentage is better than some of the most legendary head coaches in NFL history, such as Bill Parcells, Bill Walsh, Tom Landry and Chuck Noll.

In addition to his overall success as a head coach in the league, no team with Payton leading the way has ever won fewer than seven games in a single season, and this includes the Broncos in 2023, who finished last season with an 8-9 record.

Sure, aside from cornerback Patrick Surtain II, there isn’t really a player on Denver’s 2024 roster who could be classified as a superstar. But the Broncos’ roster wasn’t much better in 2023, and they still managed to earn wins over the Green Bay Packers, Kansas City Chiefs, Buffalo Bills and Cleveland Browns, who all went to the playoffs last season.

While Denver didn’t make a ton of changes to its roster during the last few months, it did manage to add some intriguing rookies in this year’s NFL Draft, including quarterback Bo Nix, wide receiver Troy Franklin and pass rusher Jonah Elliss. Some of these rookies could potentially have a significant impact on the Broncos’ success next season.

It should also be mentioned that in PFF’s roster rankings right before the start of the 2023 campaign, the Los Angeles Rams were given the No. 31 spot. That ranking clearly didn’t get in the way of the Rams accomplishing anything last season, as they proved a bunch of people wrong and earned an appearance in the 2023 playoffs with a 10-7 record.

Will Denver follow Los Angeles’s lead and accomplish more next season than what the PFF roster rankings believe it’s capable of?