This is the stinking truth. All right, this isn't a metric. This isn't analytics. This is actually a little bit of, well, it's history, and it seems to be a pattern. I found it interesting. Last year, the Broncos won, what was it, 11 one-score games in the regular season, added another one in the playoffs, 12 total, tied an NFL record. I heard Sean Payton in an interview say that they did their research. Broncos did their research going back about 20 years. And what they found is teams that had won 10 or more one-score games in one particular season, the next year, how'd they do?
What were they a playoff team? And he said only 35 percent of the time the next season did teams follow through and still make the playoffs. So, I mean, a 35 percent hit rate, that's not something you want to count on if you're the Broncos. So how do they avoid what would be an inevitable, you know, return to average type thing? How do they avoid that happening? Yeah, I think this is I think this is really interesting because obviously, you know, I think Sean Payton, the Denver Broncos did a 20 year study on this, right? 20 year study. So there's a lot of information of those teams. And like you said, 35 percent hit rate.
Which leaves you, what's the math on that? 65% of the time you don't go back to the playoffs? Good job. Okay, so. Look at you. Like, I don't know math. But I will, like, I think there's several things to me that resonate. Like, one, this league has been designed for everybody to play one-score games.
Like this league, every week, it's a one score game. Mark, last year, NFL title record was 73 games that were decided by three or fewer points. 73. 73 games. So that's the way the league is designed. And like we said at the beginning of this podcast, when you break down team for team for team, even the bad teams have great talent.
So it's not like you're going to out-talent teams. So it's really hard to blow teams out in this league, right? It's just the way the league is structured, and they've done a great job of creating some form of parity. And every year you get that stat, hey, 28 years in a row, like there's been a turnover of two or three playoff teams or whatever, right? That's always part of the deal. But I think when you look and you assess the Broncos, there's a couple things that resonate with me. One, last year they had a second-year quarterback.
Now, he's had the ankle injury in Bo Nix, but if he gets back healthy, you look for that ascension in the third year. You look for him to grow. They've helped him in that growth pattern process by going out and trading their 30th overall pick for Jalen Waddle. And right now in these mini camps and everything, they're raving about Jalen Waddle. Now, I always take all that with a grain of salt because they don't do anything. It's not real football. Right. You're running patterns on air. I hope you're good at it. Right. You're a professional wide receiver. But Jalen Waddle is a great, he's a great player. So just from the standpoint of having a weapon.
That's a reliable weapon and not a guy that you're grooming. Like they've been grooming Troy Franklin. They've been grooming Marvin Mims. They've been grooming, you know, Pat Bryant last year's rookie. But here's a proven commodity that even without Tyreek Hill had a thousand yard receiving season, you know, in his rookie year. So this is a guy that is an influx, instant offense into that into that realm.
That's that's a Broncos team that threw three quarters of the season, led the league in three and outs. So you figure just with that dynamic nature player, what he does for the other players, the pressure he takes off Cortland Sutton, the pressure he takes off the tight end position in Evan Ingram, that's going to create more offense. And they should be a lot better not having so many three and outs. They should be a lot better in manageable situations where they are. They are more balanced, where we're running past become one of those equal things where defenses can't just guess or pin their ears back and say they got to throw it on the situation. So that's going to be better. Then you look at this historic defense from last year.
the way they rushed the passer, the way they hit the quarterback, the number of sacks they had, they led the NFL in sacks and all those things. And so you've got this dynamic defense that was great. And how many turnovers they create? 14. 14 freaking turnover. Only two teams. Four or less. Right. The Jets who didn't intercept the pass, right? And whoever else it was. Don't quote me. I think it was Washington, but whatever. It doesn't matter.
to have that kind of historic pass rush and not to create turnovers. That's one of those things that's an anomaly that will not happen again. So all the people who say, well, you can't play in that many one score games and expect to go, you know, 12 and three in one score games like they did last year. Well, they're not going to, that's not going to happen because there's no way on God's green earth that you're only going to create 14 turnovers next year. That's not going to happen. So you're going to create your, I mean, I would be surprised if they didn't double that number, Mike.
I'd be surprised if they didn't double that. If they double that number, how many more possessions does your offense get? How many short fields does your offense get? How many of those picks are returned or fumbles are returned, scooped up return for scores? Like all those things. So they're not going to play in that number of one score games based on just based on on law of averages. What do they always say about turnovers in the National Football League? They're like bananas. They come in bunches. Right. They are going to get a bunch of turnovers with that defense and they're going to capitalize. Yeah. Sean Payne also talked about the idea that he was not going to mention teams by name, but you know who they are when you look at your team schedule.
He talked about the low hanging fruit, you know, so that that's the idea is that you got the low hanging fruit. That's the Raiders twice a year. And what you can't do is last year you played the Raiders. You beat them 10 to 7 in a game. You played the Jets over in London. You beat them 13 to 11. Right. I mean, those are two of those one score games that we're talking about that you can't count on automatically winning this year. But don't let it ever become a one score game. Right. Go out and win 27, 17. Yeah. Go out and win 30 to 19 or something like that.
and cut down the number of one-score games because you're right. If you end up playing the same amount of them, a lot of averages, you're not going to come anywhere close winning as many as you did the year before. Yeah, one of the things about the great teams that I played on, I played on some really good teams, really good teams. That 91 Redskin team was freaking phenomenal. 97, 98 Broncos, 96 Broncos, phenomenal. When you play those low-hanging fruit teams, teams that are struggling right now, teams that have a young quarterback that is not sure what he's doing, the Raiders with Mendoza and all that stuff, man, I know the Broncos play Arizona. You know what you do? You throttle those sons of bitches. Yep. You come out of the locker room hunting right off the bat.
And you hang 13 or you hang, you know, 17 on somebody. And, you know, which would require you to actually value kicking field goals. That's a whole nother story. But yeah, too soon. But you put the hammer to those people right now and you let them know that you're not going to. This is not your week. You better look forward to next weekend because we're going to, you know, thunder punch you right in the throat. And that's what you've got to be able to do when you're a better team. And the Broncos were not. The Broncos played oftentimes last year, even though they had a great record of 14-3, they played to the level of their competition. And they've got to learn how not to do that as well. All right.
All right. Sounds good. Listen, for everybody involved in the Sync Truth Podcast, thank you so much for making us a part of your day. If we offended you, get over it, and you're going to be okay on this one.