ENGLEWOOD, Colo. — Nick Bawden raced to his right and prepared to pave the way for Breece Hall.

Only when the New York Jets fullback arrived in the Royal Gorge-sized hole on his team’s first offensive play of the third quarter Sunday, there was nobody to block. The Denver Broncos defense had been so thoroughly shoved aside that there was no one left for Bawden to smash as he led Hall through the opening.

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“I handed off and looked back and you could have driven a semi-truck through that hole,” Jets quarterback Zach Wilson said.

Hall breezed his way through the hole and past the secondary on his way to a 72-yard touchdown Sunday that gave the Jets a lead and a rapid change of momentum during Denver’s 31-21 loss. Broncos head coach Sean Payton didn’t have to wait until film review later that night to understand what had gone wrong on the play. The still photos handed to him on the sideline told the entire story.

“I know we have to pad the gap on the long run,” Payton said. “That was pretty clear from the pictures.”

An electric 72 yard TD run for @BreeceH! ⚡️

📺: #NYJvsDEN on CBS
📱: Stream on #NFLPlus

— NFL (@NFL) October 8, 2023

The play was a microcosm of an issue that has played a significant role in Denver’s nightmare 1-4 start to the season. The Broncos have the worst defense ever measured by DVOA (defense-adjusted value over average), according to statistician Aaron Schatz of the FTN Network, who created the metric in 2003 as a way to measure opponent-adjusted efficiency of NFL teams. The data set traces teams back to 1981, and no defense has ever been worse through five games by DVOA across the last 43 seasons than the Broncos.

“The Broncos were the worst-ever defense after four games and now they are the worst-ever defense after five games,” Schatz told The Athletic in a phone interview Monday. “The gap in our number this season between Denver and No. 31 Chicago is about the same as the gap between No. 31 Chicago and No. 20 Tennessee.”

You can’t achieve that rock-bottom distinction if multiple things aren’t going wrong at the same time, and that’s been true of the Broncos. Denver ranks 32nd in DVOA against the pass and gave up more passing touchdowns during its first four games of the season (a league-high 13) than it did during its first 14 games last season (12). But the most pressing issue at the moment is a run defense that has been virtually non-existent, particularly during the last three weeks. It’s a failure that has allowed opponents to dictate the tempo at virtually every turn and has left the Broncos with a razor-thin margin for error everywhere else.

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The Broncos rank last in the NFL in opponent yards per rush before contact at 2.38, which speaks to a defensive front that is infrequently pushing back opposing offensive lines and linebackers who aren’t meeting ball-carriers at the line of scrimmage. But the Broncos also rank 31st in yards per rush after contact at 3.56, illustrating an issue with tackling that has plagued every level of the defense. Prefer a more raw statistical look? The 938 yards the Broncos have given up on the ground are tied for the most by an NFL team through five games since 2002.

The problem was front and center Monday morning as Payton met with his team to begin preparations for Thursday night’s game against the defending champion Kansas City Chiefs. The assessment from the head coach was blunt.

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“We have to get it cleaned up,” Payton said. “I’d start with fitting the right gaps and then understanding, scheme-wise, what we’re getting and how to restrict those holes. A lot of it, it’s not communication, it’s technique, but that has to get better.”

Payton said the defense’s “gap integrity” has been poor in each of the Broncos’ past three games. In giving up 755 yards rushing in those three contests alone, the Broncos have surrendered a league-high 13 explosive runs, categorized as rushes of 12 yards or more. They have given up four runs of at least 40 yards during that span. A common trait in a number of those back-breaking plays is that Denver’s defense has been unable to maintain proper alignment as teams use motion across the formation.

“Teams are just getting creative and we have to have a response,” safety Justin Simmons said. “Ten guys can do the right thing, but if one guy is not, you can get gashed in the run game. I think we saw that today and over the past few weeks. That’s obviously something we need to correct and fix.”

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Statistically, Schatz has discovered a turning point that helps explain where things started to go wrong for Denver’s defense. The unit in 2022 ranked sixth in DVOA through its first eight games. It has been by far the NFL’s worst defense since, according to the advanced metric, finishing 25th over the last nine games last season and 32nd by a wide margin during the first five games in 2023. The personnel move associated with that split is the trade of linebacker Bradley Chubb to the Miami Dolphins. The Broncos’ dip in pass-rushing metrics — pressure rate, sack percentage, etc. — since the Chubb trade has been well-documented, but it’s his impact against the run that has been even more missed by the Broncos.

Dolphins head coach Mike McDaniel outlined Chubb’s work in that area before his team played host to the Broncos last month.

“What’s unique about Bradley and one of the reasons we chose to acquire him and chose to pay him (with a contract extension) is because he is a difference-maker who is also selfless,” McDaniel said. “I think a lot of times, particularly with the edge position in the National Football League, it’s almost like a receiver blocking. As an edge player, you have to defend the run if you want your team to be good, but you don’t necessarily get direct compensation all the time for it. When you’re fortunate enough to have a guy who can get sacks but also takes extreme pride in the overall complexion of the defense and his part in it, you feel very fortunate to have that.”

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There is no use re-examining Denver’s decision to trade Chubb halfway through last season, and one player alone would not have prevented the decline of Denver’s defense. But as the Broncos have struggled to set the edge in a way Chubb was able to do consistently, it has heightened the need to find a replacement.

Schatz does offer one reason for optimism, from a statistical perspective, as the Broncos try to ascend back to level on defense.

“It’s interesting because teams that were historically the worst after four games and the worst after five games, there’s a lot of turnover on those lists,” he said. “I haven’t gone back and looked at all the (worst) five-game teams, but when I looked at the four-game teams, most of them weren’t that bad for the rest of the year. Most of them are like 21st or 22nd the rest of the year. Defense is just less predictive than offense. I would be much more worried if I were the worst offense in the league, which is the New York Giants by our numbers, than I would be if I were the worst defense in the league.”

That probably won’t offer Payton and the Broncos coaching staff much solace as they prepare to face a Chiefs team that owns a 15-game winning streak in the series. If they can’t find a way to slow some of the bleeding in their run defense, loss No. 16 will come swiftly.

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“It’s going to be tough to win games,” Payton said, “if we can’t stop the run defensively.”

(Photo: Andy Cross / Getty Images)

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