The Broncos defensive line has a joke that comes up more frequently than ever in the film room.
That Zach Allen, they all shake their heads. He might be a tremendous pass rusher, but he’s not that good against the run.
Sure, Allen’s led the NFL in quarterback hits since the start of the 2024 season and yeah, he was a first-team All-Pro last year, but he’s a liability in the run game.
They crack some version of it every time they watch a clip of Allen doing work against the run, fellow lineman Jordan Jackson said this week. It’s happening a lot through the first three games of the 2026 season.
“He’s taking on double teams, he’s striking reach blockers, he’s doing all this different stuff,” Jackson said. “He’s grown in that, as well. It’s amazing to see.
“You turn on the tape and it’s like, damn, he does that, too. He’s just grown in every facet of the game.”
Allen, who has ascended from a good player in Arizona to an underrated free agent signing in Denver in the spring of 2023 to one of the best interior defensive linemen in the game and the owner of a $100 million contract last year, looks like he’s taken his game to yet another level this fall. Allen has three sacks in Denver’s first three games and Next Gen Stats credits him with 12 pressures so far this season, good for a 12.2% pressure rate. All but two came in the past two games. He posted pressure rates of 14.3% and 13.3% against Jacksonville and the L.A. Rams.
His impact for Denver, though, goes well beyond that.
“It’s something you have to learn and grow into to be such a team player where you’re like, ‘I’m just happy that we got that’,” Jackson said. “He’s so good at opening things up for other people and it’s like, he knows what he’s doing and we appreciate him.
“That’s what matters to most of the guys in here is that their teammates appreciate them. Everybody on the outside might not see it and might only see the numbers, but we see it.”
Defensive coordinator Vance Joseph, who has coached Allen for his entire NFL career, said that about three weeks ago, at the start of the regular season, he called Allen and had “a great talk.”
“About doing more for us,” Joseph said. “Obviously, losing the guys we lost, he’s got to do more. That’s in practice, that’s in the meetings and especially in games. If we can get Zach one-on-one, he has to win. An awful lot.
Zach Allen (99) of the Denver Broncos celebrates his sack on Matthew Stafford (9) of the Los Angeles Rams with teammate Jonah Elliss (52) during the third quarter of the Broncos’ 30-26 win at Empower Field at Mile High in Denver, Colorado on Sunday, September 27, 2026. (Photo by AAron Ontiveroz/The Denver Post)
“I’ve been proud of his run defense. That’s been really good. He’s been blocking the run out and making plays there. If he can do that and obviously that’ll get him more third-down opportunities, that’s going to get him a bunch of numbers in terms of stats. But his run defense has been exceptional this far and that’s a credit to him.”
Stats are great, but Jackson said he’s amazed by how often he watches tape and comes away stumped by how Allen is able to make a play.
“He does things that — everybody sees the sacks and stuff, but when we go back and watch the tape and see what he’s really doing out there, it’s insane. He might not be getting the sack or the hit, but the pressure he creates, the moves he’s making that’s opening up other people to do different stuff, it’s amazing to watch. We don’t really see it when we’re in the game because stuff is happening so fast, but when we go back and watch the tape it’s like, ‘Damn, I did not see you do that.’
“There’s a lot of those from each of our games so far.”
Allen is not one of the Broncos’ nine captains, but he is a leader nonetheless. Fellow defensive lineman D.J. Jones put it simply when asked about Allen’s leadership style.
“By example,” Jones said. “To the 10th power.”
Allen’s game has grown exponentially and he seems to keep getting better each season. The Broncos have come to rely heavily on him, too.
Allen has missed just one game in his Broncos tenure, played 80% or more of the defensive snaps each of his first three seasons here — he’s at 69.6% in the early going this year — and has posted pressure rates of 12.3% in 2023, 11.3% in 2024 and 11.7% last year.
“Seeing where he’s come from that first year to being the leader he is and the player he is now, just speaks volumes about the guy he is,” Jackson said. “Of course we can always keep growing in whatever it is that we’re doing and he’s going to keep getting better at it, but the strides he’s taken and the leader he is is already amazing to me.”
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