When closing time arrived for the Broncos defense Sunday against Arizona, Que Robinson didn’t hesitate.

The second-year outside linebacker lined up on the left end of Denver’s defensive front, likely expecting a run on second-and-goal from the 1-yard line with 90 seconds left in regulation and his team leading 30-16.

Instead, Cardinals quarterback Jacoby Brissett pulled back from under center.

Robinson stormed upfield and forced Brissett to move up in the pocket, which allowed inside linebacker Alex Singleton to wrap him up for a sack.

It was Robinson’s second pressure in the fourth quarter, according to Next Gen Stats, and his third of the game. That follows a Thursday night game against Seattle, where he posted a career-best seven pressures.

Robinson is in the midst of a breakout sophomore season. He’s playing a lot more than he did as a rookie, and now, over the past two weeks, the pass-rush juice has started to show up consistently.

Overall, Robinson has posted a 14.1% pressure rate, according to Next Gen Stats, which is second on the team among players with 100-plus pass-rush reps and trailing only fellow outside linebacker Nik Bonitto (21.6%).

“I like it,” head coach Sean Payton said Monday of Robinson’s early-season pressure rate. “I feel like we would definitely say we’ve seen this arrow up with his play and confidence. I think it’s a real good observation. I’m really encouraged with the snap counts and then the production you see when he’s playing.

“I think all of what you’re seeing is what we’re seeing.”

Robinson’s blossoming into a consistently disruptive player couldn’t have come at a better time for Denver, which lost Jonah Elliss to injured reserve last week and got Jonathon Cooper back on the field for the first time this season Sunday against the Cardinals.

It also lines up with an explosion from Bonitto, who was credited with a whopping 13 pressures on 28 pass-rush attempts against the Cardinals.

That is the most by a player in a single game in the NFL since Nick Bosa early in the 2024 season and the most in Bonitto’s career.

The All-Pro has racked up 20 pressures total over the past two games and has essentially rushed at an elite level since getting held down in Week 1 by Kansas City and undrafted rookie left tackle Kahlil Benson.

Now Bonitto, Robinson and the Broncos outside linebackers get another shot at Kansas City.

This time around, they have Cooper in the mix as well after he spent the first six games of the season on the commissioner’s exempt list following a pair of domestic violence-related arrests in June that led to several charges, including felony assault for strangulation.

Cooper didn’t fill up the stat sheet in his debut against Arizona, but he essentially played a full load of snaps and generated four pressures for a 14.8% rate.

“We’ve all seen the type of player ‘Coop’ is these past three years,” defensive tackle Zach Allen said. “The fact that he came out and it seemed like he didn’t miss a beat. We’re really proud of him and happy for him. Hopefully this is something we can build on.”

All of that adds up to Denver’s top trio of rushers pressuring Brissett 20 times on Sunday alone.

For a position group that didn’t get off to a fast start over the first couple of weeks and didn’t log a sack on Sunday, that is serious disruption.

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