The Broncos have produced one of the NFL’s best defenses midway through the 2025 season. Now, though, that unit will have to figure out how to thrive without its best player.
Cornerback Pat Surtain II, the 2024 Defensive Player of the Year, is expected to miss some time after suffering a pectoral strain during Sunday’s victory against the Dallas Cowboys, a league source confirmed. Surtain is considered week-to-week at this point, the source said. It isn’t immediately clear if he’ll land on injured reserve, but he isn’t expected to play this week against the Houston Texans.
The Broncos also ended Sunday’s game without wide receiver Marvin Mims Jr., who suffered a concussion while returning a kickoff late in the fourth quarter. Tight end Nate Adkins, meanwhile, suffered a knee injury in the second half and did not return.
Surtain’s injury occurred late in the second quarter, when his upper body was twisted while he tried to make a tackle on Cowboys receiver George Pickens near the sideline. Surtain moved the shoulder in a circular motion after getting up from the play and was accompanied by trainers as he headed to the locker room at halftime. Surtain did not join the team on the field as the third quarter began and was replaced by Kris Abrams-Draine, a 2024 fifth-round pick by the Broncos.
There is no sugarcoating what losing Surtain for any period of time would mean for Denver’s defense. The 2021 first-round pick shuts down an opponent’s top receiver as effectively as any corner in the NFL and has done that more or less since entering the league. That lockdown presence has the practical effect of allowing the Broncos to wall off one side of the field, play aggressive, man-to-man coverage — 35.8 percent of the time, the third-highest rate in the league, according to TruMedia — and send extra rushers at the quarterback (34.2 percent blitz rate, league’s fourth-highest rate). Surtain does not have any of Denver’s league-high 36 sacks this season, but his ability to blanket a quarterback’s top weapon is a big part of what allows the Broncos to rush so effectively. He offers defensive coordinator Vance Joseph the rarest of gifts: peace of mind that he need not worry about anything in Surtain’s zip code.
The Broncos on Sunday played man-to-man defense on 41.2 percent of opponent pass plays with Surtain in the game. That number dipped to 29.4 percent in the second half. Some of that was due to Denver’s big lead, making more zone looks the prudent choice, but it was also clear the Broncos don’t play precisely the same way without Surtain on the field.
“When (Surtain) wasn’t in, that was a big deal, especially when a large part of your plan is dealing with rotations and matchups and you’re dealing with (Pickens) and (CeeDee Lamb) and then, all of a sudden, that one element goes away,” Payton said Monday. “It can be a little bit disruptive, but I thought Kris did a great job. The whole lot of them did when we went without Pat. We continued to play a handful of the coverages, and yet, Vance did a good job adjusting. That was very encouraging.”
The bottom line is there is no “next man up” if the Broncos are forced to play without Surtain, no matter how many times players and coaches recite that mantra. Surviving an absence by the three-time Pro Bowler would require collective adjustments aimed at helping Denver preserve its attacking nature while also reducing exposure for Abrams-Draine and whomever would be asked to help fill in for Surtain.
“We have a lot of faith in Kris,” defensive end Zach Allen said Monday. “He practices as well as anyone I’ve seen. For a young guy, that’s really impressive.”
Meanwhile, Mims, a key part of what the Broncos do on offense and in the return game, will have to pass through each stage of the league’s concussion protocol before being cleared to return. The frustrating aspect of Mims’ injury Sunday was that he should not have been on the field when it occurred, Payton said Monday. Denver was trying to sub Mims out of the game before the kickoff return that came with 4 minutes, 44 seconds left in the game, but a failure in communication led to Tyler Badie replacing RJ Harvey instead of Mims.
“We made a substitution,” Payton said. “I know (special teams coordinator Darren Rizzi) was trying to send in Tyler for Marvin. Somehow, the communication failed. Tyler went in for RJ. But fair question. At that stage of the game, you’re trying to be smart.”
Mims, who made the Pro Bowl as a returner during each of his first two NFL seasons, had a 47-yard kickoff return earlier in Sunday’s game, his longest of 2025. He ranks fifth on the Broncos with 288 yards from scrimmage.
Adkins has six catches for 48 yards and a touchdown this season and has played 26.4 percent of Denver’s offensive snaps since making his season debut in Week 3. The Broncos are already without tight end Lucas Krull, who is on injured reserve with a foot injury. The Broncos have been evaluating the tight end market as the trade deadline approaches, The Athletic’s Dianna Russini reported last week. Losing Adkins for a stretch could hasten the urgency for the Broncos to add a piece at the position ahead of next week’s deadline.
The Broncos have won five straight games and sit atop the AFC West. A sixth straight win would be the longest since Payton became the team’s head coach in 2023 and the longest for the franchise overall since it won seven straight to begin the 2015 season, which ended in Denver’s third Super Bowl. The Texans are 3-4, but they boast the NFL’s best scoring defense (14.7 points per game).