DENVER – The Broncos couldn\u2019t have asked for a better time for their best defensive players to step up.<\/p>\n
With a playoff berth in the balance on the road in late December against a high-powered Cincinnati offense, Zach Allen tormented quarterback Joe Burrow to the tune of 3.5 sacks and eight pressures. He was in on sacking Burrow on five different occasions and got the star quarterback to the ground on back-to-back snaps in overtime.<\/p>\n
Cornerback Pat Surtain II, meanwhile, shut down All-Pro receiver Ja\u2019Marr Chase in a performance that likely solidified his eventual NFL Defensive Player of the Year selection.<\/p>\n
Yet in the end, Burrow still wrenched a victory away from Denver.<\/p>\n
When he wasn\u2019t getting pasted by the Broncos\u2019 defensive front and stymied by Surtain in search of his top option, Burrow poked and prodded, dinked and dunked and finally tore through the weak points of Vance Joseph\u2019s defense to the tune of 412 yards and three touchdowns to Tee Higgins – the final a walk-off in overtime.<\/p>\n
That game, as much as any down the stretch, provided a preview of how Denver would spend its offseason. Upgrading on offense, sure, but also spending significant capital to fortify its defense.<\/p>\n
The goal: Simple. Take one of the best defenses in the NFL and make it even better in 2025.<\/p>\n
The reality: That\u2019s easier said than done. Building a defense to last in the NFL is tricky business, and the AFC is in a golden age of quarterback play.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe had a great defense. That was last year,\u201d defensive coordinator Vance Joseph said. \u201cThis year is totally different. My entire sell this entire offseason has been, \u2018Let\u2019s start over again. Let\u2019s keep improving.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cLast year counts, but it doesn\u2019t matter moving forward. We have to continue to improve.\u201d<\/p>\n
A volatile business<\/p>\n
The NFL is a league driven by star quarterbacks, plain and simple.<\/p>\n
Patrick Mahomes has led Kansas City to the AFC Championship Game each of the past seven seasons. The quarterbacks who started opposite him in those games: Burrow twice, Josh Allen twice, Lamar Jackson and Tom Brady.<\/p>\n
Teams with good quarterbacks, naturally, tend to be consistent performers. Last fall marked the third straight year that Kansas City, Baltimore, Cincinnati and Buffalo all ranked in the top 11 of Defense-adjusted Value Over Average, or\u00a0DVOA, a metric developed by now-FTN chief technology officer Aaron Schatz that attempts to capture overall efficiency.<\/p>\n
There\u2019s no equivalent position defensively that has that level of impact on unit-level performance year after year.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe quarterback controls so much of what goes on on the field that defensive performance is naturally going to vary more because it\u2019s kind of subject to the quarterback,\u201d Schatz told The Denver Post. \u201cEven if you try to adjust for the quality of quarterbacks you\u2019re playing, defensive performance is (affected).\u201d<\/p>\n
It\u2019s not a big surprise, then, that many in football analytics see defensive performance as more volatile.<\/p>\n
There\u2019s a lack of consistency when it comes to certain defensive metrics – Schatz pointed out that Surtain was just OK by several metrics in 2023 but terrific in 2022 and the best corner in football in 2024 – and defenses can\u2019t fully control production in categories like sacks and turnovers.<\/p>\n
\u201cTurnovers are obviously really important, but they\u2019re more random than yards,\u201d Schatz said. \u201cAnd interceptions on defense are more random than interceptions on offense. Again, that comes back to quarterback play. Even sacks, I think, the offense can be more responsible for them than the defense.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cSo you have these plays where the outcomes are really important and they vary more for defense than they do for offense.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Broncos, of course, led the NFL by a wide margin with 63 sacks in 2024, but they didn\u2019t just finish at the quarterback. They were second in pressure rate, too. They were good but not elite in forcing turnovers, tying for seventh at 29.<\/p>\n
In the seven years of DVOA data on FTN\u2019s website, none of the teams that finished fourth in defensive DVOA improved on that mark the following year. Of course, there\u2019s not a ton of upward mobility from there.<\/p>\n
More broadly, only seven times between 2018 and 2023 has a top-10 finisher in DVOA moved up the following year. Out of 61 top-10 finishers, 24 stayed in the top 10 the following year, but more than half of those, 14, came from the same four teams: Baltimore, Buffalo, San Francisco and New Orleans.<\/p>\n
Those groups show it can be done. Sean Payton (and then Dennis Allen) oversaw a team in New Orleans that checked in between No. 2 and No. 9 from 2018-22. Buffalo\u2019s been in the top 11 each of the past seven seasons. The 49ers had six straight and likely would have matched the Bills if not for a major rash of injuries that led to a No. 13 finish last fall.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s an offensive-driven league and everything\u2019s meant to score points and be enjoyable, so it\u2019s hard to be a really good defense,\u201d Broncos inside linebacker Alex Singleton said. \u201cBecause, unless you\u2019re a fan of that team, nobody really wants that on Sundays.\u201d<\/p>\n
Continuity \u2026 plus<\/p>\n
If anybody\u2019s in position to match or exceed last year\u2019s defensive production, though, it might just be the Broncos.<\/p>\n
Vance Joseph is back for a third year, orchestrating the unit.<\/p>\n
Every member of Denver\u2019s defensive line who played a snap last year is under contract for 2025. The defense as a whole returns a whopping 61.5 of its 63 sacks and 90.2% of its league-leading 265 quarterback pressures.<\/p>\n
After an active offseason, the Broncos have more starters from last year\u2019s team who could be replaced due to upgrade – safety P.J. Locke and nickel Ja\u2019Quan McMillian among them – than core players who departed via free agency.<\/p>\n
The biggest loss personnel-wise from 2024 is inside linebacker Cody Barton, but even he wouldn\u2019t have been the every-down player he became for the Broncos if Singleton hadn\u2019t torn an ACL in Week 3.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt does help that Vance comes back and in large part the defense is going to return and even upgrade a few positions right now,\u201d NFL Network analyst Brian Baldinger told The Post. \u201cI think it\u2019s harder to replace great coaches than it is great players.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Broncos added what they think are at least a couple of really good players this spring, too.<\/p>\n
Singleton was amid his rehab back in March when free-agent negotiating opened, and the Broncos followed their re-signing of D.J. Jones with three-year deals for inside linebacker Dre Greenlaw and safety Talanoa Hufanga.<\/p>\n
His reaction?<\/p>\n
\u201cHell yeah,\u201d he recalled.<\/p>\n
If the Broncos had a weakness last year, it developed in the middle of the field and in defending running backs in the passing game. They had trouble at cornerback when Moss missed time with a late-season knee injury, too.<\/p>\n
The free-agent additions plus the selection of cornerback Jahdae Barron at No. 20 overall in April\u2019s draft are clearly targeted at shoring up those areas.<\/p>\n
Whether they elevate the defense or stave off regression, though, remains to be seen.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou start with the premise that a top-five defense last year is more likely to be, like, a top-12 defense this year,\u201d Schatz said. \u201cThen you add Greenlaw, Hufanga (and Barron) to that. \u2026 I would say that you should start with the idea that there\u2019s always going to be some significant regression on defense. Maybe the players they added will counter the regression, but it\u2019s unlikely that they will overwhelm the regression.\u201d<\/p>\n
Joseph said those additions allow him and the defensive staff to go back to the drawing board rather than just slotting them into the existing structure.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe watch every clip from last year and once you watch it all, you get a clear idea of how teams attacked you,\u201d Joseph said. \u201cIt was obvious. I won\u2019t share that, but it was obvious how teams attacked us and you have to go to work on how you prevent some of that stuff. That\u2019s what you do in the offseason every year.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cEvery year, you have to change and adjust as teams see you differently. Our players have grown into different types of players. The respect level for Pat has gone up, so how we adjust off of that is going to be huge.\u201d<\/p>\n
Expectations of dominance<\/p>\n
No two seasons play out exactly the same.<\/p>\n
Allen, for example, led all defensive tackles with 67 pressures. Surtain went on a preposterous run of shutting down top-flight receivers and allowed just 306 receiving yards as the nearest defender for the entire season, according to Next Gen Stats.<\/p>\n
If they\u2019re healthy, they\u2019ll undoubtedly be top-end performers again this fall. But can they repeat that level of impact?<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s very likely that Surtain had a career season,\u201d Schatz said. \u201cZach Allen was insanely good last year. It\u2019s very unlikely that he can be that good again this season, just because you don\u2019t hit 70 homers two years in a row.\u201d<\/p>\n
Baldinger, though, sees a defense primed to play largely in a similar manner this fall.<\/p>\n
Joseph had such trust in his secondary that he frequently sent five rushers and played man coverage behind.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf you get a lot of five-man rushes, you\u2019re going to get a lot of one-on-one rushes, and last year a lot of those guys won,\u201d Baldinger said. \u201cThey should be every bit as good in that department this year, and if they are and if they think they can hold up, you\u2019re going to get a lot of five-man rushes. I mean, 63 is a lot of sacks, but you might be able to put up similar or close to that kind of number.\u201d<\/p>\n
Baldinger said he thought Sean Payton would want an emphasis on creating more turnovers and noted that in 2009, when the Saints won the Super Bowl, they were second in that department with 39 forced.<\/p>\n
The Broncos\u2019 additions may help with that, but they also should help cover up some of the ills that became more frequent down the stretch last year.<\/p>\n
Denver gave up 30-plus points five times, and four of them came from Week 13 against Cleveland through the wild-card loss at Buffalo. Quarterbacks like Burrow and Justin Herbert picked them apart in the middle of the field.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe watched our (film) cut-ups from the fall,\u201d Joseph said. \u201cWe weren\u2019t perfect in every area. Third downs, we have to get better. There\u2019s lots of room for improvement.\u201d<\/p>\n
Greenlaw is considered a terrific coverage linebacker when healthy. Barron\u2019s got the versatility to play inside or out, depending on need. And Hufanga\u2019s the kind of playmaker on the back end that Joseph loves finding ways to build around.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s my job to do what players do well. I know what he is as a player,\u201d Joseph said. \u201cHe\u2019s a guy with great instincts. He\u2019s a guy that\u2019s going to chase and tackle the football for us. So I won\u2019t give him jobs where he\u2019s too tied up with nonsense, right? I want him to find the ball and do what he does best. That\u2019s what I\u2019m talking about with \u2018players first and scheme second.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n
There are always twists and turns during a season. The Broncos were mostly healthy defensively last year, but they felt Singleton\u2019s absence as the season wore on, and they saw, clearly, the impact on the perimeter when Moss missed time.<\/p>\n
There comes a point where even the best units can be compromised beyond repair by injuries, like San Francisco last year.<\/p>\n
The Broncos have bolstered an already-good defense to a point, however, where that kind of massive injury run looks like about the only thing that can keep it from being really good again this fall.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think Sean and (the front office) are just showing that how you win football games in this league is on defense, and now it\u2019s our job to prove that,\u201d Singleton said.<\/p>\n
Payton himself said he wasn\u2019t sure he put much stock in the notion of defensive volatility in the first place.<\/p>\n
He oversaw a long stretch of good units in New Orleans, both early in his tenure and then again near the end of it. The Broncos added significantly to the group early in his time here and now have the pieces in place – albeit impossible to keep together fully beyond this year – to put another consistent stretch together.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think it just depends on the team,\u201d he said this summer before flatly stating his expectation for 2025.<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd I don\u2019t plan on having any volatility with our defense from last year.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"DENVER – The Broncos couldn\u2019t have asked for a better time for their best defensive players to step…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":177990,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2062],"tags":[265,5445,5443,637,232,256,231,258,2426,7,6170,636,5820,1577,872,110,122,633,634,631,55,6,499,1257,4802,252,632,635,9,638,2832],"class_list":{"0":"post-177989","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-denver-broncos","8":"tag-american-football","9":"tag-american-football-league","10":"tag-american-football-league-teams","11":"tag-american-football-teams","12":"tag-broncos","13":"tag-cincinnati-bengals","14":"tag-denver","15":"tag-denver-broncos","16":"tag-denverbroncos","17":"tag-football","18":"tag-football-outsiders","19":"tag-gridiron-football-variants","20":"tag-interception","21":"tag-joe-burrow","22":"tag-josh-allen","23":"tag-kansas-city-chiefs","24":"tag-national-football-league","25":"tag-national-football-league-seasons","26":"tag-national-football-league-teams","27":"tag-national-football-league-teams-seasons","28":"tag-new-orleans-saints","29":"tag-nfl","30":"tag-patrick-mahomes","31":"tag-quarterback","32":"tag-quarterback-sack","33":"tag-san-francisco-49ers","34":"tag-seasons-in-american-football","35":"tag-seasons-in-american-sport","36":"tag-sports","37":"tag-team-sports","38":"tag-vance-joseph"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":"Validation failed: Text character limit of 500 exceeded"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/177989","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=177989"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/177989\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/177990"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=177989"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=177989"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=177989"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}