{"id":648090,"date":"2026-01-02T12:45:15","date_gmt":"2026-01-02T12:45:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/648090\/"},"modified":"2026-01-02T12:45:15","modified_gmt":"2026-01-02T12:45:15","slug":"despite-lack-of-turnovers-vance-joseph-is-pleased-with-broncos-defensive-efforts","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/648090\/","title":{"rendered":"Despite lack of turnovers, Vance Joseph is pleased with Broncos\u2019 defensive efforts"},"content":{"rendered":"

In just a few days, the Denver Broncos will cap off their regular season hosting the Los Angeles Chargers in front of a hometown crowd at Empower Field. The atmosphere will be electric and no doubt fans across Broncos Country are eager to watch their favorite team attempt to earn<\/a> the #1 seed in the AFC for the playoffs.<\/p>\n

While the Broncos have notched thirteen wins on the season, they haven\u2019t always been pretty to watch. Most all of them have been close games. It\u2019s been one heck of a rollercoaster ride. However, their penchant for fourth quarter heroics has revitalized a franchise that had lost their winning culture over the past decade of struggles.<\/p>\n

Nevertheless, those marks in the win column tell a lot more about the grit and guts this team has than any style points ever could. Though that doesn\u2019t mean there isn\u2019t room for improvement<\/a> with the postseason on the horizon. Earlier this week, Head Coach Sean Payton talked about some of the issues the Denver Broncos need to fix in order to finish the regular season strong and embark on a deep playoff run.<\/p>\n

A few things came to mind, but above all else, Payton was adamant about wanting to see his defense come up with bigger plays\u2014turnovers<\/a>\u2014in the coming weeks.<\/p>\n

After yesterday\u2019s practice, Defensive Coordinator Vance Joseph gave his thoughts on that issue. While he expressed a desire to create more turnovers and would love if that happened, he is pleased with other key metrics that his players have excelled at this season.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou have to win the critical downs. That starts with stopping the run, winning third downs and red zone. I think we\u2019re doing that,\u201d stated Joseph who offered praise for what the defense has accomplished this season.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe turnovers haven\u2019t come. We have to coach that better obviously and strain more to create more turnovers. I want more, we need more turnovers, but we have to focus on playing the right way. That\u2019s the first way.\u201d<\/p>\n

For most of the year, the Broncos\u2019 defense has been disciplined outside the occasional missed coverage or an untimely and unfortunate pass interference penalty down the field. They\u2019ve done a good job limiting explosive plays and teams are completing less than 59-percent of their passes against them. Through seventeen weeks, Denver is allowing less than 200 yards passing through the air. Both impressive marks.<\/p>\n

Not only that, but Denver\u2019s defense is the best in the NFL at getting sacks with 64 on the season. That\u2019s eleven more than the next closest team in the NFL and a new franchise record. Most weeks, the front seven has done a great job getting pressure on rival signal callers. Turnovers would be nice, but stalling out drives and forcing three-and-outs due to that pressure have been a fixture of Denver\u2019s defense throughout the year.<\/p>\n

Truth be told, opposing quarterbacks have been getting the ball out very quickly. With that in mind, the Broncos\u2019 secondary is rarely challenged deep or provided with a lot of opportunities to make plays on the ball. Nevertheless, Joseph is confident the turnovers will come but maintained that playing fundamentally sound football is more important to him.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think we will create more turnovers. How we play is aggressive. How we play is with good leverage, gap control, and it\u2019s worked. I\u2019m not going to chase turnovers. I want guys tackling. I want guys in great leverage. I want guys doing their job the right way,\u201d Joseph remarked.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think it\u2019s a fine line between chasing that and not playing good football. I think when you win third downs, that\u2019s a turnover. We\u2019re second in third downs. We\u2019re second in red zone. For me that\u2019s the critical parts of football and playing defense.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"In just a few days, the Denver Broncos will cap off their regular season hosting the Los Angeles…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":648091,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[2062],"tags":[232,231,258,1151,2426,7,6],"class_list":{"0":"post-648090","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-denver-broncos","8":"tag-broncos","9":"tag-denver","10":"tag-denver-broncos","11":"tag-denver-broncos-news","12":"tag-denverbroncos","13":"tag-football","14":"tag-nfl"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/115825575448291195","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/648090","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=648090"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/648090\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/648091"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=648090"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=648090"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=648090"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}