The Denver Broncos are walking into this season with a defense that already has the league’s attention, and that kind of success brings its own danger: settling in too comfortably. But inside the building, the message sounds more like a warning flare than a celebration.
Defensive coordinator Vance Joseph has kept the standard high, and that appears to have filtered through the entire unit. Zach Allen said the group is still chasing better football, even after what it accomplished last year.
“That’s the really cool thing about this group is we’re just constantly trying to find new ways to get better,” said defensive Zach Allen in a piece written by Parker Gabriel of the Denver Post. “It all starts with ‘V.J.’
He sets such a high standard. Yeah, we were good last year, but there were still a lot of things that we could have been better at and cleaned up.
We want to be as consistent as we can be and play at the highest level that we can.”
A big reason that mindset has stuck is that the Broncos are no longer spending so much energy on the basics. Most of the roster already knows Joseph’s system, which shifts the work from learning the language to sharpening the details.
“When we’re installing, take those notes again,” said linebacker Alex Singleton. “Rewrite the little basics of the calls because then, when the intricate stuff happens, and stuff happens during the game - the basic stuff is easy. That’s the stuff that’s already locked in; that’s muscle memory.
“Now you’re learning the nuances and all the stuff that really will define what we are this season on the critical plays during the season.”
That refinement matters because the Broncos know exactly where they got shaky late. They had a couple of rough defensive outings against the Green Bay Packers and Jacksonville Jaguars, and those games nearly became a problem in the chase for the top seed in the AFC.
Another point of emphasis has been creating takeaways. Sean Payton pushed that message hard down the stretch, and Denver answered, especially in its division round win over the Buffalo Bills, when the game turned into a shootout and those turnovers loomed large.
Joseph said the group still isn’t content with what it put on tape a year ago.
“It’s a great unit, but they’re motivated, and they’re not satisfied with what we did last year,” Joseph said. “Our talks and meetings are always about, ‘It might not look like it did last year as far as all the numbers, but the play style should be the same and the end result can be the same.’
It can be different as far as where we ranked. That’s not important for us.
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