ENGLEWOOD, Colo. — Zach Allen had harassed and hurried Las Vegas Raiders quarterbacks throughout Sunday’s game. He had already made six tackles in the run game, five of which stopped the ball carrier after 2 yards or fewer. In short, he had constantly produced pressure and problems for the Las Vegas offense.
He was only missing the payoff.
Then, on a third-and-10 play late in the fourth quarter, Allen whipped inside the left guard, bulldozed the center, who was ostensibly providing help, and buried quarterback Aidan O’Connell in the backfield. It might have taken until the waning moments, but a takedown for Allen felt inevitable during the Denver Broncos’ 34-18 win. The odds, he believed, were in his favor.
“VJ does a good job of getting us one-on-ones, and as a player, that’s all you can ask for in this league,” Allen said of Broncos defensive coordinator Vance Joseph, who ran the Arizona Cardinals’ defense when Allen played his first four NFL seasons in Arizona. “If you can get me one-on-one with anybody in this league, I think I’ll win. Everybody has that mindset across the board, so the fact that he’s doing such a good job of that, we really appreciate it.”
#BroncosCountry LIVE: DC Vance Joseph meets the media https://t.co/c2P5PyqVyr
— Denver Broncos (@Broncos) October 10, 2024
Through five games, the Broncos have blitzed on 44.9 percent of the opponents’ dropbacks, according to TruMedia, the highest rate in the NFL. Denver is fourth in the league in defensive snaps sending six pass rushers (21) and first in sending seven (seven). Each of those pressure looks is carefully carved into game plans — “I’m not blitzing just to blitz,” Joseph likes to say — but they are cultivated with a bottom-line goal in mind.
“Most base pressures are designed to get guys one-on-one,” Joseph said. “You’re rarely getting a free runner. You’re attacking their front to get them to block one-on-one. That’s run and pass game alike. It’s important, once they get the one-on-one, who can win?”
This season, Joseph has dialed up his fair share of pressures resulting in the Broncos getting a free run at the quarterback. Think safety P.J. Locke screaming in from the left edge to sack Aaron Rodgers on fourth down in Week 5. Or Justin Strnad coming free up the middle to sack Rodgers on the first play of that game. But those are the outliers, the plays that often involve a mistake in recognition from the opponent. The more general aim is helping Denver’s deeper, more talented defensive front get honest chances to create havoc.
GOT ‘EMMMMMMM
📺: CBS | @Pjlocke4 pic.twitter.com/Z3PgH5VL9Z
— Denver Broncos (@Broncos) September 29, 2024
The heavy volume of blitzes has ancillary benefits, too. One is allowing Denver to expand its menu of simulated pressures and coverage disguises.
Take a play in the first quarter of the Broncos’ victory against the Tampa Bay Buccaneers in Week 3. The Broncos, in dime personnel on a third-and-4 play, showed a base, four-man pressure — with a twist. Outside linebacker Nik Bonitto kicked inside, pushing defensive end John Franklin-Myers to the outside, off the left tackle. At the snap, Bonitto dropped back into coverage, leaving only three Broncos to rush while eight defenders accounted for six available targets. Baker Mayfield, who originally wanted to throw over the middle to pick up the first down, instead threw an out route for Mike Evans, who was well-covered underneath by Ja’Quan McMillian after initially being pressed at the line of scrimmage by cornerback Pat Surtain II. It all created a confusing read for Mayfield as he threw a ball for Evans near the sideline that was easily intercepted by Brandon Jones.
In the second quarter against the Pittsburgh Steelers in Week 2, the Broncos lined up in what looked like a five-man pressure, with Allen, D.J. Jones and Jordan Jackson lined up inside and Bonitto and fellow edge rusher Jonathon Cooper lined up outside. At the snap, Cooper and Bonitto briefly engaged with the tackles assigned to block them but then quickly dropped into coverage. The move not only paused Steelers quarterback Justin Fields as he surveyed the coverage but also confused Pittsburgh’s offensive linemen. Allen seized on a brief pause by Pittsburgh tackle Dan Moore Jr. and caught Fields from behind for a 1-yard loss.
When Joseph and the rest of the Broncos’ staff self-scouted the defense at the end of last season, they diagnosed a need to be more deceptive. It was a personnel issue as much as a play-calling one. Head coach Sean Payton laid out one aspect of the plan during the league meetings in Orlando in March when he explained what the Broncos were trying to do at safety after re-signing Locke and adding Brandon Jones. They were set to replace the longtime tandem of Justin Simmons and Kareem Jackson in Denver’s defensive backfield.
“There will be some flexibility with (Brandon Jones), P.J. and the other guys competing in that room,” Payton said. “The flexibility of playing right and left, maybe more so than designated as strong or free, that was important. (Jones is) really athletic and a guy that — it was a little different approach this year, but a guy that was one of our targets.”
The vision of being interchangeable at the position has manifested over five weeks. The Broncos have used both players as pass rushers on blitzes resulting in sacks. Against Tampa Bay, Brandon Jones dropped into the box on a first-down play in the third quarter and screamed off the right edge. Running back Rachaad White picked up the blitz from Jones, but when Franklin-Myers immediately beat rookie center Graham Barton at the snap, Mayfield had nowhere to escape the interior pressure. Locke’s sack came in the fourth quarter against the New York Jets in Week 4 when he came clean off the left edge to drop Rodgers — another example of Joseph causing confusion with his mixed fronts.
“We have a really good feel for how each other play and where the other is going to be,” Brandon Jones said of the partnership with Locke, who was also his college teammate at the University of Texas. “It’s been really good. Me and P.J., we know what each other are good at and what each other could potentially need help on. Our flexibility with us being able to do a lot of the same things, we don’t really classify ourselves as somebody being the free safety and somebody being the strong safety. We’re left and right. Whatever happens on the left, I’ll do. Whatever happens on the right, he does. Having that flexibility and being able to do stuff like that really grows your game as a player.”
The blitz by Jones highlighted another aspect of Joseph’s successful game-plan designs this season. By forcing White to pick up the blitz on an early down play, the Broncos had essentially cut off Mayfield’s safety valve. When Franklin-Myers won his matchup, there was nowhere else for Mayfield to go. Payton credited Joseph and the defensive staff this week for the way they have identified tendencies like those and incorporated them into their weekly plans.
“You have to cover up those first two seconds (of a play),” said Ryan Harris, an offensive tackle on the Broncos’ Super Bowl-winning team in 2015 who now works as an NFL analyst with Westwood One Radio. “If you’re blitzing like that, you don’t have to be perfect in coverage. But if you’re taking the hot route away and the quarterback doesn’t have it, that’s when the sacks happen. So you just have to shut off that hot route, and that’s where you can see Vance Joseph the most. He’s been able to teach a variety of young players how to cut off those hot-route throws to let the defensive lineman or the blitzer get there.”
The success of Denver’s defense isn’t just a product of artificial pressure. The Broncos rank eighth in pressure rate (35.9 percent) and third in sack rate (10.3 percent) when sending four or fewer pass rushers. All three of Denver’s sacks against the Raiders came out of a four-man rush. It’s a testament to the personnel additions the Broncos made this offseason. Malcolm Roach and Franklin-Myers have been major upgrades alongside Allen and D.J. Jones. Outside linebacker Jonah Elliss (1 1/2 sacks) has made an early impact. The Broncos have developed Jordan Jackson into a key piece on the interior.
Allen is amid a career year. He leads all defensive tackles with 27 pressures, and his three sacks in five games put him on pace to far exceed his current career high of 5 1/2 in a season. Allen during training camp predicted the personnel additions up front, a more attacking one-gap scheme and Joseph’s continuity with the defense’s personnel would provide a good environment for Denver’s defensive front to blossom in, and that’s how it has materialized.
“We have five guys up front who can all win one-on-ones, and that helps you be able to be aggressive,” Joseph said, “especially on base downs.”
The wins come easier when the secondary is playing well, and that’s been an important part of Denver’s early success defensively. Riley Moss, in his first season as a defensive starter, has been a revelation at cornerback opposite Surtain, who has continued to play at an all-world level. Harris noted that Moss’ first interception, which he made Sunday off Gardner Minshew, came on a play similar to the one on which he drew a pass-interference call late against the Jets. It was a play in which the Broncos appeared to feign a blitz up the middle but then backed out, covering up a potential hot route in the flat and tempting Minshew to challenge Moss deep.
That first career INT feeling 🤩 @R_moss5
📺: #LVvsDEN on FOX
📱: https://t.co/waVpO909ge pic.twitter.com/xP7lZAN0Zs— NFL (@NFL) October 6, 2024
“The confidence you give your defense from the successful blitzes can turn into a myriad of things as the season goes on,” Harris said. “Maybe you don’t blitz for a couple weeks. Or maybe you’ve shown blitzing P.J. Locke off one edge and now you bring him off the other edge three weeks later. It gives so much confidence and so much capability to a defense.”
It’s all part of the confusing picture Joseph and the Broncos are painting for opponents.
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(Photo of Zach Allen and Nik Bonitto sacking Baker Mayfield: Kevin Sabitus / Getty Images)
