The question seems absurd, right?
The Super Bowl 50 Champion Denver Broncos are coming off a remarkable, historic, dominating season on defense. They harassed opponents all regular season and thumped arguably three of the league’s best quarterbacks in order to carry the squad to glory.
For a quick recap or if you were living under a rock last season here it is: The Broncos finished No. 1 in sacks, total defense, pass defense, finished third in run defense, fourth in scoring and also scored six total touchdowns. It was nearly unbelievable they way they punished opponents from every angle weekly and their playoff run was equally impressive, recording 14 sacks and holding three top-five offenses to nearly half of their 2015 averaging point totals but according to the returning defensive players, they expect to be even better in 2016.
“Just be better than last year,” T.J. Ward simply stated the team’s enormous goal May 9. “That’s what we want to do. Be better than last year. We were learning the defense coming in and it’s so much easier coming in that second year when you already have the defensive plays and you know what you’re doing. It’s like right now, it’s [repetitive] for us. The rookies need to hear it. We’re light years ahead of where we were last year.”
The impressive display the Broncos defense put on in 2015 will be nearly impossible to repeat or exceed but there are some encouraging factors at play early. The biggest one is that despite the highly publicized exodus of free agent Broncos in the offseason, they are returning nine starters on defense, 10 if you include Bradley Roby like the Broncos do (four career starts in two seasons). Ward detailed the three areas he believes the team can instantly get better.
Ward detailed the three areas he believes the team can instantly get better.
“I think we can get more interceptions and make bigger plays on interceptions,” he said. “We want to get our missed tackles down and less mental errors. Play the defenses the way they’re supposed to be played at all times. Knock out some of the mental errors; I think those are the three biggest things we can all get better at.”
The Broncos did combine for 34 takeaways total but had just 14 interceptions in the regular season, ranking 13th in the NFL.
As for the missed tackles, Ward seems to be self-deprecating. The Broncos were extremely sure tacklers, for the most part, allowing just one 100-yard rusher (Jamaal Charles in week two) and only five runs of over 20 yards during all 19 games. They did allow a few big plays to which Ward might be referring to as “mental mistakes”. They allowed 18 plays of over 30 yards in the passing game and one 48-yard touchdown run by Adrian Peterson for a touchdown, after bottling him up all game.
When you dominate in so many categories you have to find a reason for improvement and Ward and other Broncos are doing just that.
“We’ve watched missed opportunities, and we could have had even more picks than what we had,” Chris Harris Jr. said on April 20 of his units 2016 immediate goals. “That’s something that we’re focusing on. It’s so hard. We were No. 1 in so many categories.”
The strengths of the defense were certainly the pass rush and the physical man-coverage of the secondary. Both of those units are returning all of the intended weekly starters. In the defensive backfield the starters of every game at each four positions, except the two games David Bruton Jr. filled in, are already watching film and self-critiquing. With Bradley Roby a year wiser and Pro-Bowlers Harris Jr., Talib, and Ward back to join Darian Stewart, there is no reason to believe there will be any let down.
“We’re very confident that we’ll be better this year,” Roby said Wednesday. “We’re going to try harder. Another year with our coaches. We know the defense a little bit better. We had a lot of mistakes. We just watched film 10 minutes ago of mistakes that we were making in games that made it closer than it should’ve been. I think we’ll be a lot better this year.”
Nine-year veteran Aqib Talib echoed his fellow cornerback’s statements and likes the familiarity he returned to this spring.
“Just to come in and know how our offseason is going to go and know how phase one and phase two of OTAs [are going to go],” he noted. “Just knowing our schedule and how Coach ‘Kub’ runs the building, it’s always nice to have the same D-Coordinator (Wade Phillips), the same situation when you come back in,” he said April 18.
The pass rush of Von Miller, DeMarcus Ware, Shane Ray and Shaquil Barrett is entirely back and healthy. Ray and Ware went down with injuries during the season but have recently claimed to be in great shape. Miller, the Super Bowl 50 MVP and all-around offseason MVP of the NFL, is primed for another great season. The catalyst certainly is how offenses will adjust a season later, but if they bring more attention to Miller, Ware and the two young upstarts will be more than ready to take advantage. Whether or not Ware misses time due to age or injury, his leadership will be paramount.
“I told them you can use your athleticism to a certain point, but when you can think about the mental aspects of the game—the fundamentals, the techniques—that’s what is going to get you over the top,” Ware said April 25. “I think that’s how those guys will mature this year, and they have another whole year with me and Von [Miller] and all of us together. I think it’s going to be a better year than we had last year.”
The biggest question marks will certainly be the losses of Danny Trevathan and Malik Jackson. Both played extremely well in 2015, playing 67.2 percent and 75.2 percent of regular season defensive snaps, respectively, and started all but one game (Trevathan missed week 14).
“[Those] two played with their hair on fire. I love those guys,” Harris said of his now former teammates. “The way they played, the mentality they brought to the field, they’re definitely going to be missed. I think Todd [Davis]—one game one of the linebackers was hurt and he came in and filled the role last year—I feel comfortable with what he can do in there and with everybody else on the D-Line to be able to pick up the slack.”
That is the mystery. If Davis, Corey Nelson and Zaire Anderson can make lengthy strides in their play and the additions Jared Crick and Adam Gotsis can join Kenny Anunike and Vance Walker to replace Jackson on the inside of the defensive line the team’s high 2016 expectations may be attainable.
The impressive 2015-16 season of the Broncos can never be truly duplicated but certainly their swagger is fully intact. Maybe that is the most important thing returning with all the talent as an amazing defense tries to do the impossible.
“Alright, we’ll see. Just like last year. We showed them last year, we’re just going to keep getting better and do what we do this year,” Roby said with a smile before turning serious Wednesday. “We played well last year and definitely were one of the best ever last year, but there is definitely another level for this defense for sure.”
