How Joe Woods plans to take his defense to "level two" in 2018

ENGLEWOOD, Colo. — Joe Woods “dreams came true” on draft night.

When the Cleveland Browns passed on Bradley Chubb — immediately followed by the Denver Broncos selecting the talented pass rusher — the second-year defensive coordinator “almost passed out” due to excitement.

Shortly after, however, he began creating “level two” of his defense.

“There are some more things we’re going to add to the defense. We actually had a little plan in mind if we were to get Bradley Chubb, so it worked out,” Woods said on Thursday, after the team’s sixth OTA practice. “There’s some different things we’re going to do with our front to take advantage of [Chubb] and Von and all of our pass rushers.”

In the months leading up to April’s draft, Woods only dreamed about the possibilities of a Chubb-Miller defense. Now, he’s not only putting his new ideas to paper, he’s seeing it on the field in the team’s offseason workouts.

What was just a “level one” defense last year, now has more layers to it.

“I thought we got creative last year,” Woods opened up about his first-year defense. “The problem — you have to make sure when you do things to be creative — obviously to move Von around — sometimes it creates issues. [The offense] says, ‘He’s always over there, you know he’s [blitzing].’”

“The thing I want to do this year is — we’ve added some more pressures, we’ve added some different packages — I just want to create more balance so they can’t always say, ‘[Von’s] over here. He’s always [blitzing].’”

That’s where Chubb — the 6-foot-4, 269-pound freak athlete — comes in.

“Obviously, he’s big, he’s strong, he’s athletic, he can run, and he is extremely smart,” Woods said, after complimenting Chubb’s great character. “Not surprised with it, but he has picked up this defense extremely fast, and he has versatility. Right now, we’re playing him at the Sam linebacker position, but our outside linebackers are interchangeable. He can play some defensive end for us, as well. It’s going really well so far.”

In Denver’s defense, Chubb will stand up as an outside linebacker when the team is in their base 3-4 defense — about 35 percent of the time — and he will have his hand in the dirt as a defensive end the rest of the time when the team is in their sub packages.

In Chubb, Woods got the ultimate versatile player. A player he hopes is the final piece of the puzzle to keep opposing teams from solely keying in on No. 58.

“Now they have to respect all of our rushers — [Von], Chubb, Shane Ray and Shaq [Barrett],” Woods stated. “Sometimes [Von’s] coming and sometimes he may not be coming.”

Over the past two years, while many don’t want to admit it, the numbers would indicate Denver’s dominant pass rush has come back to earth. After leading the league with 52 sacks in their 2015 Super Bowl season, Denver only compiled 33 sacks last year, dropping them from third-best in 2016 to 22nd in 2017.

Now, with the addition of Chubb, and the many other pass rushers on the team, Woods hopes the “Astronaut,” as Chubb calls himself, will take the pass rush back into orbit as the best in the league.

With four outside linebackers capable of starting on most teams around the league, and a defensive line stacked with pass rushing talent — including Derek Wolfe, Shelby Harris and Clinton McDonald — the Broncos’ defensive coordinator has a “great problem” on his hands of figuring out how to get all of that talent on the field.

“To us, we want to send waves of bodies at people,” Woods said, trying to hold back a smile. “If it’s 30-35 plays and they’re splitting the reps, but they’re going all out in the first quarter, second quarter, third quarter, fourth quarter, that’s great for us. It’s not really going to affect their reps. I just think we can put more of them on the field at the same time.”

Along with Chubb showing promise through the team’s first two weeks of OTAs, former second-round pick DeMarcus Walker has also caught the attention of many players and coaches in the organization.

After a disappointing rookie season — in which he was bounced around from outside linebacker to defensive end — the nation’s second-leading sacker in 2016, his final year of college, bulked up to 278 pounds this offseason to become a full-time lineman. He drew high praise from his coordinator on Thursday: “He’s really making some tremendous improvements.”

It’s not just on the field where the defense will be different. Off the field, in the meeting rooms, Woods has shaken it up.

The team now has meetings involving all of the front-line personnel in dime packages in order to have all of the pass rushers in one room on the same page before then breaking up into individual positional group meetings.

“It’s better, the way we’re doing it now.”