Defensive coordinator Joe Woods admits free agent loss hurt Broncos last season

ENGLEWOOD, Colo. — Shortly after moving into his new corner office, just down the hall from his previous office, recently promoted defensive coordinator Joe Woods broke out the tape to find out why the Denver Broncos defense took a small step back, instead of a step forward, last season.

Although Woods coached the best secondary in the league last year, he wasn’t blinded by the shortcomings of the entire defense. On Tuesday, in the introductory press conference for the team’s new coordinators, Woods was blunt and straightforward with what Denver’s talented defense needs to improve on moving forward.

“That’s an obvious question; I’ll give you the obvious answer. Obviously, it’s the run game,” he said. “Last year was a little bit different for us in terms of how teams attacked us. Right now we are in the process of going through and looking at what we did last year, and the areas that we can improve and obviously run is one of those areas. We didn’t play that well defensively against the run.”

For any Broncos fan, or really anyone that casually followed Denver, Woods’ diagnosis of the defense’s weakness was spot on, and well, obvious. However, what may not be as clear, was how and why the run defense took such a giant leap back from 2015.

“When you look at those things at this time during the year it really comes down to defensive scheme, the execution of the scheme and the coaching of the scheme,” the new defensive coordinator said. “I just think that teams started playing us differently… We had some runs, we gave up some bigger runs, but once it starts raining they just keep bringing it, and that’s what we faced all year.”

In the championship season of 2015, Denver was the third-best team against the run, giving up an average of 83.6 yards per game. In 2016, they nearly took a complete 180-degree shift, falling to the fifth worst team against the run, giving up 130.3 yards on the ground.

While the scheme and execution potentially could have been better during the season itself, many people believed the biggest loss to the run defense came before the season even started in free agency. On Tuesday, Woods finally said what the rest of the Mile High City thought: Denver missed Derek Wolfe’s counterpart, Malik Jackson. When asked whether the Broncos missed Jackson against the run, Woods simply responded, “probably, that’s fair to say.”

That admission isn’t necessarily regret, though, once free agency opened last offseason, it was clear that Jackson’s number one priority was money, and understandably so. However, after the Jacksonville Jaguars put a contract on the table worth $90 million for five years, the Broncos were out of the running.

Along with losing Jackson last offseason, Denver’s defensive line actually had more turnover than they did continuity, losing Antonio Smith and Kenny Anunike as well as Vance Walker to injury during training camp. To fill the void of those four players, Denver added Billy Winn and Jared Crick in free agency, drafted Adam Gotsis in the second round and signed Kyle Peko as an undrafted free agent.

“We felt like we had to bring in Jared Crick, Gotsis—a kid we drafted—so we got a little thin at that position,” Woods said. “Just from an experienced standpoint, we weren’t where we were the previous year. This showed up as something we are going to address obviously this offseason.”

While Crick, Gotsis and the rest of the players on the defensive line will add another year of experience under their belt this offseason, the Broncos won’t wait for them to develop. According to Woods, they are going to make moves this offseason to help improve the run defense, specifically on the defensive line.

Whether these moves are high on the priority list—such as a high round draft pick or a high dollar free agent signing—or similar to the approach they took last year—low money free agents and developmental draft picks—remains to be seen. However, taking a close look at Woods’ comments would suggest Denver will lean more toward the former, rather than the latter.