Derek Wolfe explains the critical difference between the 2019 Broncos and the teams that preceded them

ENGLEWOOD, Colo. — New year, new you.

The Broncos desperately hope this saying holds true for them in 2019. But truth be told, that won’t officially be known until Sept. 9 under the spotlight of Monday Night Football.

However, there’s already one aspect of the team that’s different from what’s been stinkin’ up the town the last few years.

“We care about each other,” Derek Wolfe said on Friday after practice with his shoulders back and a smile nearly plastered on his face. “That’s the one thing that I will tell you guys is different—the team chemistry is a lot better than what it was in the last two years. We really care about each other, man.”

Through two days of camp, there’s hasn’t been a single fight. Wolfe joked that usually in the first two days of training camp he’s already dropped the gloves a couple of times.

But not this year. Instead, it’s been the opposite.

“We’re out there, and it’s 100 degrees, and you’re getting ready to go for five plays straight in practice and it’s like ‘I’ve done this like three times today, I’m dead,’ and you’ve got guys picking each other up saying ‘Hey, it’s going to be good. Come on, let’s go, let’s go, let’s go,’” Wolfe explained with passion. “We didn’t really have that last year—the last two years, really.”

As he often likes to tell us, Derek’s not going to throw B.S. around. In fact, he admitted he and the entire team were just as confident in Case Keenum and the 2018 Broncos one year ago as they are for Joe Flacco, Vic Fangio, and the 2019 squad.

“This job is too hard to come out here and not really believe that you’re going to go and win,” Wolfe said. “We really believed [in] last year. Just like we really believe that this year. That Joe Flacco’s going to come in and control that offense. Just like we believe Vic Fangio’s going to come in and command this team. And that’s happening already. We have a really good winning formula here. The little things are being done right.”

A change that’s easier to spot—yet Wolfe would argue is harder to detect—is the alignment and pre-snap indications from the defense.

Multiple players have indicated that last year opposing offenses knew what Denver’s defense was going to do by the way they lined up. Despite that, the coaching staff didn’t change things up to avoid this.

This year, however, Fangio’s not going to stand pat.

“That kind of got monotonous last year where it was like the offensive line just kind of knew where I was going to line up,” Wolfe said, frustrated. “It makes your job hard. When you got two 300-plus-pound dudes that know what you’re doing, then it’s like ‘Good luck. It’s going to be a long day.’ [Now we’re] moving around a little bit more and misdirection stuff.”

That, along with the secret nitty-gritty details of the defense that Wolfe can’t divulge to the public, is why Wolfe is falling for the new defense Fangio brought to town.

“I’m not bullshitting you guys when I say I love this defense,” he said passionately. “I really love playing in this defense. I’m not just trying to get clickbait out there. I really do love playing in this defense. I think we have a winning formula, I think we have a great head coach. I think he has a great team around him as far as assistant coaches go. I think we have a really talented team.”

With all of the love for the defensive scheme, mixed with the superb talent on that side of the ball, Wolfe, as he usually feels at this time of the year, believes there’s not another team that will stop the Broncos.

“It’s really in our hands. It doesn’t matter what anyone else does; it matters what we do,” he said. “If we do what we’re supposed to do, I think we get back to going to the playoffs, I think we get back to wanting to win Super Bowls. It’s not hopefully we make the playoffs this year, hopefully we win six games this year. No, we want to win 10 games, go to the playoffs and win a Super Bowl.”