Good morning, Broncos Country! We’ve got one more day to go before the Denver Broncos take the field against the Tennessee Titans in Week 1.
This week, defensive coordinator Vance Joseph was asked about the high expectations for the Broncos this season. The hype has been pretty strong for a team that struggled against the AFC’s elite last season, so they haven’t quite earned it.
Joseph kind of hinted at that and put the emphasis on the players needing to work hard to be good. Yet he definitely thinks
they should be good in 2025.
“It’s tricky because we should be good, but you have to work to be good. Defensively, we can’t punt. We can’t just go out there and play bad for two downs and then punt. We have to get them stopped. It’s different on defense. Obviously to be good, you have to have players and we do have players. We have a good scheme. Guys play hard. We have the right pieces in the right positions. In this league, every play matters. Someone can fall. Someone can miss a tackle. Now you go from giving up 21 to giving up 28. So it’s a fine line. It’s day-to-day, week-to-week. We talk about just doing our jobs and playing together, playing downhill on our terms, those things. Not really about expectations. Every team should have those. Every defense should have those. So we’re no different, but we get the media. We kind of ignore it because we have to. It’s silly to listen to that stuff because it’s hard on Sundays and we get that.”
This defense — on paper — just looks so damn good at every level. Even with Dre Greenlaw out this week, they look dangerously good. But as Joseph said, they must work to be good. They have to perform on every down or things won’t work out as nicely as the paper showed.
