In just a few days, the Denver Broncos will cap off their regular season hosting the Los Angeles Chargers in front of a hometown crowd at Empower Field. The atmosphere will be electric and no doubt fans
across Broncos Country are eager to watch their favorite team attempt to earn the #1 seed in the AFC for the playoffs.
While the Broncos have notched thirteen wins on the season, they haven’t always been pretty to watch. Most all of them have been close games. It’s been one heck of a rollercoaster ride. However, their penchant for fourth quarter heroics has revitalized a franchise that had lost their winning culture over the past decade of struggles.
Nevertheless, those marks in the win column tell a lot more about the grit and guts this team has than any style points ever could. Though that doesn’t mean there isn’t room for improvement with the postseason on the horizon. Earlier this week, Head Coach Sean Payton talked about some of the issues the Denver Broncos need to fix in order to finish the regular season strong and embark on a deep playoff run.
A few things came to mind, but above all else, Payton was adamant about wanting to see his defense come up with bigger plays—turnovers—in the coming weeks.
After yesterday’s practice, Defensive Coordinator Vance Joseph gave his thoughts on that issue. While he expressed a desire to create more turnovers and would love if that happened, he is pleased with other key metrics that his players have excelled at this season.
“You have to win the critical downs. That starts with stopping the run, winning third downs and red zone. I think we’re doing that,” stated Joseph who offered praise for what the defense has accomplished this season.
“The turnovers haven’t come. We have to coach that better obviously and strain more to create more turnovers. I want more, we need more turnovers, but we have to focus on playing the right way. That’s the first way.”
For most of the year, the Broncos’ defense has been disciplined outside the occasional missed coverage or an untimely and unfortunate pass interference penalty down the field. They’ve done a good job limiting explosive plays and teams are completing less than 59-percent of their passes against them. Through seventeen weeks, Denver is allowing less than 200 yards passing through the air. Both impressive marks.
Not only that, but Denver’s defense is the best in the NFL at getting sacks with 64 on the season. That’s eleven more than the next closest team in the NFL and a new franchise record. Most weeks, the front seven has done a great job getting pressure on rival signal callers. Turnovers would be nice, but stalling out drives and forcing three-and-outs due to that pressure have been a fixture of Denver’s defense throughout the year.
Truth be told, opposing quarterbacks have been getting the ball out very quickly. With that in mind, the Broncos’ secondary is rarely challenged deep or provided with a lot of opportunities to make plays on the ball. Nevertheless, Joseph is confident the turnovers will come but maintained that playing fundamentally sound football is more important to him.
“I think we will create more turnovers. How we play is aggressive. How we play is with good leverage, gap control, and it’s worked. I’m not going to chase turnovers. I want guys tackling. I want guys in great leverage. I want guys doing their job the right way,” Joseph remarked.
“I think it’s a fine line between chasing that and not playing good football. I think when you win third downs, that’s a turnover. We’re second in third downs. We’re second in red zone. For me that’s the critical parts of football and playing defense.”
