The Broncos will report to training camp on July 27 and will conduct their first practice — with fans on hand — the next day. With that in mind, Nick Kosmider is putting together a seven-part series that looks at every aspect of the Broncos’ offseason roster. Next up: linebackers. You can view the entire series here.
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It didn’t take new Broncos general manager George Paton and coach Vic Fangio long to discover they shared a similar philosophy when it came to constructing a top-flight defense. Their roles may be different, but the vision is the same.
“In this league — Vic can tell you better than I can — you need pressure and you need cover players,” Paton said shortly after being hired by Denver earlier this year. “You look at the good defenses around the league, teams can rush the quarterback and teams can cover. That is going to be a priority here.”
The benefits of a rush-and-cover approach may be obvious, but achieving that balance in the NFL is becoming harder than ever. The ball is coming out quicker. There are more receivers on the field. And when you trail in games like Denver consistently has the past several seasons, effectively rushing the quarterback and playing tight enough coverage to force turnovers becomes an even more challenging tightrope act. It’s a major part of the reason only three teams have produced fewer takeaways the past two seasons than the Broncos’ 33.
To reverse the trend, there may be no more important group on Denver’s defense than the linebackers in Fangio’s 3-4 scheme. It is the group most responsible for putting the squeeze on the quarterback and for covering the tight ends and running backs opponents are utilizing as heavily as ever in the passing game.
Let’s start by examining the outside linebackers.
The most obvious reason for optimism with the group is the return of Von Miller, the 32-year-old, three-time first-team All-Pro who is back for his 11th season with the Broncos after missing all of 2020 with an ankle injury. Paton, in one of his first major decisions as general manager, opted in March to pick up the final-year option on the six-year, $114 million contract Miller signed in 2016. Miller’s 2021 cap number of $22.1 million is the third-highest in the league among edge rushers, according to Over The Cap.
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History would suggest producing the kind of raw numbers that befit that salary will be a challenge for the Broncos’ longest-tenured player.
Since 2010, there have been only 14 instances of a player who was 32 years or older at the start of the season registering more than 10 sacks, according to Sportradar, and none of those performances have occurred since 2018. Only three of the players on the aforementioned list tallied more than 12 sacks (Miller’s career average is 11.8 per season) at that age. And none of the players on either list missed the entire previous season due to injury, as Miller did in 2020. During Miller’s only season on the wrong side of 30 (2019), he produced eight sacks, the lowest full-season total of his career.
None of this is to say Miller can’t return to his 2018 form, when he tallied 14 1/2 sacks (second-highest total in his career) and formed one of the league’s best pass-rushing duos with then-rookie Bradley Chubb (12 sacks). He certainly isn’t lacking the necessary confidence.
“I’m still running around here beating everybody’s ass so I feel like, 30-what?” Miller said during OTAs. “Until I see otherwise, I’m going to keep doing it and I’m going to keep going.”
The Broncos may not need Miller to make an All-Pro team in order to benefit from his return. Denver in 2020 finished 10th in sack rate at 6.9 percent, but that was a number achieved in a fashion somewhat unnatural to Fangio. The Broncos blitzed on 29.1 percent of opponent passing plays last season, which was by far the highest rate for a Fangio-led defense during the past 10 seasons. The Broncos would prefer, particularly with their talent in the secondary, to send five or more rushers less frequently. This is where Miller’s presence can be critical, even if he doesn’t rack up eye-popping sack totals. If he can remain a magnet for double teams, Chubb and Malik Reed (team-high eight sacks in 2020) should find themselves in more advantageous play-making situations.
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The presence of Reed, the former undrafted linebacker out of Nevada entering his third season, is the biggest reason 2021 shouldn’t be viewed solely as the long-awaited return of the Miller-Chubb pairing. The Broncos essentially have three starters for the two positions. As Miller works the rust off after a lost season and Chubb eases back into the mix after undergoing minor ankle surgery in May, expect Reed to have a heavy workload in training camp and the preseason.
“Malik is just a special guy and he works extremely hard and it rubs off on me,” Miller said. “I think that’s the type of people I need to be around going into Year 11.”
If everything goes right, the Broncos could have one of the top three-man pass-rushing units in the league. What other team can boast a former Super Bowl MVP, a Pro Bowler and a No. 3 who has led his team in sacks? The depth behind the Miller-Chubb-Reed triumvirate, however, is a question mark. The Broncos last season kept four outside linebackers on their initial 53-man roster, and it’s a safe bet that will be the number after Denver’s final cuts in early September. The fight for that final spot likely will be waged between seventh-round rookie Jonathan Cooper out of Ohio State, undrafted free-agent Andre Mintze out of Vanderbilt and second-year player Derrek Tuszka, whose playing time as a rookie in 2020 after being drafted in the seventh round out of North Dakota State was largely limited to special teams.
“It’s wide open,” Fangio called the battle for depth spots after Denver’s top three. “We need to find another two guys that we feel comfortable with, both from a special teams standpoint and from a playing defense standpoint to go in and spell those guys. It’s wide open and we’re looking.”
At inside linebacker, the Broncos are hopeful the players who are expected to provide depth this season will also provide a major push to the presumed starters in training camp. Josey Jewell and Alexander Johnson were on the field for almost every defensive snap in 2020. The duo was solid, if not spectacular. Opponents completed 73.9 percent of their passes when targeting tight ends, the fourth-most successful rate in the league. The responsibility for lowering that figure — and the 8.4 yards per attempt when throwing to tight ends allowed by Denver’s defense (third-worst in the NFL) — certainly doesn’t fall to the inside linebackers alone, but it does highlight arguably the group’s biggest opportunity for improvement.
To that end, Jewell said he made it an offseason priority to enhance his short-area quickness “to be able to cover people within that 5-, 10-yard range which we usually get.” Johnson, meanwhile, said he’s made it a goal to better understand where his safety help is coming from so that he can “make the (receiver) go inside or make him go outside (depending) on different formations and coverages.”
Fangio issued a challenge to Johnson during OTAs to be a more “assignment- and technique-conscious” player.
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“At times, he can stray a little bit from the exact thing the coaches are telling him to do,” Fangio said. “You don’t want the guys that only do what the coaches say, and you don’t want the guys that don’t do what the coaches say. He’s leaning toward too much of the (latter) right now in his career. We’ve got to get him more dialed in. When he does, and when we find that happy medium, he’ll be a lot better.”
Read between the lines, and it’s clear Justin Strnad, a fifth-round pick in 2020 who missed all of his rookie season with a wrist injury, and Baron Browning, a third-round pick this year out of Ohio State, have a path toward significant playing time if either player can make a big impression during training camp. Browning, who played multiple positions with the Buckeyes, will likely begin his NFL career at inside linebacker, in part, because the Broncos believe his athleticism can make him strong in coverage. But Browning missed much of the spring due to a lower-leg injury, which could alter the way the Broncos decide to use him in camp, Fangio said.
“We’re still very high on him and very optimistic,” Fangio said. “Hopefully he’ll be able to carve out a role on the team, both defensively and (on special teams). I’m anxious to get him back working in training camp. I still like him all the same and he has versatility. He could play some outside for us and he could play some inside. We’d like to settle him in one spot, but we may not be able to, especially with the injury. We’ll see how that evolves.”
Strnad suffered his injury during the second week of training camp practices last year, so the on-field evaluation of his game at the NFL level has been limited. But there were glimpses during those practices last season — and again during OTAs — of a “very conscientious player,” Fangio said, who impressed the Broncos with his fluidity in coverage.
“He’s really like a rookie on the field, but he’s doing well,” Fangio said. “We like the way he moves, and we like his attitude. He wants to carve out a role for himself with the defense. It’ll be critical for him to be a mainstay on our special teams. Your backup linebackers have to do that. Overall, we’ve all been pleased with Justin and where he’s at. So far, he’s shown no ill side effects of the wrist injury he had. We’re going to try and be cautious with him in that regard. Eventually he’s going to have to use it and he has been. We think the future is bright for him.”
Jewell, Alexander, Browning and Strnad are near locks to be on the roster. Last season, the Broncos kept five inside linebackers on the initial 53-man squad, largely because of the impact veteran Joe Jones made on special teams. Jones joined the Buccaneers in free agency, potentially opening the door for another inside linebacker to make the team. Josh Watson, a third-year player out of Colorado State, played 39 percent of Denver’s special team snaps in 2020 and would figure to have an upper hand if the Broncos keep a fifth player at the spot. Another player to watch in that battle: Curtis Robinson. The Broncos signed the former Stanford captain as an undrafted free agent in May. He led the Cardinal with 44 tackles — including three for loss — in six games last season.
(Photo of Von Miller: David Zalubowski / Associated Press)
