Meet Me at the Quarterback - Why Are the Broncos so Good at This?
By Lee Wakefield
In the most recent edition of Meet Me at the Quarterback, I gave my top-10 ranking of pass rushers throughout the league. This week, I’m going to focus on one of the top pass-rushing units in the league, because, since beginning this weekly piece, I’ve focused entirely on individual performances, metrics, and accolades. Still, pass-rushing, at its best, is a group activity. When a group of four or five guys (or if you’re Brian Flores, six or seven guys) are working in perfect harmony, executing the calls of a defensive play-caller who knows how to deploy the pieces at his disposal, it’s closer to poetry.
So what I want to focus on today is one of a group who has the best choreography. A group who can provide the kind of cinema that I’m talking about on the most regular basis. As the season goes on, I could do another deep dive or two on these sorts of units but today we focus on the 6-2 Denver Broncos. The top units contain some of the best players in the league, some of the guys who featured in my top-10 ranking, but I want to shine a light on what I consider the very best in the league right now, and a team who are thriving when it comes to taking down opposing QBs.
Let’s Talk About Sacks, Baby
When I write these articles each week, I give my opinions, and in order to add some context, I like to drop in some stats. When looking at individual performances over the course of the season, or even from season to season, I like to look at pressures first and foremost. Pressures are less volatile than sacks over a larger sample size; they show up on the game film and affect the QB in multiple ways, beyond just that singular play where the sack occurred.
I think that pressures are king, sacks are secondary, and that sacks aren’t always equal because of pressures that came come from elsewhere and not just the guy who gets the headline. After that, I like to look at time to sack and pass rush win rate for further context, but above all, it’s watching the film and watching these guys perform.
However, despite all of that, the Denver Broncos, who lead the NFL in sacks by a wide margin, are my number one pass-rushing team in the NFL.
Through eight weeks of the season, Denver has 36 sacks. The next best team, the Los Angeles Rams have 26. Ten more through eight weeks. More than one splash play per week more than the Rams, who are also an exceptional rushing team.
Incredible work.
This is the sort of driving force that a defensive unit needs when the team doesn’t possess an elite QB, or even an elite offense in general.
We might quibble about the how, but the Broncos are flying at the moment. They are 6-2, are top of the AFC West, and some might argue a weird loss against the Colts from the best record in the league.
The Personnel
How does Denver do this?
Quite simply, they have a deep group of very talented defensive linemen, and they pair that with a defensive coordinator in Vance Joseph, who is aggressive and deploys his resources in a way that gets the best out of those players.
Nik Bonitto has ascended into one of the best pass rushers in the league. Firmly in the top-5 of the aforementioned top-10 list. His running mate, Jonathan Cooper, is perhaps the best pass rusher that nobody talks about.
Yes, I did say that was Nick Herbig, but I did mention him; nobody else beyond Broncos Twitter is really talking about Jonathan Cooper.
In fact, Cooper has a better pass-rush win rate in true pass sets than his more esteemed colleague, Bonitto. Cooper wins at a rate of 23.8%, with Bonitto at 18.9%. The best duo in the league? They’ve got a good case.
In addition to the top two guys, they have Jonah Elliiss behind them as a backup edge, and then on the interior, they have Zach Allen. As NFL fans, we really need to be paying more attention to Zach Allen
Since arriving in Denver, Allen has become one of the better interior rushers in the league. He’s got the versatility to play outside, too, and give Vance Joseph more ways to get your QB on the ground. Allen leads the league in QB hits with 16 – Those add up, ask any quarterback. They might not affect the throw on that occasion, but to passers they add up.
With three guys, Bonitto (10), Cooper (7), and Allen (5), the Broncos possess three of the best sack artists in the league. Then to that mix, we add in Elliss and John Franklin-Myers, who, as an interior rusher, has four sacks of his own.
Denver has built a defensive line ecosystem where not only does everybody eat, but it’s an all-you-can-eat buffet.
Like I said though, it’s not just about sacks; we can look at pressures, where Denver’s big-three (Bonitto, Cooper, and Allen) have 97 pressures between them. Bonitto and Cooper have 33 each, with Allen at 31. All of this culminates in a constant barrage of pressure from all sides; there is no escape, and as an offense, you have to expect it whilst finding ways to mitigate the damage. Although that’s easier said than done.
Not only do the Broncos have exceptional frontline starters who are difference-makers, but the role players behind them can also come up big in moments, too.
Of the twelve interior defensive linemen and edge defenders that the Broncos list on their active 53-man roster, nine of them have at least one sack. Then we can throw in linebacker, Justin Strnad, who has three sacks (12 pressures, fourth-best on the team), and defensive backs Brandon Jones and Talanoa Hufanga are involved in the rush too. Both of these safeties have a sack and four pressures each as they’re sprinkled into the rush plan with Hufanga in particular playing a key role that’s bigger than the box score.
How Does Joseph Do It?
The first thing that jumps out is that he’s learned and evolved.
Darwinism exists in a big way in the NFL when it comes to coaching. If a coach doesn’t evolve his scheme, eventually the league will catch up, figure out the antidote to what’s being done to them, and results will go the other way, even if that scheme was initially very successful.
Take Sean McVay, his offense in LA with Jared Goff was different from what he ran once they acquired Matt Stafford. Then McVay, who is obviously one of the best offensive minds in the league, evolved again, and the offense that he’s running now has moved on from what it was at the start of Stafford’s time as QB.
Contrast that to what we see in Miami with McVay/Shanahan tree guy, Mike McDaniel. McDaniel was the next off the conveyor belt when he was hired to be the Dolphins’ Head Coach. He plotted an incredibly explosive offensive with speed all over the field, and now? People have figured it out, it’s gone stale, pieces have moved on without being replaced, and McDaniel hasn’t evolved the system to stay ahead of the competition.
This same thinking applies to Joseph, too. He’s had a long career in the league, and last year the Denver defense was excellent, and they had a lot of success that was driven by blitzing at a high rate. They led the league with 61 sacks by the end of the year, blitzing on 36.2% on snaps, with that number jumping to 42.4% on first and second down. In 2024, Joseph did not want teams in good down and distance situations, so he cranked up the pressure early.
This year, Joseph is still keeping the heat on opposing QBs, but that early down blitz rate is down to 32.2%, and overall, they only blitz at around a league-average rate.
Joseph can get away with that, not only because of the high-end pass rushers at his disposal but because he has defenders who are sticky in coverage (more of that in a moment) and because he uses Talanoa Hufanga’s aggressiveness to supplement that deep room of pass rushers.
Keeping Hufanga close to the line of scrimmage as much as possible and allowing him to play to his strengths – Which is coming downhill – means that he’s able to get into rush lanes and he’s a part of the games up front.
Because whilst Joseph has dialed down the blitz rate, he’s still employing a diverse array of exotic blitzes and throwing them at QBs.
The Key is the Marriage of Pass Rush and Pass Coverage
It’s all well and good having pass rushers who can get to the QB consistently, but opposing offensive coordinators have pesky quick passing game concepts to make it easier for the passer to get rid of the ball before the rush comes, as well as some other tactics, like having a really good offensive line. Although only a handful of teams seem to bother with that one at any given time.
Plus, the NFL has pesky rules that are tilted towards the offensive players in an attempt to make every game as points-heavy as possible. I’m not salty, honestly. Anyway, I digress…
So our defensive minded coaches need to pair a ferocious pass rush, with sticky coverage on the back end and hope that the linebackers aren’t complete liabilities at all times – The Broncos do somehow survive Alex Singleton in this regard, quite often.
Also, when you’ve been around the block as much as Joseph has, he knows when he roll out a little bit of deception to catch out a young QB too, as Jaxon Dart experienced last week.
I’m not going to go deep on pass coverage, it’s not what you’re here for in an article about pass rushers, but having Pat Surtain II and Riley Moss as starting outside corners, and then making another premium investment in the draft by taking Jahdae Barron in the first round, feels like a way to have a very good cornerback room. Is Pat Surtain the best outside corner in the league? Let me know your thoughts @Wakefield90 on twitter. Either way, he’ll certainly be a miss for the next 4-6 weeks as he’s out with a pectoral injury.
Joseph has always relied more and zone defense in recent weeks, something he’ll have to get used to without Surtain.
The job of the coverage unit is certainly made easier when the front end sacks the QB at a league-leading rate of 13.1% of the time, and with that in mind, don’t be shocked to see Joseph lean on his group of pass rushers with the team’s leading cornerback sidelined, and has a result that blitz rate creep up to 2024 levels for a short time.
The Final Word
Ultimately, the question is whether the team can keep it up, not only through the second half of the season, but also into the playoffs.
The AFC West is looking like it’s going to be an absolute bloodbath – When isn’t it? – with the Broncos holding a game lead over the Chargers and Chiefs at the time of writing. I feel like the Broncos are in a great position to go on and win the division, albeit that take is nowhere near to being written in ink in this division just yet.
However, as I mentioned it’s about the playoffs because at 6-2, that is looking like a strong possibility in terms of getting into the dance.
With Denver, they have a relatively recent history of winning it all under the power of a dominant defense to hark back to…
Lee Wakefield
NFL Content Lead
Lee Wakefield IS A defensive line enthusiast, Chargers Sufferer, and LONG-TIME writer and podcaster with a number of publications. @Wakefield90 on twitter/X.