Denver Broncos: Small Adjustments Can Make Big Differences On Defense
By Carl Dumler
The Broncos defense has struggled early in games so far this season. Some early adjustments to the scheme could pay off big time to our season’s success.
This past week in an interview Jon Gruden was asked what the Broncos could do to stop early game struggles on the defensive side of the ball. His answer was one that has been repeated by many and might not be completely wrong in he thinks the Broncos need to play more zone defense.
Wade Phillips was asked what he thought about those comments and his response was what you would expect from him in “Jon Gruden hasn’t coached in a while, has he?”
So then heading into this game against Houston what really is the answer to getting this defense on track earlier in games? There are many areas that we could look at and point the finger for the problems.
We could look at the execution of the plays that have been called where some of our guys have tried to do too much early in games and have left open holes that they abandoned. Another area that I’m sure they have talked about is communication problems.
Today though I want to take this idea of the zone vs. man concept and actually say that both Gruden and Phillips can be right to fix some early game struggles.
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The past two games teams have used two very distinct formations to beat our defense. They have used what is called the bunch formation and then what I would consider a “big” formation. Bunch formation is where you stack WR’s close together to one side of the ball.
The “big” formation is where teams are either bringing in extra OL or trying to go 2-TE type sets. Even in the bunch formation many of times teams have left 2-TE’s on the field.
There are two main things teams are trying to do with these types of setups.
One is keep Todd Davis on the field and Bradley Roby on the sideline giving them more favorable match ups in the pass game and two trying to find ways to bring about confusion towards our man coverage.
The question then becomes what can we do to counter some of this? Well as I hinted at earlier that both Gruden and Phillips could both be right let me explain.
To especially help in the bunch formation part of the equation what the Broncos could do is play what is called a “Box” formation.
What this means is they are playing a zone concept of four players to that side of the field with each of them having responsibility for a certain part of that side of the field. At the same time though you are playing a man coverage concept of whoever comes into your zone you are locking onto them in man coverage at that point.
What this helps with is keeping teams from being able to do a pick on a defender and gives us a much more favorable match up on those deep routes because we would most likely have the corner to that side of the field taking that route.
So no more having Todd Davis trying to cover a RB that can run a 4.3 forty down the sideline.
Another great advantage to this type of play call against those bunch formations is it keeps the QB from having a WR/RB/TE get open quickly allowing for our pass rush to have a greater chance of getting home.
Now this is just one concept among many that I’m sure the Broncos have talked about during this extended time off to try and right the ship.
What is great with being a Bronco fan and just knowing the intelligence/leadership of this team I have no doubt that they will right the ship and remind the league once again why we are the defending Super Bowl Champions.