The Denver Broncos have an opportunity to make their best unit — the defense — even better through a deep free agent class…
In a season that ran on the fumes of its glorious predecessor, Denver’s 2016 campaign fell on its face in a flash after a rosy 4-0 start. For all their deficiencies as a collective of personnel groupings and coaches, the Broncos’ defense supplied a performance worthy of a Super Bowl repeat nonetheless.
What’s remarkable is how they can feasibly top themselves in 2017 with the right free agent reinforcements along the defensive line.
In 2015, Von Miller and the “No Fly Zone” All-Stars reigned supreme with the league’s top-ranked defense and a world championship forged out of their blood, sweat, and tears. Total regular season points allowed in those halcyon days? 296.
Total regular season points allowed in 2016, the year of the damned? 297 (18.6 points per game).
Denver’s already flawed offense regressed even further last season under two inexperienced quarterbacks and a beleaguered offensive line that produced the NFL’s second-worst conversion rate on third down–among half a dozen other significant ills that routinely brought Riley Dixon onto the field of play. The offense’s issues are written in stone at this point because they’re the team’s weakest link by a mile; so perhaps it’s sexier for the time being to highlight how an already great, championship-caliber defense can go about improving itself in the year ahead.
The No Fly Zone once again handled its business last year by flexing the NFL’s top-ranked unit against the pass. But would you believe that Denver’s run-defense plummeted from 3rd-best in 2015 to 5th-worst in 2016? Oddly enough, the free agent departures of defensive end Malik Jackson and inside linebacker Danny Trevathan weren’t drastic enough to dissuade Pro Football Focus from rating the team’s front seven as the league’s best entering the season.
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The task of stuffing the run to that level became even more challenging with the news of Vance Walker’s season-ending ACL tear at training camp in mid-August. Walker is among Denver’s nine unrestricted free agents this year, and all signs indicate the Broncos wish to resign him. The 6’2, 295 pound veteran earned $2.25 million last season and will turn 29 in late-April.
Getting Walker back in the trenches should help Denver’s cause stopping rushers at the line of scrimmage, but since the Broncos again figure to be aggressive in free agency with approximately $40 million in cap space, it seems inevitable that GM John Elway will be able to land at least one premiere defensive end or tackle when the free agent market opens up on March 9.
It essentially feels like an exercise in childlike fantasy to imagine the Broncos becoming any better on defense. Still, there’s ample room to improve; and the conversation starts and ends on the defensive line when the opposition thinks better of “flying” into Denver’s foreboding airspace.
The Broncos can, and will, improve themselves on defense this offseason. They have the money and the prestige to do so. More importantly, they NEED to improve in any way possible if they intend on challenging those insufferable New England Patriots for AFC supremacy. Denver allowed 15 rushing touchdowns in 2016 to New England’s 6.
John Elway knows this.
So let’s take a look at defensive lineman the Broncos may target in free agency next month.