Denver Broncos: Not much rotation happening defensively so far

The Denver Broncos have been beaten by a couple of long, methodical drives and a very conservative opposition offensively. Could rotation on defense help?

Vic Fangio has brought plenty of ‘new’ to the Denver Broncos already in 2019.

Although the team is unfortunately 0-2, Fangio’s straightforward approach to football and the aggressiveness he’s shown coaching a meaningless preseason game with a kidney stone and then showing off the stones to go for two fourth-down plays and a two-point conversion on a potential game-winning drive last week against the Chicago Bears.

Unfortunately, the defense couldn’t get a rush on the final drive of the game, and the Chicago Bears stole a win in Denver on the Broncos’ home field, the newly titled Empower Field at Mile High.

Ironically, the only ones being ’empowered’ on the Broncos’ defense are the starters, at least for the most part. Are you ready for a pretty staggering statistic, even through just two games?

The Broncos have 116 defensive snaps in two games to be multiplied by 11 players. That equals out to 1,276 snaps in total.

Of those 1,276 snaps, 1,198 have been taken by just 12 guys. That equals out to 93.9 percent of this year’s defensive snaps being played by the same 10 guys with the 11th guy being rotated between Adam Gotsis, DeMarcus Walker, and a couple of other defensive linemen.

Eight players on the Broncos’ defense have played more than 85 percent of the snaps so far this season, including Von Miller, who ranks sixth on the team with 111 snaps in two games.

In 2018, Miller played under 79 percent of the defensive snaps but still averaged about 53 per game. In 2019, he’s played over 95 percent and is averaging 56.

So it’s not necessarily the number of snaps guys like Miller and Bradley Chubb and others in this Broncos defense are playing, it’s the percentage.

The Broncos have the third-worst defense so far this season in opponent time of possession (3:19 per drive). The fact that the Broncos’ offense actually leads the NFL in that particular category (3:33 per drive) has to be the main contributing factor to Fangio keeping his defense mainly intact throughout the game.

The Broncos lead the NFL in time and plays per drive offensively. They are fifth in the league in yards per drive. They are doing a great job of moving the football and keeping the defense fresh, but then the defense is getting out on the field and surrendering longer drives in return, not doing themselves or the offense any favors.

Fangio has noted on a couple of occasions that if you can have your best guys out there, you should, but are the Broncos not rotating enough in general?

Should they be giving guys like Justin Hollins and Malik Reed more than 12 combined snaps in two games?

Should backup cornerback De’Vante Bausby be getting some snaps? I think so, but it’s not happening.

With a lack of interior pass rush, should Dre’Mont Jones and DeMarcus Walker be getting more snaps?

I would say so.

It doesn’t need to be overdone, and Vic Fangio certainly knows what’s best in this regard. He’s a great defensive coach and he knows what his players are capable of.

But if there’s ever a time for these guys to get out on the field, maybe the Broncos’ coaching staff needs to do a better job of getting some sub-packages involved in the gameplan.

I’m not going to say they have to do anything, but this is a pretty significant difference from last year defensively and worth noting at this point. We should be paying attention to how Fangio is using these guys.

That will obviously change with players like Todd Davis and Bryce Callahan coming back from injuries, but it looks like Fangio is going to use his top guys as often as he possibly can.