Denver Broncos take upside shot on DL Timmy Jernigan

The Denver Broncos are taking a shot on free agent DL Timmy Jernigan.

The Denver Broncos needed some defensive line depth with the season-ending injury suffered by big 2020 offseason acquisition Jurrell Casey, and they have reportedly added recently released Timmy Jernigan to the fold.

Brandon is right about one thing — the Broncos are in desperate need of defensive line help.

In particular, the Broncos need some help in the pass rush department on the defensive line, and thankfully, that’s been Jernigan’s specialty throughout his NFL career.

Shortly after it was reported that Casey was going to miss the remainder of the 2020 season with a biceps injury, I put together a list of five defensive linemen who could potentially replace him. Jernigan was released from the Jaguars shortly after that post was published, otherwise he would have undoubtedly been on the list.

I wrote about bringing in Jernigan in March before he ended up signing with the Jacksonville Jaguars, and a number of other times before that dating back to when he was a draft prospect out of Florida State in 2014.

He proved early in his NFL career that he could be a productive pass rusher with 15.5 sacks and 43 quarterback hits in his first four NFL seasons between the Baltimore Ravens and Philadelphia Eagles.

Jernigan helped the Eagles win Super Bowl 52 as one of their many talented defensive linemen that season, and unfortunately missed all but three games of the following season due to injury.

In 2019, Jernigan got back in the Eagles’ rotation for 10 games but only played 274 snaps. He still managed a pair of sacks.

With the Jaguars in 2020, Jernigan appeared in all three games this season with 54 snaps and one pressure on the quarterback.

Even though it’s odd and even alarming to see a player with Jernigan’s pedigree get cut three games into a season, Jaguars fans and pundits all seem fairly surprised the team made this move to go younger at the position and are more surprised the team didn’t part ways with former first-round pick Taven Bryan, who has not impressed.

Jernigan could be a really great in-season pickup for the Denver Broncos after the loss of Jurrell Casey. With second-year player Dre’Mont Jones on the mend for a couple more weeks and DeMarcus Walker also expected to return from IR, the pickup of Jernigan could leave the Broncos pretty deep on the defensive line as the 2020 season progresses.

He just played last Thursday night for the Jaguars against the Miami Dolphins, and could be in line to play some snaps as soon as Thursday night for the Denver Broncos as well. The Broncos really need bodies up front defensively right now, and Jernigan is more game-ready to go out there and just get after the QB than practice squad player Deyon Sizer.

Kudos to the Broncos for acting quickly when Jernigan was let go on September 28th.