Denver Broncos: 7 most heated offseason position battles

6. Off-ball linebacker

The Denver Broncos’ incumbent starters at inside linebacker (off-ball linebackers) are Alexander Johnson and Josey Jewell.

That duo was productive in terms of playing the run in 2020 with a combined total of 237 tackles, nine tackles for loss, 10 quarterback hits, and three sacks. With zero NFL experience, it’s hard to say that Baron Browning and Justin Strnad are just going to come into 2021 training camp and take a bunch of snaps away from those guys.

But maybe.

The Denver Broncos made a pretty surprising decision in 2020 to flat out release starting linebacker Todd Davis and thrust Josey Jewell into the starting lineup. Jewell at least had prior starting experience, but the team obviously took a chance there.

Jewell and Johnson are tremendous at attacking the line of scrimmage, as evidenced by their 2020 numbers. Where they maybe don’t excel as much is in coverage, which is where 2020 fifth-round pick Justin Strnad and 2021 third-round pick Baron Browning can be of service.

Whether they are coming onto the field to play coverage or rush the passer, I do think there will be more of a rotation at linebacker in 2021 than we saw from the Broncos in 2020 when Johnson and Jewell played over 1,000 snaps each.

Prior to a wrist injury in 2020, Strnad was poised to play a nickel linebacker role for the team and they scrambled to sign veteran Mark Barron after he was hurt. Barron himself couldn’t stay healthy so it ended up being Johnson and Jewell picking up the slack.

Considering the difficulty of understanding Vic Fangio’s defensive scheme, it’s a bit unreasonable to expect someone like Browning to just come in and steal a job, but he and Strnad should be expected to at least steal some snaps.