DL Zach Allen Offers Explanation to Broncos' Ongoing Defensive Struggles

Unless you've been living under a rock, you're well aware of how bad the Denver Broncos' defense is. Denver entered Week 4's tilt vs. the Chicago Bears as the worst-ranked defense in total yards and points, but thanks to some clutch play by Russell Wilson and the offense, the Broncos came out on top, 31-28. 

Allowing a 70-burger and 700-plus yards to the Miami Dolphins in Week 3 will slant Denver's rankings, but after watching Vance Joseph's unit operate in Chicago, it's clear that somewhere between coach, scheme, and execution, this defense is suffering from a massive disconnect. 

The Broncos allowed a quarterback in Justin Fields, who's struggled to complete even 60% of his career passes, to go 16-of-16 to open Week 4 (a Bears all-time record) and finish the game with 300-plus passing yards and a whopping four touchdowns. For the third time in four games, the Broncos allowed north of 380 total yards, and this time, the defense relinquished 471 yards to a Bears offense that entered the game as a bottom-five unit across most key categories.  

So what's the explanation? The Broncos only have three veterans who played for Joseph before he returned to Denver in 2023. Safety Justin Simmons and linebacker Josey Jewell were around during Joseph's unfortunate stint as Broncos head coach, but newcomer Zach Allen played under the coach on the Arizona Cardinals' defensive line for four years and followed the coordinator to the Mile High City. 

Here's how Allen attempted to sum up his defense's struggles when asked directly to explain it. 

"We have the talent, and we have the players," Allen said on Monday. "It's just a matter of us just executing better... We saw flashes of it in the second half when we do it right. We played at an elite level, and we just have to continue working it."

I'm not sure about "elite," but Denver definitely snapped out of its defensive slump in the fourth quarter in Chicago. Instead of pointing fingers, Allen wisely aimed is remarks at the Broncos' potential. 

We may have seen flashes of said potential in the fourth quarter vs. the Bears, but that's not what the NFL is about. This league puts production at a premium, not potential. After all, the NFL is the ultimate meritocracy — a production-based business, as the cliches go. 

The Broncos have woefully failed to deliver defensively, but somehow, some way, the team pulled a rabbit out of its hat and notched its first victory in the Windy City. But to echo head coach Sean Payton, if the Broncos are going to even pretend to compete this year, they have to get to the bottom of this defensive disconnect. 

For the most part, the defensive personnel in Denver is the same as it was in 2022 when the unit finished ranked No. 7 in total yards, No. 10 in interceptions, No. 2 in third-down efficiency, No. 7 in red-zone efficiency, and top-15 in scoring. With the exception of defensive lineman Dre'Mont Jones and rush linebacker Bradley Chubb, who was traded at midseason, the Broncos' opening-day starting defense looks pretty close to its 2022 counterpart. 

Allen replaced Jones upfront, and while the Broncos also let 2022 starting D-lineman DeShawn Williams depart, nobody is pretending the defense lost a Pro Bowler. Starting nickel corner K'Waun Williams has been absent this year with an injury, but that's the extent of the personnel differences in 2023.  

Maybe that's enough to explain the Broncos' immense defensive regression, but like you, I have my doubts. Denver's defense did lose its coordinator, however, when Ejiro Evero opted to take his coaching talents to Carolina. And now we may be onto something. 

The conspicuous common denominator many football analysts are pointing to is, in fact, the coordinator change-over. Call it the elephant in the room. 

Out with Evero and in with Joseph. Upon his arrival in Denver, Joseph purportedly decided to keep as much of Evero's stuff as possible, but listening to the players during OTAs and training camp, the implication was that the 2022 Broncos were basically keeping the verbiage, not necessarily the scheme. 

But after four weeks of historically bad defense, it actually looks like the Broncos are being coordinated by a guy who's calling plays in a scheme that is entirely new to him. Could that honestly be the answer? If so, it reflects badly on Coach Payton. 

Joseph's traditional scheme is vastly different than that of Evero's, whose core defense is built around Vic Fangio's philosophy. Aside from the 3-4 base, the Joseph and Fangio schemes aren't the same. 

Specifically, Fangio's zone coverage philosophies and reticence to blitz differ wildly from Joseph's more traditional man-cover principles and aggressive tendency to send numbers at opposing quarterbacks, very similar to his mentor Wade Phillips. 

To this point, nobody has come out and asked Coach Payton directly whether Joseph is operating as a play-caller out of Evero's playbook. But it's not like Payton would answer the question anyway and give away information that could be exploited by game-planning opponents. 

Allen, like Simmons last week and many of his teammates, continues to close ranks around Joseph. Nobody at Dove Valley is ready to throw Joseph to the wolves, which is curious considering how much pressure everyone has been under to do just that.

"He's been very successful in this league for a very long time," Allen said of Joseph. "He's accomplished a lot. So everybody wants to point the finger at somebody. But at the end of the day, if you watch that Dolphins tape and you watch the first half, it was either guys not tackling or guys just not doing the right assignment. It wasn't a question of the scheme or anything like that."

Nothing we've seen on tape adds up. There's some component to this equation that observers of the Broncos are missing. But per Allen, it's not a mystery inside the building.

"A lot of people probably don't understand the big picture," Allen said. "And again, for us, that doesn't really matter. We know what we're doing, what we're working on, and everybody can say whatever the hell they want to say, but at the end of the day, they're not in the arena. So yeah, I love him. I think we're going to be fine. We're going to do great things, and it's still early, but we're going to turn [it] around."

Sunday is the Broncos' next opportunity to prove they're figuring it out in the Week 5 home tilt vs. the New York Jets. In 2021, Fangio's defense held quarterback Zach Wilson to 160 yards, picked him off twice, and sacked him five times as Denver pitched a shutout to the Jets.

Last year, Evero's defense held Wilson to just 121 yards passing and sacked him thrice, but the Broncos still lost the game. So don't anyone go counting their Week 5 chickens before they've hatched.