Ejiro Evero will oversee a Broncos defense that needs to be overhauled
Feb 23, 2022, 6:40 AM
Under former coach Vic Fangio, the Denver Broncos defense avoided scrutiny for most of his three-season tenure, though a constantly inept and nearly unwatchable offense had as much to do with that than anything. Though the Broncos were third in the league in allowing points in the 2021 campaign — 18.9 per game — a last-place schedule has to be considered, as well; wins over abysmal opponents and losses that allowed teams to run out the clock early in the second half made things look better than they really were.
New defensive coordinator Ejiro Evero, fresh from winning the Super Bowl as the Los Angeles Rams’ defensive backs coach, intends to run a defense that looks like Fangio’s. On the surface, at least.
“We’ll be 3-4 in our base defense. We’ll play a variety of sub packages,” Evero explained during his introductory press conference on Tuesday. “There will be a lot of carryover from what these guys did last year, but at the end of the day, you’ve got to start with the evaluation of your players. You’ve got to see who’s on your roster. You’ve got to see what they do well, and then the scheme has got to fit your players. You can’t go the other way around with that. It will be a lot of carryover, and I think the players will be familiar with a lot of what we’re going to present to them, (but) we’re going to always start players first and then move into the scheme.”
For Fangio, scheme was everything; it had earned him plaudits and kept him employed for decades, helping certain players reach new heights. Safety Justin Simmons was one of them; morphing from a promising diagnostician and solid tackler into a rangy, all-around center fielder that earned him millions, along with a reputation as one of the NFL’s best at his position.
Simmons will return to the Broncos as its unquestioned leader, and perhaps not just on defense. But the midseason trade of Von Miller to the soon-to-be champion Rams and an array of defensive players hitting free agency leaves Denver with a lot of work to do — and more than many Broncos fans would like to believe.
“The biggest thing I took away from this last season is (that) you’ve got to have good players, and the players have got to be committed to winning,” Evero said on Tuesday.
Presuming Evero’s right, second-year general manager George Paton will have to find his new DC a lot more than just Simmons and rookie sensation Pat Surtain II.
Simmons’ longtime partner at safety, Kareem Jackson, isn’t likely to take a second consecutive pay cut to stay in Denver. If fifth-round rookie Caden Sterns can’t make the leap to starter, Paton will have to find another one. The same goes for cornerbacks Bryce Callahan and Kyle Fuller; if both free agents leave town, the Broncos’ cornerback depth dwindles to nothing. Even if the oft-injured Callahan returns at a discount, he and the equally fragile Ronald Darby still make it hard to feel confident that the Broncos can get full seasons out of their Nos. 2 and 3 at a position tasked with stopping Patrick Mahomes, Justin Herbert and Derek Carr, twice each.
Injuries ended the season early for inside linebackers Kenny Young, Alexander Johnson and Josey Jewell. Young would be a good signing for the Broncos, but if it doesn’t happen, they’ll need a starter there, too. Nose tackle Mike Purcell hasn’t been able to live up to his contract, and is a prime candidate to be released in the offseason. Regardless, Paton needs to upgrade there.
Finally, Miller’s departure leaves a gaping hole at edge rusher, and despite the fact that the undrafted Malik Reed has been the team’s sack leader over the last two seasons, the Broncos need to add a more impactful starter. Besides, Reed may be needed to spell the injury-prone Bradley Chubb, who may never become the player he looked like he could have after a scintillating rookie season in 2018.
If you’re counting, that’s a required upgrade at five positions, or roughly half of the Broncos’ existing defense.
That defense in 2021 finished dead last in pass rush win rate, a metric that calculates how often teams can shed their blocks in 2.5 seconds or fewer. Denver’s defense under Fangio’s blitz-averse scheme found itself in the basement with a paltry 31 percent. For comparison, to even get to the 16th place New York Jets — the only other NFL team besides the Broncos that has missed the playoffs for the last six seasons — the Broncos would have to improve last year’s showing by 33 percent. Suffice it to say that the blitz is back on the menu under Evero.
“You have to affect the quarterback. If you can’t get there with four, you’ve got to bring five. If you can’t get there with five, you’ve got to bring six. We’ll bring pressure when we need to,” Evero explained. “That’s just going to all depend on the rush. It’s hard to say right now what exactly are we going to be, (but) it’s going to be something that we’re going to build starting today. Once we get the roster finalized, then we’re going to truly know what we’re going to be and what our identity is going to be in terms of the coverages, pressures, and those things that we’re going to run.”
In today’s NFL, the yards in between the 20-yard lines are cheap, meaning that defenses need to generate turnovers in order to keep their teams in games — especially if their team’s offense has difficulty generating points. Denver finished 22nd in turnovers with 19; they’d need an improvement of 50 percent to crack the league’s top five. Simmons (five) and Surtain (four) did their part, capturing nine of the Broncos’ middle-of-the-road 13 interceptions last season, but they need help. Improving the pass rush is imperative, but the Broncos need more ball-hawks, as well — and Evero knows it.
“When people put our tape on, I want them to see a defense that’s playing fast, that’s playing aggressive, that’s playing physical, and we’re flying around to the ball,” Evero said. “The biggest thing in football is the ball, and we’ve got to be attacking the ball. That’s going to be a big point of our emphasis.”
The youthful energy and enthusiasm that permeated the team room at Dove Valley was palpable; not only do the Broncos have coaches that are hungry to prove themselves in their new roles, but displayed a flexibility and creativity that had too rarely been witnessed during Fangio’s dismal 19-30 tenure.
Evero has a plan to play this decade’s style of defense — and has the championship pedigree to prove it — but the Broncos’ current defense looks nothing like it did at this point last year. Paton will have to rebuild his defense through aggressive free-agency moves and another savvy draft, adding new faces and better performers.
Coaches and general managers don’t like the term “rebuild.” Suffice it to say that playoff-starved Broncos fans don’t think much of it, either. But putting rolls of duct tape over the defense’s leaky holes like a late-night TV-commercial pitchman isn’t going to cut it anymore.
Regardless of the Broncos want to call it, it’s time to commit. Evero’s trying to build something that’ll last, and he’ll need a lot of Paton’s help to do it — while Broncos fans will have to realize that the smoke-and-mirror stats that Fangio’s defense put up last year did little but obscure the truth.
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