When the Denver Broncos and the Detroit Lions face off Saturday night at Ford Feld in Detroit, it’ll be one team fighting to maintain their division lead (the 9-4 Lions), and another trying to make a dent in the postseason picture after a horrible start (the 7-6 Broncos).
And in this case, we’re talking about two defenses that have gone in decidedly different directions in the second half of the season. That’s a good thing in Denver’s case. The Broncos ranked dead last in Defensive DVOA in through Week 9, and they rank sixth since. It’s even better for Vance Joseph’s defense against the pass — a team that ranked 32nd in Pass Defense DVOA through Week 9 now ranks third.
In the Lions’ case, it’s no bueno. Detroit started the season ranked eighth in Defensive DVOA through the first nine weeks, and they rank 28th since. The Lions ranked eighth in Pass Defense DVOA in the first half of the season, and they’re stuck at 28th since.
How can two NFL defenses go so strongly in different directions so quickly? Let’s go under the hood.
The Broncos have matched their schemes to their personnel.
We’ll start with the Broncos, and how they’ve turned things around after a nightmare beginning to the 2023 season. Joseph is Denver’s first-year defensive coordinator, though he’s been doing this for a long time. Sometimes, it takes a minute for a new coach to tailor his schemes to his personnel. When the Broncos were getting greased by every offense they faced, most notably the 70-20 beatdown given to them by the Miami Dolphins in Week 3.
Joseph isn’t a “one-scheme” guy — no coach who wants to survive in the NFL can be — but he has definite trends. He prefers zone defense, and that’s played out this season. Through Week 9, Denver played zone defense on 60% of their snaps, and they ranked 32ns in Success Rate. Since then, they’ve actually increased their zone rate to 65%, but they’ve ranked 13th in Success Rate.
One big difference is the blitz. Denver blitzed on 25% of their snaps through Week 9, and they ranked 13th in Success Rate when doing so. When the Broncos sent four rushers, they ranked 32nd. Since then, they’ve blitzed on 35% of their snaps, and they rank 10th in Success Rate. But it’s the four-man rush stuff that has been interesting — they’ve rushed four on 57% of their snaps, and they’ve upticked to 11th in Success Rate when doing so.
Joseph has also made a couple of key changes in personnel. Early in the season, Damarri Mathis was one of the Broncos’ two primary outside cornerbacks along with Pat Surtain II. Unfortunately, Mathis wasn’t up to the task — through Week 9, he allowed 27 catches on 37 targets for 361 yards, 70 yards after the catch, four touchdowns, no interceptions, one pass breakup, and an opponent passer rating of 139.6. The Broncos made the change to veteran Fabian Moreau, and that’s sewn things up. Since Week 10, Moreau has allowed 12 catches on 23 targets for 247 yards, 64 yards after the catch, no touchdowns, one interception, two pass breakups, and an opponent passer rating of 72.2.
Moreau’s interception came against Josh Allen and the Buffalo Bills in Week 10, when Moreau jumped the out-cut to Deonte Harty out of Cover-4.
Second-year undrafted cornerback Ja’Quan McMillian has also been a revelation in the slot. The East Carolina alum had just 68 snaps in his rookie season, but he’s logged 483 this season, and he’s given up 14 catches on 28 targets for 181 yards, 88 yards after the catch, one touchdown, one interception, and an opponent passer rating of 67.7. When you can pick off a Patrick Mahomes pass to Travis Kelce, as McMillian did in Week 8 out of Cover-2, you’ve got something there.
Since Week 10, Zach Allen has been Denver’s primary pass-rusher. He’s amassed three sacks, six quarterback hits, and 15 quarterback hurries in that time. Denver signed the former Arizona Cardinals lineman, who really upped his game after tutelage from J.J. Watt, to a three-year, $47.75 million deal this past offseason, and he’s lived up to it so far.
This sack of Justin Herbert of the Los Angeles Chargers in Week 14 is a prime example of how Joseph is starting to muddy the picture for opposing offenses. The 6-foot-4, 281-pound Allen was aligned to right tackle George Fant in a seven-man blitz look, with safety Justin Simmons, linebacker Drew Sanders, and edge-rusher Jonathan Cooper as the outside “rushers.” At the snap, both Simmons and Sanders dropped into coverage, leaving a five-man rush in which Allen and Cooper ran an effective stunt to get to the quarterback.
The Lions have not been able to keep their guys on the field.
The Lions did a lot this offseason to improve a defense that ranked 27th in DVOA in 2022.
- Cornerback Cameron Sutton signed a three-year, $33 million contract with $22.5 million guaranteed;
- Cornerback Emmanuel Moseley signed a one-year, $6 million deal with $2 million guaranteed; and
- Safety/slot defender C.J. Gardner-Johnson signed a one-year, $8 million contract.
Detroit also selected Iowa linebacker Jack Campbell in the first round of the 2023 draft, and Alabama defensive back Brian Branch in the second round. It all worked beautifully for a while, and then, injuries started to take their toll.
- Gardner-Johnson has been out since Week 2 with a pectoral injury, and his window to return is just opening.
- Branch missed Weeks 5-6 with an ankle injury.
- Underrated defensive tackle Alim McNeill was placed on injured reserve with a knee injury in early December. Moseley suffered a torn ACL in Week 5.
- Edge-rusher James Houston, who broke out in his 2022 rookie season with eight sacks, was placed on injured reserve in September, and the hope is that he’ll be ready for the end of the regular season and the playoffs.
Woof. No matter how well you’ve reinforced your defense, it’s tough to work through all that — especially with so many new moving parts. Since Week 10, only the Washington Commanders and the Jacksonville Jaguars have allowed a higher opponent passer rating than Detroit’s 106.1, which it what happens when you allow 103 completions on 153 attempts for 1,261 yards, 10 touchdowns, two interceptions, and 8.0 yards per attempt.
On throws of 20 or more air yards since Week 10, the Lions have allowed an opponent passer rating of 130.2, fifth-worst in the league. In Weeks 1-9, that opponent passer rating on deep balls was 55.8 — sixth-best in the league.
This could be a problem against the Broncos, because Russell Wilson has completed 22 of 52 passes of 20 or more air yards this season for 771 yards, six touchdowns, one interception, and a passer rating of 119.9. Even against the Cleveland Browns’ outstanding defense in Week 12. Wilson was able to exploit openings designed by Sean Payton and his staff for big plays — in this case, a 25-yard completion to Courtland Sutton. This was against Cover-0 on third-and-1, which the Lions might want to avoid in a similar situation.
Aaron Glenn is aware of where things are.
“All the little things that people really don’t talk about,” Lions defensive coordinator Aaron Glenn said this week, when asked what his defense is doing well. “For example – and I talked to our guys about it, like the sudden changes that happen. That’s a real thing in this League and I think we’re one of the better teams in that situation. And we do everything we can to get the ball back to our offense. The second thing is our run defense. Our run defense is still going at a high level. Our ability to not allow touchdowns at a high rate from outside of our red zone.
“The things I try to make sure I point those things out to our players. The thing we want to do is make sure we look at those things, the things that we’re not good at, man, we continue to try to improve on those things. And the one thing I thought we improved on from last week is our red zone. And that’s one of the issues that we’ve had all year and if we continue to improve the way that we improved last week, I think we’ll be all good.”
It’s nice to focus on the positive, but Glenn also has to focus on the things that haven’t been working, and that starts on Saturday night.
