I like the look of Denver’s defense. Von Miller and DeMarcus Ware, I think, might be the best pair of pass rushers in the league, and I think they’ll get a nice spark from playing in a 3-4 defense. The team used a 4-3 system last year, but it hired Wade Phillips in the offseason. He’s long been a proponent of getting after the quarterback.
Ware is 32, but the team also picked up Shane Ray late in the first round. He gives them another pass-rushing weapon to start working in.
To play Phillips kind of scheme, cornerbacks must be able to hold up in man coverage, but I think the Broncos have guys who can do that. Aqib Talib and Chris Harris both made the Pro Bowl last year.
When Phillips was last a defensive coordinator, his unit finished in the bottom 10 in all of the major categories – sacks, takeaways and points allowed. That was with J.J. Watt, no less.
But I think the overall talent on this unit is better, and Phillips I think will be able to mold it together.
I traded comments with a reader on this subject a day or two ago. I said I would get out Phillips’ body of work, and we would look at it.
Since 1990, he’s been the defensive coordinator of 17 teams. Those teams have tended to have good pass rushes, but now that the numbers are in front of me, I see that they haven’t been as dominant in teams of points allowed and takeaways.
As you look at the numbers below, they are highlighted with the scientific system of top-10 numbers being in bold and bottom-10 numbers tagged with the dreaded black dot. So for sacks, 11 of Phillips 17 defenses have finished in the top 10. For scoring (points allowed) they haven’t been that good – 7 in the top 10 and 6 in the bottom 10 (call them hot-and-cold – only three defenses have been in the middle of the pack). And they’ve been below-average in takeaways, with only 4 of 17 in the top 10, but 7 of 17 in the bottom 10.
These numbers suggest I might have been a little overly optimistic in tagging Denver as the 3rd-best scoring defense on Monday, projecting them to allow fewer points than everyone except Seattle and Buffalo. They’ll probably drop 3-5 points in the revision that comes out tomorrow. Andy has final say on all of those defensive numbers, and he’s carefully looking at the 1-32 rank for each defense in all of the major categories – sacks, touchdowns, interceptions, fumbles, points allowed and kick returns.
| WADE PHILLIPS DEFENSES SINCE 1990 | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Year | Team | Points | Take | Sack |
| 1990 | Denver Broncos | •23.4 | •25 | 34 |
| 1991 | Denver Broncos | 14.7 | 33 | 52 |
| 1992 | Denver Broncos | 20.6 | 31 | 50 |
| 1995 | Buffalo Bills | 20.9 | •28 | 49 |
| 1996 | Buffalo Bills | 16.6 | 28 | 48 |
| 1997 | Buffalo Bills | •22.9 | •22 | 46 |
| 2002 | Atlanta Falcons | 19.6 | 39 | 47 |
| 2003 | San Diego Chargers | •27.6 | •20 | •30 |
| 2003 | Atlanta Falcons | •26.4 | 31 | 36 |
| 2004 | San Diego Chargers | 19.6 | 33 | •29 |
| 2005 | San Diego Chargers | 19.5 | •20 | 46 |
| 2006 | San Diego Chargers | 18.9 | 28 | 61 |
| 2009 | Dallas Cowboys | 15.6 | •21 | 42 |
| 2010 | Dallas Cowboys | •27.2 | 30 | 35 |
| 2011 | Houston Texans | 17.4 | 27 | 44 |
| 2012 | Houston Texans | 20.7 | 29 | 44 |
| 2013 | Houston Texans | •26.8 | •11 | •32 |
—Ian Allan