Broncos hope 'crazy' additions on defensive front will be a boon against the run (2024)

ENGLEWOOD, Colo. — The steady wind at Broncos OTA practice on Tuesday couldn’t stifle Malcolm Roach’s voice.

As soon as competitive portions of the session began, Roach, the 25-year-old defensive lineman who joined Denver as a free agent in March, turned up the volume. It’s been a common scene during his first offseason with the Broncos. Whether he is pumping up defensive teammates after a tipped ball or quarterback pressure, jawing with offensive players or throwing playful haymakers at his current and college teammate, Lil’Jordan Humphrey, during a water break, Roach has been impossible to miss.

And that doesn’t only extend to how the 6-foot-3, 290-pound defensive lineman carries himself in practice.

“He’s crazy. He’s bats–t crazy, man,” Broncos safety P.J. Locke said of Roach. Locke was also his teammate at the University of Texas. “He’s always going to be the guy who is in the locker room playing the music loud as hell, early in the morning. He’s going to be loud out here and bring the energy every single time. That’s his role and he embraces it. Man, we need it.”

After evaluating the performance of their defense in 2023, the Broncos reasoned they could use a little more crazy along the defensive line. A little more mean. A little more nasty. When he arrived at the NFL Scouting Combine in February, general manager George Paton identified better run defense as one of the team’s top priorities — perhaps just behind the whole stopping-the-quarterback-carousel thing. The Broncos were able to climb out of an early hole last season and improve to 6-5, but they scuttled to a 2-4 finish, in part, because they never could plug one of the league’s leakiest run defenses. It was an Achilles’ heel that was barking by December and January.

The Broncos allowed an NFL-worst 5 yards per carry last season. They were 28th in TruMedia’s defensive rush success metric. Denver lacked depth behind frontline players D.J. Jones and Zach Allen, and it became painfully obvious as teams put the squeeze on the Broncos late in games.

Enter Roach and John Franklin-Myers, who was acquired from the Jets in a trade during the draft. They represent immediate upgrades to rotation spots alongside Jones and Allen, evidenced by both players’ consistent production over the past few seasons. Roach, for example, had the best run-stop rate among NFL interior linemen in 2023 at 17.4 percent, according to Pro Football Focus. He was credited with 23 run stops overall through PFF’s formula.

“I think he loves playing. He really does,” said Broncos coach Sean Payton, who first coached Roach in New Orleans after the Saints signed him as an undrafted rookie free agent in 2020. “He’s effective as a player and it’s kind of contagious. He’s a really good teammate and someone that can play multiple positions. There are certain guys that are glue guys in a locker room, and he’s one of those guys.”

.@TheZALLEN44 & @J_FranklinMyers putting in work at #BroncosOTAs 😤 pic.twitter.com/sPfyLEQsx7

— Denver Broncos (@Broncos) June 4, 2024

The Broncos were seeking attitude as much as aptitude when looking for new additions to the defensive front. When the Broncos studied Franklin-Myers’ tape with the Jets, where he played the last four seasons, the relentlessness of his play style stuck out as much as his consistent production against both the run and pass. It’s a brand the 27-year-old has established since entering the league as a fourth-round pick of the Los Angeles Rams in 2019.

“I play with an effort and physicality a lot of people aren’t willing to match,” Franklin-Myers said. “It’s just how I am and how I was designed. The challenge is to come here and continue to do that. I’m gonna do that because that’s just how I’m built.”

After playing in a 4-3 front with the Jets, Franklin-Myers said he had some initial questions about how he would be used in defensive coordinator Vance Joseph’s 3-4 scheme. But once he had a conversation with Joseph and other members of Denver’s staff — senior defensive assistant Joe Vitt was on the Jets’ staff during the defensive lineman’s first season there in 2020, providing a familiar sounding board — he quickly became comfortable with the impending change. It helped, too, that Franklin-Myers’ close friend and former Jets teammate, Sheldon Rankins, previously played five seasons with Payton in New Orleans and “had nothing bad to say” about the experience.

“It was a little different because you don’t know how someone is going to play you,” Franklin-Myers said of being traded to Denver. “But I talked to them and understood what the assignment was, and I was on board. I’m locked in. It’s a chance to grow as a person, as a football player and as a teammate. Shoot, I can’t pass that up.”

Having a fellow newcomer on the defensive line in Roach has also been a welcome development for Franklin-Myers. The two have trained together in the past and believe their talents and play styles will mesh well.

“I’m familiar with him, a guy I have a lot of respect for in the run game and in the pass game,” Franklin-Myers said. “He’s a guy who brings the energy, and you’ve got to be thankful for that.”

The non-contact nature of OTAs is not an ideal time to cast judgment on interior players on either side of the ball. Payton noted that much of Franklin-Myers’ consistent production in New York — at least three sacks, 13 quarterback hits and a 13 percent pressure rate in the last four seasons — was built on “power rush, bull rush” moves that can’t be properly demonstrated without pads. In other words, Denver won’t know how much impact the offseason addition of some “crazy” on the defensive line will have until it’s time to hit.

But the Broncos can already hear it, from the moment Roach steps into the locker room in the morning. And that’s a good place to start.

Here are some observations from the Broncos’ OTA practice Tuesday:

Sutton remains absent

Courtland Sutton has not participated in any part of Denver’s offseason program. All of the program to this point, it bears repeating, has been voluntary, but it represents a departure from Sutton’s approach in previous seasons. The reason for his absence is not a secret.

“It’s not that he didn’t like our new uniforms,” Payton mused.

Sutton, rather, is in search of a reworked contract. He has only $2 million in guaranteed money on a deal — a four-year, $61 million extension signed in 2021 — that still has two years and as much as $26.5 million remaining. Sutton is coming off a career-best 10-touchdown season and is looking for an adjustment that would bring more guarantees.

The first inflection point for Sutton and the Broncos comes with next week’s minicamp, the first mandatory part of the offseason program. Payton said he expects to see Sutton, who has been working out on his own in Florida this offseason, back in Denver next week.

“Yes, I think he’ll be here for minicamp. I mean, it’s mandatory,” Payton said. “When I’ve been asked about Courtland — and I’m going to say this — I just know his work ethic. I know the player. There’s a list of things that race through your mind this time in the offseason as a head coach. And, respectfully, when I say this to him, because he and I have talked, I think that will work itself out. I think he’ll be here, yes, but I don’t know that for sure.”

The learning curve for Wilson

The Broncos have shuffled their three quarterbacks — Bo Nix, Jarrett Stidham and Zach Wilson — through reps with the first-team offense throughout OTAs. During the first two practices that were open for media viewing, Nix, the rookie first-round pick, piloted the offense. On Tuesday, it was Wilson’s turn, and his run with the top unit — and against the top defense — illustrated the learning curve he faces while being incorporated into his third different offensive scheme in as many seasons.

During an 11-on-11 period Tuesday, the 24-year-old acquired in a trade with the Jets in April, threw off his back foot while retreating from pressure, and was intercepted by Locke, the veteran safety. Whether Wilson didn’t recognize the blitzing pressure, missed a read, or simply felt compelled to make a play, the play resulted in a throw that didn’t need to happen.

It certainly wasn’t a moment that produced panic. It’s early in June. Wilson has fewer than 10 practices with the Broncos. But it’s a reminder that there is a learning curve that will come attached to this change for Wilson, who has some habits he needs to break regardless of the scheme in which he’s playing. But he has also flashed the arm talent that helps make sense of why Payton and the Broncos wanted to take on the 2021 No. 2 draft pick as a quarterback project.

“We just felt like, ‘Man, we’d love to work with this guy,'” Payton said. “It wasn’t too long ago we remembered grading him. Felt the investment was worth it relative to his skill set and his talent. So it took a while. We spent the better part of a month and a half working on that trade.”

Next week’s mandatory minicamp, which could offer a view of all three players taking a turn at the controls of the top unit, should offer a more complete look at where the quarterback puzzle stands heading into the team’s summer break.

(Top photo of Malcolm Roach playing with the Saints last season: Katelyn Mulcahy / Getty Images)

Nick Kosmider is a staff writer for The Athletic covering the Denver Broncos. He previously covered the Denver Nuggets for The Athletic after spending five years at the Denver Post, where he covered the city’s professional sports scene. His other stops include The Arizona Republic and MLB.com. Follow Nick on Twitter @NickKosmider