Bill Kollar's defensive lines look promising for Broncos

Bill Kollar has had a long career in the NFL as a defensive line coach.

Atlanta Falcons (1990–2000)

St. Louis Rams (2001–2005)

Buffalo Bills (2006–2008)

Houston Texans (2009–2014)

He generally has gotten the most out of his talent. Some of the DL groups that he had to work with were bereft of talent (others had top draft picks). Bill Kollar challenges his players to excel and calls them out when they don't. His style is much closer to Alex Gibbs than it is to John Fox.

"Bill is loud," says defensive coordinator Wade Phillips, "but he's got a great knack for getting on people, getting them to go harder, but for them to like him. Normally a guy that's as loud as he is, that hollers at you, you think 'Wow.' They know it's in their best interest when he gets on them. Everybody coaches different ways, and I think his style is really good. It fits well with those guys."

So what does he have to work with for 2015? Right now our roster shows six players listed as "DE"s and four players listed as "NT"s denverbroncos.com

Note that Shane Ray is listed at OLB and not DE on the roster.

#	Player	Pos	Hgt	Wgt	Age	Exp	College
91	Anunike, Kenny	DE	6-5	260	25	2	Duke
97	Jackson, Malik	DE	6-5	293	25	4	Tennessee
90	Smith, Antonio	DE	6-3	290	33	12	Oklahoma State
96	Walker, Vance	DE	6-2	305	28	7	Georgia Tech
70	Watson, Josh	DE	6-4	290	25	R	Clemson
95	Wolfe, Derek	DE	6-5	285	25	4	Cincinnati
76	Austin Jr., Marvin	NT	6-2	312	26	5	North Carolina
98	Kilgo, Darius	NT	6-3	319	23	R	Maryland
93	Ndulue, Chuka	NT	6-3	289	23	R	Oklahoma
92	Williams, Sylvester	NT	6-2	313	26	3	North Carolina

I'm guessing that we keep six or seven of the 10 guys listed above. I have highlighted the six that I think will make the roster. If Antonio Smith is not indicted, I think he will make the roster over Anunike. Darius Kilgo could be that 7th guy although, being a 6th round pick, we might try and stash him on the practice squad for a year (red-shirt him, if you will).

Stopping the run

Mailk Jackson tackles Giovanni Bernard (Photo by Andy Lyons/Getty Images)

Before we can evaluate Kollar's DLs we have to answer a question: How do you measure the performance of a defensive line, particularly separating it from the performance of the LBs and DBs? Football Outsiders attempts to do this by looking at two situations in the running game where the DL is determinant in success or failure the vast majority of the time - power running situations (3rd or 4th down with 2 or fewer yards needed to gain) and "stuffs" (run stops for 0 or negative yards). A defense that is good in both will have a good defensive line. Generally an elite DL will be at or near the top in both stats. Football outsiders also looks at 2nd level yards and open field yards allowed, but those tend to be more of a function of the LBs and DBs in the running game than the DL. We'll also look at more "mundane" stats such as rushing yards allowed, average yards per carry allowed (ypc) and rushing TDs allowed. See below (NFL rank shown):

Year	Team	Yds Allowed	YPC	TD*	Power	Stuffs
2014	HOU	10	10	3	17	18
2013	HOU	23	22	14	6	10
2012	HOU	7	9	1	11	4
2011	HOU	4	11	5	25	15
2010	HOU	13	11	28	15	19
2009	HOU	10T	17	25	8	8
2008	BUF	22	21	26	15	8
2007	BUF	25	28	26	2	7
2006	BUF	28	29	22	22	29
2005	STL	28	32	32	30	9
2004	STL	29	25	19	30	11
2003	STL	20	29	5	4	7
2002	STL	14	13	19	6	12
2001	STL	3	11	18	13	9

*All TD allowed rankings are a tie for that place

I did not go back further (to his days coaching the Falcons DL) because I wanted to focus on this century. I define elite as being top 5 in a stat. Since 2001 Kollar's DLs have only had nine instances where they were elite at some facet of stopping the run. Four of those nine instances are when his DLs were elite at preventing rushing TDs - 2014, 2012, 2011 and 2003. Conversely his DLs have had many years where they were horrible at stopping rushing TDs. In fact, from 2005 to 2010 his DLs ranked 22nd or worse at stopping rushing TDs. His DLs have only been elite twice this century at stopping "power" situation runs (2007 and 2003). His only unit that was elite at getting stuffs was the 2012 Texans, but his DLs are generally good at getting stuffs. If we average these ranks we get this (rounded):

Rushing yards allowed - 17th

YPC Allowed - 18th

Rushing TDs allowed - 17th

Power - 15th

Stuffs - 12th

Going by those numbers alone, Kollar's defensive lines this century have been average or slightly above average against the run. Overall, the picture that the data paints is not a pretty one; Kollar's DLs are normally ok, but often bad, against the run. So what about against the pass?

Stopping the pass

Photo by Jim Rogash/Getty Images

While stopping the pass and getting sacks are not solely the responsibility of the DL (particularly in the 3-4 where the OLB are the main sack generators) sacks and QB hurries or hits are the way that the DL contributes to stopping the pass. Generally if you have a dominant DL, the opposing QB rating (OQBR) will be near the top of the league (unless your LBs and DBs are horrible in coverage).

Year	Team	Sack%	NFL Rank	OQBR	NFL Rank
2014	HOU	6.2%	24	80.4	4
2013	HOU	6.7%	18	93.9	23
2012	HOU	7.3%	6	80.0	10
2011	HOU	8.4%	3	69.0	2
2010	HOU	6.3%	17	100.5	32
2009	HOU	6.0%	20	83.2	14
2008	BUF	4.7%	28	83.2	17
2007	BUF	4.7%	31	81.1	15
2006	BUF	8.1%	6	82.5	19
2005	STL	7.6%	10	89.8	28
2004	STL	7.0%	16	91.6	26
2003	STL	7.6%	5	73.3	10
2002	STL	8.1%	7	86.0	24
2001	STL	7.9%	10	69.9	6

Staying with a top 5 ranking as being elite, Kollar's DL have only been elite at rushing the passer twice this century (sack% is sacks/total dropbacks) - 2003 and 2011. The 2012 Texans were close to being elite as were the 2002 Rams. In terms of opposing QB rating, Kollar didn't have a DL that could get to elite levels until he got J.J. Watt, although the 2001 Rams were close. If we average the sack% ranking we get 14th and OQBR we get 16th. Similar to stopping the run, Kollar's DLs are generally average with a few horrible and a few elite seasons sprinkled in.

Looking toward the 2015 season

Gone are Terrence Knighton, Quanterus Smith and Mitch Unrein, but we return a lot of the DL talent from last season and we have added some talent through free agency and the draft. The DL for the Broncos last season ranked like this

Rushing Yards Allowed - 2nd

YPC allowed - 3rd

Rushing TDs allowed - 10 (tied)

Power - 7th

Stuffs - 7th

Sack% -  23rd

OQBR - 8th

Other than sack%, there really isn't that much room for improvement. I would guess that the majority of our sacks next season will come from the OLBs (Von Miller, Demarcus Ware and Shane Ray) similar to last season. In 2014 we had 41 sacks and 24 came from Miller and Ware. No other Bronco had more than 3 sacks last season (Mailk Jackson). Houston was supposed have an elite DL last season with Watt, Jadeveon Clowney and Ryan Pickett (all 1st round draft picks taken a 11, 1, and 29 respectively). Clowney's injury meant that they had to start 4th round pick Jaret Crick at the other DE. Their DL results were above average, but not elite, but some of that could be attributed to their OLBs who were average at best last season (Whitney Mercilus and Brooks Reed combined for 8 sacks). In terms of talent our putative starters on the DL are significantly less talented than Watt-Pickett-Clowney (Jackson-Williams-Wolfe), but our starting OLBs are significantly more talented than Mercilus and Reed.