Eric Goodman and Les Shapiro from The Afternoon Drive caught up with Brandon Marshall to discuss the Denver Broncos after the first quarter of the season concluded.
Marshall noted that winning before the Bye Week was huge and that the defense still has some work to do before it gets on the level of their 2015 Super Bowl defensive run. Their focus is on improving to that point and start to take control of games like they did two seasons ago.
A big part of that tightening up on the back end. The No Fly Zone is shockingly merely Top 10 after two seasons of historic top pass defense. A big part of that is defensive coordinator Joe Woods shifting the defense into a more zone-heavy scheme over the man scheme that made them a force to be reckoned with.
According to head coach Vance Joseph, that plan isn’t going to change any time soon.
“No it’s not that,” Joseph said in disagreement over whether the pass defense is struggling due to holes in the zone defense. “I think it’s more focused in its details. It’s plays that we’ve covered in practice that have hurt us. We have to be better with our focus and details. To your question, as far as it being more zone now, yes. I mean we’re playing a lot more zone then we played in the past. When you’re a zone team, you have to be really focused and detailed on your keys. When you’re a man team, you just play your man. That’s easy to do from a mental standpoint and hard physically. We’re trying to give these guys a break and not play so much man, but we have to continue to train it. They have to continue to play with more focus and detail because zone takes focus and detail.”
It will be interesting to see what happens in the coming weeks if the new zone scheme doesn’t take hold as the coaching staff hopes it will. Taking the most elite pass defense in a generation and changing how they conduct their business is certainly more than just ‘sprinkling some sugar’ on it.
As a fan, my patience with this experiment is already running thin and they are just four games into the season.
Bonus Listen
Eric and Les talk about the Broncos offensive line and the issues they face heading into the second quarter of the season.