Vance Joseph’s defense was once again among the best in the business in 2025. In what constitutes a moderate surprise, Joseph will be back in the saddle for another year as the Broncos’ defensive coordinator in 2026 after he went through the head coaching interview circuit but didn’t come up with any of the 10 head coaching jobs that opened.
The Denver defense will look at least a little different come the 2026 season, but it has a deep, talented core set to return.
The 2025 group was a unique one, disruptive to an elite level and good at virtually everything except taking the ball away.
Here is a look back on the regular season and what can be learned for the future.
Five key defensive numbers
18.3 — Points per game allowed (No. 3 in the NFL)
4.5 — Yards per play allowed (No. 1)
68 — Sacks (Franchise record and most in the NFL)
34.6% — Rate of drives against that ended in a score (No. 7)
6.8% — Turnover rate forced (No. 28)
High Point
There are a few to choose from over the regular season. Denver’s return from the bye week in Washington was anything but pretty defensively until Nik Bonitto made one of the plays of the season, batting down a deciding two-point conversion attempt in overtime and sealing the Broncos’ eighth straight win. Pat Surtain II’s flying interception against Green Bay sparked a dominant second half. Joseph’s group held five opponents overall to less than 200 yards, then recorded five takeaways against Buffalo in the divisional round of the postseason and kept New England to 206 yards in the AFC title game. No game was more dominant, though, than the Broncos’ 13-11 win against the New York Jets in London. Denver racked up nine sacks, including three in the final 4:19 alone. Jonathon Cooper and Brandon Jones closed the game out with a fourth-and-10 sack of Justin Fields, who finished with minus-10 net passing yards. The Jets’ offense stunk all year, so it wasn’t the highest degree of difficulty, but the win got Denver back across the ocean with a three-game streak in hand. That run, of course, eventually ballooned to 11 games.
Low Point
The Broncos had a formula that worked most of the season: Win on third down and in the red zone and pressure the heck out of opposing quarterbacks. Week 16 against Jacksonville and Trevor Lawrence provided a bit of a scare heading into the postseason. Denver’s defense had already lagged a bit after the bye week — the Commanders and Packers each scored 26 points and at times gave the Broncos fits — but Lawrence led one of the few offensive outings that really cracked this group open. The Jags went 4 of 5 in the red zone at Empower Field. They converted 8 of 15 on third down. Lawrence was sacked five times but hardly seemed to notice, throwing for 279 yards and three touchdowns and rushing for another. That made him and the Jags offense one of only two to score more than three touchdowns on the regular season against Denver’s defense — rookie Jaxson Dart and the New York Giants were the other and it prompted head coach Sean Payton to issue a warning: Force turnovers in the postseason or else.
MVP: DT Zach Allen. There are several worthy candidates in this group. Bonitto came up one vote shy of All-Pro status and logged a career-best 14 sacks. Pat Surtain II missed 3.5 games with a partially torn pec but carried on as the finest corner in football when healthy. What Allen did in the middle of the Broncos’ defense, though, is difficult to overstate. He led the NFL in quarterback hits with 47, eight more than Cleveland defensive end Myles Garrett in his record-setting 23-sack campaign. It’s the most hits credited to a player since Nick Bosa’s 48 in 2022 and the second straight year Allen’s led the NFL. He had the second-most pressures (59) among defensive tackles, too. In three years with the Broncos, Allen has posted an 11.3% pressure rate or better, hit the quarterback 112 times, averaged 63.3 pressures per year and missed just one game. A foundational player.
Tough Season: ILB Dre Greenlaw. This is more about injuries and availability than about performance. In fact, Greenlaw himself described his first year with the Broncos as being “very tough.” It started only a month after signing a three-year deal in free agency with a quad injury. Greenlaw and the Broncos thought he was past it when training camp start, but recurring issues ended up costing him the first six games of the season. At the end of his first game of the season, he got suspended for a game. Then a Week 16 hamstring injury cost him the final two games of the regular season. In between, Greenlaw was a force against the run and not used a ton in coverage. It sets up an open question about whether he’s in the Broncos’ defensive plan going forward.
Under the radar: ILB Justin Strnad. Greenlaw’s addition got a ton of offseason attention, but Strnad just quietly keeps getting better and better. He played the best football of his career in 2025 and stamped himself as a bona fide starter going forward. Good timing, too, considering Strnad’s a free agent and should command solid money either from Denver or elsewhere. The 2020 fifth-round pick is strong enough to play against the run, has improved in coverage and is a terrific blitzer. He logged a career-best 4.5 sacks this year. Pretty impressive for a player who went nearly three full years without playing a single defensive snap from mid-2020 into early 2024.
Overall conversion rates allowed – Broncos under DC Vance Joseph
| Year | Third down rate | NFL rank | Red zone TD rate | NFL rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2023 | 33.2% | 2 | 57.6% | 22 |
| 2024 | 37.3% | 11 | 46.9% | 3 |
| 2025 | 33.8% | 2 | 42.6% | 1 |
Run Defense
Five Key Numbers
3.9 — Yards allowed per rush (T-2 in the NFL)
18.8% — Rush attempts against that went for loss or no gain (No. 6)
30 — Rushes of 10-plus yards allowed (No. 2)
0.87 — Yards before contact allowed per rush (No. 2)
0 — 100-yard rushers allowed the final 15 games of the regular season
The Good
They are not the most heralded players on the roster, but Denver’s interior, primarily the early down trio of defensive linemen D.J. Jones, Malcolm Roach and Eyioma Uwazurike, did a lot of heavy lifting in 2025. Jones was a key, last-minute retention before free agency began back in March and he rewarded the Broncos with high-level play and leadership in Year 9. Roach’s game continues to expand, but he did his normal terrific work against the run. Uwazurike was suspended for the 2023 season, played 63 snaps in 2024 and then broke out this year. All three are under contract for 2026 and they will all have key roles, not just against the run but likely also in making up for the seemingly inevitable loss of John Franklin-Myers to free agency. Roach and Uwazurike, in particular, will likely see upticks in their roles. In 2025, though, this trio provided stalwart work against the run.
The Bad
It didn’t go bad on the Broncos against the run very often in 2025, but they got an early wake-up call from Jonathan Taylor and the Indianapolis Colts in Week 2. Taylor ripped off a 68-yard run and racked up 167 overall in Indy’s walk-off win against Denver. After that, Denver didn’t allow a rusher more than 80 yards. The Broncos overall did a good job against mobile quarterbacks, though Washington’s Marcus Mariota gave them fits with his legs in Week 13. And though this is primarily a regular-season retrospective, it’s at least worth mentioning that Buffalo’s James Cook ran for 117 in the divisional round and that the Bills and Patriots averaged 163 rushing yards in the playoffs after Denver went from Week 3 onward not allowing more than 143 in a game. Patriots QB Drake Maye’s five first downs plus a touchdown on seven carries in the AFC title game were critical.
The Unknown
The Broncos do have a talented core set to return in 2026, but there are some holes to fill in the run game. Franklin-Myers is primarily a pass-rusher but his likely departure via free agency will mean changing roles for guys who have been counted on to stop the run. One of the biggest uncertainties defensively is what will happen at inside linebacker, where Strnad and Alex Singleton are free agents and Greenlaw is under contract but would not be difficult to move on from. Any substantial change in personnel, particularly in the middle of the field, can alter the chemistry of a group. Communication originates from the ILBs and emanates outward. If that group is overhauled and JFM departs, there will be a lot of learning to do through the spring and summer. Still, this is a unit that’s well-positioned to be stout against the run again in 2026.
‘Stop’ rate played among NFL DLs
| Player | Team | Snaps | Stops | Stop % |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Jadeveon Clowney | DAL | 349 | 36 | 10.32% |
| Tommy Togiai | HOU | 442 | 43 | 9.73% |
| Malcolm Roach | DEN | 385 | 36 | 9.35% |
| Eyioma Uwazurike | DEN | 382 | 35 | 9.16% |
| Jordan Davis | PHI | 661 | 58 | 8.77% |
| Byron Young | LAR | 326 | 28 | 8.59% |
| D.J. Jones | DEN | 410 | 35 | 8.54% |
| David Onyemata | ATL | 610 | 49 | 8.03% |
| Harrison Phillips | NYJ | 662 | 53 | 8.01% |
| Poona Ford | LAR | 486 | 38 | 7.82% |
*A ‘stop’ is a tackle on a winning defensive play (negative EPA). Rates among top 70 DLs in stops.
Credit: Next Gen Stats data
Pass Defense
Five Key Numbers
62.3% — Pass rate against Denver in 2025 (Second-highest in the NFL)
40.7% — Pressure rate generated by the Broncos (No. 2)
4.8 — Passing yards per play allowed (No. 1)
-0.17 — EPA per pass attempt allowed (No. 7)
10 — Interceptions (T-18)
The Good
Not many teams rush and cover better than the Broncos. They broke a franchise record in sacks for the second straight season, got at least half a sack from 17 different players and paired that fearsome rush with one of the deepest sets of cornerbacks and best overall secondaries in football. They have transformed in the past two years from a mostly anonymous group to one that features four players named to All-Pro teams in the past two seasons — Allen, Bonitto, Surtain and safety Talanoa Hufanga — and is widely recognized as one of football’s best.
They’ve got more cornerbacks than they can get on the field, nickel Ja’Quan McMillian has solidified himself as one of the best in the business and even when safety Brandon Jones went down with a torn pectoral late in the year, P.J. Locke filled in admirably. On the front seven, Denver has developed enviable depth at outside linebacker. GM George Paton called fourth-round rookie Que Robinson the 2025 draft pick with maybe the most upside of the class and he was behind the second-line pair of Jonah Elliss and Dondrea Tillman this fall. This is not an easy group to throw the ball against and the challenge may not get much easier in 2026.
The Bad
Two buckets here. The Broncos, for all their strengths and elite numbers overall in pass defense, struggled to deal with opposing tight ends. Denver allowed the seventh-fewest passing yards overall in the regular season and the sixth-most yards to opposing tight ends. Especially after Jones got hurt, teams tested Hufanga and Locke in coverage as often as they could. Joseph talked in detail about how he tries to combat the issue and part of the susceptibility is just how aggressive and man-heavy Denver plays. Still, it is an unsolved issue at this point.
The second is penalties. The Broncos committed a lot in 2025 and among the most high-profile were a series of defensive pass interference penalties against cornerback Riley Moss. The group took issue with more than one, but Moss also acknowledged a need to play with better technique and grab less. The penalty total dropped as the season hit the back stretch and Moss played well overall as the most-targeted corner in football, but he had occasional lapses in tackling, too, especially against Jacksonville.
The Unknown
The Broncos have an interesting set of decisions to make in the secondary and it could lead to either major change this offseason or could still be a year away yet. They revolve around McMillian, Moss and rookie first-round pick Jahdae Barron. Barron was drafted as a nickel primarily who can also play outside. McMillian is a restricted free agent whom teammates think should have been an All-Pro in 2025. Moss is a really good player — talented, athletic and wired to handle the attention opposite Surtain — but also at times got himself in trouble in coverage. He’s going into the final year of his rookie contract.
McMillian is going to command top-scale money, if not in the form of an extension this offseason, then a year from now as an impending unrestricted free agent. Barron’s going to play at some point, but in April, he looked like a potential McMillian replacement and now McMillian looks like exactly the type of player you want to extend and keep around. So does Barron compete with Moss outside? Do they keep it status-quo this year, let Moss walk in free agency and turn loose Barron and Kris Abrams-Draine to compete for the job across from Surtain? Do they entertain the idea of trading McMillian?
Nothing except putting a premium tender on McMillian has to happen in the coming months, but the way the Broncos sequence their moves here will be interesting nonetheless.
A record sack season
| Player | Position | Sacks |
|---|---|---|
| Nik Bonitto | OLB | 14 |
| Jonathon Cooper | OLB | 8 |
| John Franklin-Myers | DL | 7.5 |
| Zach Allen | DT | 7 |
| Justin Strnad | ILB | 4.5 |
| Ja’Quan McMillian | CB | 4 |
| Malcolm Roach | DT | 4 |
| Dondrea Tillman | OLB | 4 |
| Eyioma Uwazurike | DT | 3.5 |
| D.J. Jones | DT | 3 |
| Jonah Elliss | OLB | 2.5 |
| Talanoa Hufanga | S | 2 |
| Riley Moss | CB | 1 |
| Alex Singleton | ILB | 1 |
| Dre Greenlaw | ILB | 1 |
| Brandon Jones | S | 0.5 |
| Que Robinson | OLB | 0.5 |
Want more Broncos news? Sign up for the Broncos Insider to get all our NFL analysis.