
Broncos' defense embracing lofty expectations after ‘monstrous' additions
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Summer, we hardly knew ya.
'The offseason treated me well. I enjoyed it while I could,' Surtain said with a grin on Tuesday as he and the rest of the team's veterans reported for training camp. 'It went by fast to say the least, but now we're here.'
#BroncosCountry LIVE: CB Pat Surtain II meets the media https://t.co/zoIuW76u6U
— Denver Broncos (@Broncos) July 22, 2025
Helping to cushion the jarring return to reality for Surtain and the Broncos is an eagerness to begin what they hope will be a fruitful journey in 2025. The team surprised many across the league last season by winning 10 games and snapping a nine-year playoff drought. Naturally, expectations have grown, no more so than inside Denver's building.
'We've still got a lot of goals to accomplish as a team,' Surtain said. 'We're going to take it day by day in camp, keep sharpening iron and keep getting better.'
The arrival at camp was hardly a time for grand proclamations about what the horizon could bring. Veteran right tackle Mike McGlinchey, asked whether Denver has what it needs to pursue a championship this season, offered a gentle reminder: 'We haven't even practiced yet. … We've got a long way to go.'
One thing McGlinchey does feel comfortable predicting: the Surtain-powered defense that he and the Bo Nix-led offense are set to face every day in camp is going to provide a massive challenge. Nearly every member of the front seven that produced a team-record 63 sacks in 2024 has returned, including All-Pro selections Nik Bonitto and Zach Allen. They are joined by two new faces in linebacker Dre Greenlaw and safety Talanoa Hufanga, former teammates of McGlinchey's with the San Francisco 49ers. They were signed to shore up what head coach Sean Payton calls the 'spine' of the defense.
'They are monstrous additions for us defensively,' McGlinchey said. 'The two of them bring such an energy. The defensive side of the football is very emotional, an energetic style of play. You can feel Dre Greenlaw when he steps on the field. You can feel Huff when he makes plays in the box or takes a chance on a great interception. Those two are going to help us tremendously this year. I'm happy to be back on the same side as them.'
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Greenlaw missed Denver's offseason program while rehabbing from a quad injury, but Payton previously said the veteran linebacker would be cleared for training camp. The Broncos have 'acclimation' workouts on Wednesday and Thursday before taking the field in front of about 800 fans for their first full camp practice on Friday. A return to San Francisco for a joint practice against the 49ers and the preseason opener to follow come next week.
It shouldn't take long then for an idea of just how potent this defensive unit can be to materialize. The Broncos in 2024 led the NFL in efficiency, according to TruMedia's EPA (expected points added) per snap metric. They ranked seventh in yards allowed (317.1 per game), third in red-zone efficiency (46.9 percent opponent touchdown rate) and opponent scoring (18.3 per game). Flaws were exposed late in the season, when injuries to safety P.J. Locke and cornerback Riley Moss revealed a lack of depth in the secondary that was exposed in losses to the Los Angeles Chargers and Cincinnati Bengals — and even during a narrow win against the Cleveland Browns.
The Broncos responded by adding Hufanga, who was an All-Pro player for a top-ranked 49ers defense in 2022 before dealing with injuries the past two seasons. They used their first-round pick on versatile defensive back Jahdae Barron, who could supplant Ja'Quan McMillian at the nickel spot or fit in elsewhere as something of a Swiss Army knife for coordinator Vance Joseph's defense.
'He's very smart and savvy and understands the game well,' Surtain said of Barron, who signed his rookie contract just before he and the rest of Denver's first-year players arrived at camp last week. 'The coaches move him around to different positions. That's harder to learn coming in as a rookie, especially with VJ's playbook, but it feels like he's handling it pretty well. It seems like he's up to schedule on things, so I'm excited to see what he's going to do.'
There are questions about Denver's defense that training camp will help answer, including what Barron's ultimate role will be. Can Moss take another developmental leap after impressing for much of his first season as a starter opposite Surtain? Will rookies Sai'vion Jones and Que Robinson make an early impact to further solidify the team's front-seven depth? Will Greenlaw and fellow starter Alex Singleton, who spent the offseason program rehabbing from last September's ACL injury, form the kind of inside linebacker duo the Broncos haven't had since Brandon Marshall and Danny Trevathan were patrolling the middle of the team's vaunted 2015 defense?
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The answers will come in time and will go a long way toward determining what kind of ceiling Payton's third team in Denver can have in 2025. The team is expecting a jump out of Nix following an impressive rookie season. But if the Broncos have assembled the kind of defense they think they have, the next month will include some frustrating days for the young quarterback.
'Starting up front with the guys we retained and have coming back for this year, I feel like it's going to be even better, just knowing how much we rush and how much we care about one another,' linebacker Nik Bonitto said. 'And then you go to the back end with the additions of (Hufanga) and all the guys they have back there with (Brandon) Jones, PS2, Jahdae and all these guys. Dre is going to be real good for us, too. I'm just excited.'
(Top photo of Pat Surtain: C. Morgan Engel / Getty Images)
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In his last season he led the league with 18 touchdown receptions, including a trio of scores in his final game despite dealing with numbness in his arms and tingling in his neck caused by an abnormal loosening of the first and second vertebrae in his cervical spine. He had felt increasingly bothersome symptoms over the last half of that season and he suffered what's commonly referred to as 'stingers' against the Falcons in the Packers' final game at the old Milwaukee County Stadium on Dec. 18, 1994, and again six days later at Tampa, where he caught nine passes for 132 yards and three first-half touchdowns in what turned out to be his final game. Right after Christmas, he learned he needed neck fusion surgery that would limit his head swivel, making it too dangerous to continue playing football. Upon hearing the prognosis, he stood up and shook his doctors' hands. 'I had already accomplished what I wanted to,' Sterling told NBC affiliate WIS News in Columbia, South Carolina, this spring. '... I just wanted to play, and I got to play in the NFL for seven years.' His career cut short at age 29, his protracted wait for Canton would last 31 years. 'Sterling was supposed to be in the Hall first,″ Shannon said ahead of his 2011 induction, where he drew a standing ovation for saying, 'I'm the second-best player in my own family.' Unlike Sterling's truncated testimonial, Shannon's Canton credentials were never in question. He set the standard at tight end, going to eight Pro Bowls in 14 seasons, earning four first-team All-Pro honors and winning three Super Bowls in a four-year span, two in Denver and one in Baltimore. He gave his first Super Bowl ring — from Denver's 31-24 win over Green Bay in 1997 — to Sterling. And he called the chance to welcome his big brother into the Hall 'the proudest moment of my life.' 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'The corner has outside leverage, the safety has inside leverage, the linebacker is in a zone. He broke it down like this: 'When it's a pass, I'm going to attack the worst cover guy, the safety. When it's a run, I'm going to attack the worst tackler, the cornerback.' I'd never heard nothing like that. It made so much sense. 'If he's putting pressure on the safety, running straight at him, it's what we call a panic state. As soon as he turns around to run with you, you stop on a dime and 'Magic' (Don Majkowski) or Brett would throw him the ball. I'd never seen any receiver do that, where he just said I'm going to attack the weakest guy based on what the play is.' Butler said another of Sterling's hush-hush advantages actually salvaged his own career. Favre's fastballs at practice were exacerbated in the winter months, so to save his hands and preserve rhythm with his quarterback, Sterling began wearing scuba diving wetsuit gloves, Butler said. With their padding and super tack, the gloves served like a catcher's mitt. They worked out so well in the elements that Sterling began wearing them indoors, too, Butler said. 'So I went out and got me some scuba gloves like Sterling and it saved my career,' Butler said. 'I started to get more interceptions. And before you know it our whole secondary was wearing them. I don't think opponents realized it. Again, you don't talk about it.' ___ AP NFL: