For Broncos defense, stopping the run remains a struggle point

For the Broncos, a problem that ebbed — but never fully evaporated — during their 5-game, season-reviving winning streak returned with a vengeance last Saturday in Detroit.

The Lions gashed the Broncos on the ground. And unfortunately for Denver, it provided some flashbacks to the loss at Miami in Week 3 — although the Lions did not run with the same frequency as the Dolphins, who racked up 43 attempts that day — 15 more than Detroit last week.

What went wrong?

“Well, ultimately, it’s the gap integrity,” Broncos coach Sean Payton said. “You have certain gaps, especially when you’re playing a down-safety defense. They did a good job of creating space, if you will, and then your gaps get challenged. That would be the first thing.”

Space in the box has been an issue for the Broncos when their run defense failed this season. And while it didn’t tumble to the same degree as it did earlier this year, it was the third time in the last six weeks since the bye that Denver allowed at least 175 yards rushing.

If you’re going to get the Broncos, on the ground still appears to be where to do it.

Fixing that — and other issues in coverage — is a matter of fundamentals.

“You saying ‘fundamentally’ brings you back,” inside linebacker Josey Jewell said in response to a question where that word arose Monday. “I mean, before getting on the call, that’s the one thing I was thinking about, and the one thing we didn’t do very well — especially on the defensive side: executing the plan, whether it be doing exactly what your job says to do, or fundamentally finishing plays how we’re supposed to and how we’ve been doing.

“So, it’s just a reminder, it’s the NFL, and everybody’s good at their job, and you’ve gotta be exceptional if you want to be doing a great job every single week, and that just comes back to consistency, and that’s one thing we really need to hone in on these final three weeks.”

The Broncos were not on Saturday, and now, the question looms: Can they get their run defense right to where the Patriots, Chargers and Raiders don’t exploit it going forward?

That’s where this week’s Three Numbers focuses.

5.2

Yardage per carry permitted by the Broncos this season. This is not only the worst in the NFL, but it is also on track to be the worst single-season figure in Broncos history.

If the Broncos can’t reverse this, they will be just the 10th team since the 1978 rules changes to allow at least 5.2 yards per attempt over the course of a season.

4

Number of games so far this season in which the Broncos have allowed at least 6.5 yards per carry. This is not only the most in the NFL so far this season, but it is two more than any other team has — and fully one-third of the league-wide tally of 12 such games this season.

Worse, according to Pro-Football-Reference.com, this is the most such games allowed by the Broncos in a single season in club history. The last time the Broncos allowed even three games with 6.5 or more yards per attempt was in 2008.

Lions runners Jahmyr Gibbs and David Montgomery fueled the fire Saturday, averaging 6.6 yards per attempt.

17

Number of missed tackles by the Broncos on Saturday — their highest single-game figure since the defense collectively missed 25 potential tackles in the 70-20 loss at Miami, per the data compiled by ProFootballFocus.com.

By and large, the Broncos had fixed this glitch in recent weeks. Denver had five-consecutive games from Weeks 2-6 in which the defense had at least 10 missed tackles. In that span, the Broncos averaged 14.4 missed tackles per game.

But in the succeeding seven contests, that averaged dropped by 6 missed tackles per game, to 8.4. And in the three weeks leading up to Saturday’s loss, the Broncos averaged just 6.0 missed tackles per game.