Sean Payton expresses the importance of having flexibility on both sides of the football

Flexibility is of the utmost important in football, especially when the weather gets colder and the stakes get higher. The best teams in the NFL have guys who can line up in different spots and impact the game in multiple ways, something that Sean Payton and the Denver Broncos lacked last season.

While no team besides the Jacksonville Jaguars has a player who’s as flexible as Travis Hunter, they still have the weapons that can stress the opponent in multiple ways. The Broncos went out and got a few new faces this offseason who can do just that.

Evan Engram can line up on the end of the line of scrimmage or split out wide. RJ Harvey can be a weapon in the pass game. Jahdae Barron can play nickel and outside. Talanoa Hufanga can hold up the back end but also be a force in the run game. These are the guys the Broncos were missing last year. Head coach Sean Payton expressed the importance of flexibility after practice on Friday.

“Let’s start on defense. The hardest thing defensively is to have enough cover people, and then when you do, you can add them to obvious passing situations and then match up, if [Pat] Surtain wanted to take Engram, you have that flexibility. [In a dime package], it gives the defense a lot of different coverage people that can execute when it’s an obvious pass situation,” Payton said.

Especially against teams that don’t need a heavy set on the field to run the ball, the Broncos need the coverage guys who can play in a dime setting (six defensive backs on the field) but also come up and get physical. Buffalo is the prime example, as Josh Allen unlocks practically every possibility on the field for them. He also had a talented set of receivers that are hard to guard, even more so if he extends the play with his legs. If Denver can get the flexibility on defense to match up well enough with them, they’ll have a shot to compete, unlike the Wild Card game a season ago.

On the offensive side of the ball, Payton related a two-minute drill to the frantic pace of hockey.

“The big thing offensively is you have your first group, but you have to be ready on deep throws. You’ve got to be ready to kind of hockey substitute, you know, [get a] new, fresh group in because one of the tough things about a two minute drill, if a play has a post and a sail and a flat someone just ran a post route, and if we’re going to wait for him to return, as opposed to just exit and send him, so you have to be ready to substitute a little bit more offensively,” Payton said.

Engram’s presence on the field helps out Payton as a play caller along with the rest of Denver’s offense because of where he can line up, especially in two-minute scenarios. The talk of the joker position plagued the team all offseason, as people speculated on whether Engram or possibly even Harvey could be the next rendition of Payton’s patented joker, similar to guys from the past like Reggie Bush and Jeremy Shockey.

“When Evan’s in we count it as 11 [personnel]. Just because he’s not in a three point stance, we still count it as 11. The defense might say, ‘Hey, we’re going to treat Engram as a receiver’, certainly in this two minute drill, I didn’t see any linebackers covering him … That can vary week to week, you know, relative to, you know, you’ll play some teams that are more man based, more zone based. And then I would say, throughout the league, most two minute operations are out of an 11 personnel offense,” Payton said.

If an opposing team lacks good coverage linebackers, or if they don’t have enough depth at corner, Payton can easily move the versatile Engram around to create mismatches, all because of his flexibility. With him and Harvey lined up next to an improving Bo Nix, the Broncos should be able to create easy offense before they even have to look at Courtland Sutton and the rest of the receivers.

On defense, they have the guys who can match up with a traditional receiver but also hold their own against a guy like Engram. They needed more flexibility after last season, and they went out and got it, and now Payton and the rest of the team are reaping the benefits from it. Iron is currently sharpening iron at training camp, as the squad looks poised to have its best season in a decade.

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