Broncos dismiss inside linebackers coach Greg Manusky

For the Denver Broncos, it won’t be an offseason without change. And some of it is of their own volition.

A week and a half after parting ways with special-teams coordinator Ben Kotwica, Sean Payton made another change on his staff, dismissing inside linebackers coach Greg Manusky after two seasons.

For the Broncos, this change comes on the heels of losing offensive assistant coaches Declan Doyle and John Morton to coordinator jobs with the Chicago Bears and Detroit Lions, respectively. Morton, the Broncos’ passing-game coordinator, returns to where he spent the 2022 season, while Doyle joins Ben Johnson, the new Bears head coach who was Morton’s predecessor in Detroit.

Manusky had never coached with Payton before joining Denver in 2023, but he had 19 previous seasons of NFL coaching experience preceded by a 12-year playing career with Washington, Minnesota and Kansas City.

While with the Broncos, Manusky’s inside-linebacker unit had mixed results. Alex Singleton had a prodigious tackle tally in 2023, notching 177 total stops, the most for a Broncos player since at least 1991. But after losing Singleton to a torn ACL three games into the 2023 season, the Broncos struggled at times, particularly against the run.

They turned to Justin Strnad to fill in for Singleton, with Cody Barton assuming Singleton’s “green-dot” role as the player relaying Vance Joseph’s defensive playcalls. But the Broncos didn’t truly settle on Strnad until November, as they started Kwon Alexander at New Orleans in Week 7 and gave Zach Cunningham some looks in practice and occasional game snaps.

Down the stretch, teams gashed Denver between the numbers on the ground and through the air.

And now they will definitely be looking for a new inside-linebackers coach — and possibly for a new inside linebacker in free agency or the NFL Draft.

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