Broncos, Vance Joseph looking for defensive bounce-back with better tackling

ENGLEWOOD, Colo. — The Broncos defense hasn’t misfired often this season, but last Sunday night against the Washington Commanders, it looked rusty emerging from its bye — to the point that defensive coordinator Vance Joseph remained displeased with his unit’s overall performance, despite the final-snap heroics to clinch the win.

“We played OK, in my opinion. I wasn’t totally pleased with our tackling,” Joseph said. “”We missed, like, 10 tackles for, like, 45 yards, but the third downs early were — wasn’t very good. We settled down and made some plays.

“But we can play better. Obviously, after every game we play, we watch the tape and we — we’re honestly — what’s good, what’s bad. If it’s bad, we fix it. If it’s good, we celebrate it. So, no different there. But we can obviously play better, and we have played better, and I expect us to play better.”

There is ample reason for Joseph to expect better, simply because his defense — since Week 4, at least — has done well at limiting the damage. But Washington rumbled through the Broncos for 30 first downs — the most allowed by the Broncos all season.

Overtime helped, of course, but the Commanders’ 26 first downs in regulation play represented a total exceeded against Joseph’s defense just once this season, by the Los Angeles Chargers in Week 3, a game when the Broncos absorbed their worst first-down discrepancy in 59 years.

“We’ve gotta clean up things, obviously,” edge rusher Jonathon Cooper said.

BRONCOS LOOKING TO SHARPEN THINGS UP

One possible reason for last week’s defensive lapse? Coming out of a bye week.

“I felt like we looked like we had a week off,” Cooper said. “It’s just going back to doing the little things right, making sure we execute on all phases.”

Washington’s success against the run was particularly notable; its 143-yard performance last week was the most prolific against the Broncos since Indianapolis in Week 2. Prior to last week, six of the Broncos’ eight previous foes had failed to crack 100 rushing yards against them.

“For us, it was misalignments, some guys were just in the wrong place and tackling — those were the two big things for us,” defensive end John Franklin-Myers said. “If we do that, then, we’ve played a consistent brand of football the whole year, and, it’s the standard we hold ourselves to.”

A standard that they expect to meet — even without D.J. Jones available.

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