Broncos Journal: Denver’s defensive core can be good long-term, but can it shrink gap to Patrick Mahomes and the Chiefs?
Denver Post
Residing in the AFC West this decade comes with the most fundamental of football truths.
No. 15 in Kansas City influences everything that everybody does to some degree or another.
Patrick Mahomes could retire at the end of this year and waltz into the Hall of Fame on the first ballot.
At 29, though, there’s also a possibility he will play for another decade or more.
Tom Brady, for example, played 13 years in New England after his age-29 season and 16 more total.
If Mahomes plays five years shorter than that, though age 40 — where Aaron Rodgers is right now — he’ll still be taking snaps during the 2035 season.
As he and Kansas City chase a third straight Super Bowl title, Mahomes and the Chiefs put pressure on everybody else in the division. Defensive coordinators, sure, but head coaches Sean Payton, Jim Harbaugh and Antonio Pierce, too. General managers and scouting departments. Even ownership groups.
Nobody’s figured out how to get even close yet. Mahomes is 32-5 in his career against the division and the Chiefs have won eight straight division titles.
Oh, and they enter a Week 10 home game against the Broncos unbeaten and three games clear in the West.
Payton knew all of this when he took the Broncos job in early 2023. Heck, he wanted to draft Mahomes in New Orleans in 2017. Had he done that rather than Reid and GM Brett Veach jumping up from No. 28 to No. 10, imagine how much different the landscape might look in so many ways.
What Payton perhaps didn’t expect when he got to the Front Range, though, is that the Broncos’ long-term blueprint for combatting Mahomes’ greatness would develop on defense more quickly than on offense.
Maybe he now has his decade-long quarterback in place in Bo Nix. Time will tell. But the pieces are starting to fit into place defensively. The latest slotted in last week when outside linebacker Jonathon Cooper signed his four-year extension.
That makes Cooper and corner Pat Surtain II two of only three players on the roster, along with guard Quinn Meinerz, under contract through 2028.
They are part of a bonding young, talented defensive nucleus that will pace Denver for years to come. Cooper has Nik Bonitto through next year at a minimum. Jonah Elliss and Drew Sanders for longer than that.
Riley Moss in his second season looks like a real find and a perfect fit, both in talent and temperament, opposite Surtain. Nickel Ja’Quan McMillian is just an exclusive rights free agent after this season, so he’s got years of control remaining, too.
That group is fully homegrown. The Broncos have imported key ingredients like defensive linemen Zach Allen and John Franklin-Myers and safety Brandon Jones, all of whom have played at a high level this year and each of whom could be part of the long-term picture, too.
Collectively, they know the Chiefs are the entire task Sunday but also a big part of the challenge for years to come.
“Just knowing the pedigree (Mahomes) has had since he’s been in the league, all he’s been known for is winning,” Bonitto told The Post this week. “Knowing that he’s in our division, we’ve got to have winners in the locker room, too. I think we’re doing that right now from top to bottom.”
Certainly, the Broncos are going to have to score more than 20.3 points per game and have more ways to threaten offensively in order to be the team that ends Kansas City’s grip on the AFC West. Just as critical or perhaps more, though, is the continued growth of Denver’s defense.
The Broncos’ last Super Bowl team taught that lesson. The Chiefs’ past two have as well.
Take what Denver receiver Courtland Sutton said this week about Kansas City’s stout defensive group.
“They have a lot of really good players that have played a lot of ball together and it allows them to play fast,” Sutton said.
The Broncos are getting toward that point. They have a bunch of good defensive players, some of whom have played a lot together. But each week they grow some in that department.
That as much as anything is where Payton’s team has tried to close the gap on the Chiefs.
There’s work to be done, but Cooper’s extension was another sign that the Broncos’ defense is headed in a promising direction long-term.
“Just knowing we can continue to grow not only on the field but off the field, all of us are close right now,” Bonitto said. “And to have a guy like ‘Coop’ come back and be the leader and to keep this core together, it’s going to be fun.”
Want more Broncos news? Sign up for the Broncos Insider to get all our NFL analysis.