Youthful uptick on defense

Dumervil, rookies contribute 'energy'

Jeff Legwold, Rocky Mountain News

Published October 29, 2007 at midnight

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The Broncos have poured a little youthful enthusiasm into their defensive huddle and now they're hoping to see what kind of mileage they'll get from here on out.

"It's simple, I think," Broncos defensive end Elvis Dumervil said. "We're young and hungry. We don't have it all down or anything, but we are hungry."

And tonight at Invesco Field at Mile High, the Broncos will face one of the youngest teams in the league in the Packers. It just so happens Green Bay has one of the hungriest players behind center in 17-year veteran Brett Favre.

So while the Broncos' final- play escape in a 31-28 win Oct. 21 against the Pittsburgh Steelers did get them back to even at 3-3, there are those who hope they took a little more away with some of their takeaways in the game as well.

A more aggressive look on defense saw the Broncos return a fumble 50 yards for a touchdown that came from a sack; sack Steelers quarterback Ben Roethlisberger four times after back-to- back games without capturing a quarterback; and force two interceptions, one coming off a tipped ball in traffic.

"Those are the kinds of plays we want to make," said cornerback Dré Bly, who had one of the interceptions and said he could have had two more last week. "You look at it and we kind of forced the issue. (Defensive tackle) Tim Crowder took a fumble to the house, we got some interceptions, we tipped some balls.

"When we're playing like we can, we're doing all kinds of stuff like that. And if we can keep doing all kinds of stuff like that, we'll be tough to beat."

The Broncos blitzed a little more against the Steelers than in many of their previous games this season, mixed up some coverages a little more than they had and added a safety near the line of scrimmage on early downs to crank down their run defense that still is ranked last in the league.

The Broncos surrendered 119 rushing yards to the Steelers, their second-lowest total this season behind the 112 they surrendered to the Buffalo Bills.

Their other four opponents rushed for at least 186 yards.

"And you always go in with the goal of stopping the run," Broncos safety John Lynch said. "When you can do some things against the run, you keep yourself out of trouble on third down. When an offense has to look at some more long third downs, as a defense that can allow you to dictate some things."

Added Dumervil: "Get them in pass situations and get after the quarterback. "We can do that. "(Against the Steelers) we switched it up all over the place and put some pressure on."

Youngsters move up

And also at the root of it all was a decision for the Broncos simply to have graduated more of their young players into the defensive rotations. Dumervil, in his second season, has made the jump from part-time to full-time work up front and has found himself to be the oldest player in the defensive line in some of the team's rush packages.

Dumervil has lined up plenty with the three rookies - Jarvis Moss, Marcus Thomas and Crowder.

The Broncos did work veteran Simeon Rice, who has been a game-day inactive the past two games, into their rush package during practice this week, so it is expected he would get some snaps tonight against a Packers offense that has thrown the ball 65 percent of the time.

"Those young guys aren't there yet, but I do like their energy," Broncos coach Mike Shanahan said.

Said middle linebacker D.J. Williams: "Those young guys up front, those guys get off the ball, either getting the sack or disrupting things. It definitely helps in the pass defense, just causing problems all day. And that's good for everybody. You don't have to have blanket coverage if you've got a guy running around back there, throwing off his back foot, not getting set up."

Pressure on quarterback

Aggressively getting to the quarterback might be even a bigger necessity against the Packers because Green Bay thinks pass in most situations.

With a bevy of injured running backs and a slower adjustment than expected to a Broncos-like zone running scheme, they have the 32nd-ranked rushing attack in the league.

They have also converted only 20 first downs in six games rushing the ball and have run the ball more than 22 times in one game this season - a Sept. 16 win against the New York Giants.

The Packers so far have tried to counteract those struggles with more of a short passing game, relying on getting Favre's completion percentage up to move the ball.

If Favre finished at his current 64.8 percent, it would be the second-highest completion percentage of his career behind only the 65.4 percent he finished with in 2003 when he led the league with 32 touchdown passes.

"But guys up front, we want it and we think we can make things happen," Dumervil said. "We did well (against the Steelers), and we know we've got a lot to learn, but I know we're looking forward to Green Bay on Monday Night Football.

"Who wouldn't? You love those kind of games."

legwoldj@RockyMountainNews.com or 303-954-2359

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