Sean Payton Sounds Off on Broncos' Lack of Pass Rush

At any level of football, applying pressure on the opposition quarterback is of paramount importance. For the Denver Broncos, the halcyon days of Von Miller terrorizing offensive lines and signal-callers are long gone.

In Sunday's loss to the Las Vegas Raiders, the Broncos registered zero sacks on quarterback Jimmy Garoppolo. Denver is searching for answers to its pass-rushing woes.

Baron Browning's return from injury might help the Broncos further along down the line, but in the meantime, it would appear that head coach Sean Payton and his already under-fire defensive coordinator Vance Joseph might have to tweak their scheme.

"Well, look, there are two things. You win your one-on-ones, or you bring more people," Payton said as the dust settled on Monday. "You dog or blitz, or you win your one-on-ones. A lot is dependent upon what you're wanting to do coverage-wise within the framework of a scheme. There are times sometimes when you want to keep the quarterback in the pocket and play a certain coverage. A lot of it is dependent on your game plan."

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The conundrum Garoppolo presented for the Broncos will surely be exploited by other teams moving forward, and that should seriously worry Payton. Just a touch of mobility and the ability to get the ball out super quickly made the Broncos' pass rush largely ineffective, even when it came down to basics like batting down the ball.

"We're all for pressure, and obviously, it's an important stat line in our league when it comes to hurrying these quarterbacks," Payton said. "The ball does come out quickly with Jimmy, and it comes out quickly, I think route-design-wise. It's one thing to say a quarterback gets rid of it quickly, but there are certain teams that are going to hold the ball longer than others. We'll confidently evaluate, 'Hey, how are we rushing this player or quarterback?, and then, 'How can we be better at it? We knew that it was going to be a ball-out-fast offense. His rhythm all those years in San Francisco—he was always someone that had low sack totals, so how do we disrupt the passing game? We disrupt it at the line of scrimmage with the receivers. We disrupt it possibly with batted-down balls, and then we disrupt it with hurries and sacks. Obviously, that's something we pay attention to."

The Broncos' knowledge of what the Raiders and their journeyman quarterback would bring to the table makes the one-point defeat even harder to digest. While pressure comes to bear on Joseph for his failure to get to the quarterback, the sloppy play, in general, is not acceptable.

The Broncos had six defensive penalties, which played a part in the opening-day defeat, with safety Kareem Jackson's personal foul flag late in the fourth quarter served as the dagger. Payton is well aware that his team needs to clean up the penalty issues, especially the ones he knows the officials are going to easily pick up on.

"Both teams had 10 penalties," Payton said. "[That was] too much for our liking, obviously."

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