The Denver defense was so dominant this season that part of the prelude to a Super Bowl in which the Broncos were officially the underdogs included in-depth discussions about what the defense’s nickname should be if the team managed to win.
While the team kicked around ideas like Orange Rush, a reference to Denver’s Orange Crush teams of the late 1970s, it will take some time for a nickname to build momentum. But after powering a team with almost no offense to Sunday’s 24-10 win over the Carolina Panthers, the highest-scoring team in the NFL, the Broncos’ defense clearly deserves one. It would not seem a stretch to include Denver on a list of the most dominant defenses in NFL history, alongside the 1985 Chicago Bears, the 2000 Baltimore Ravens, the 2013 Seattle Seahawks and the 1976 Pittsburgh Steelers.
Peyton Manning heaped praise on the defense while congratulating Von Miller for being named the game’s most valuable player.
“Von earned it,” Manning said. “He’s been awesome. I’m just glad I’m on the same team as our defense.”
Comparing numbers between eras can be dicey, but the Broncos had plenty of superlatives in the 2015 regular season: the NFL’s No. 1 overall defense, No. 1 passing defense and No. 3 rushing defense. And as Wade Phillips, Denver’s defensive coordinator, was quick to point out, the Broncos held opponents to a league-low 3.3 yards per carry. So by some measures, they have been the best in every category.
But Phillips, who had been coaching in the NFL since 1976 without previously winning a Super Bowl, said the team’s ability to grind out wins was what set it apart.
“We’ve had so many pressure games,” Phillips said last week, “and when you think about it, we just broke the record of the ’78 Oilers, who had the most wins of 7 points or less.”
He added, “Of course, I was with the ’78 Oilers, and that’s when my hair started turning gray — all those close games — so it can’t turn any grayer.”
Phillips’ modesty has always been his trademark. But using his signature 3-4 alignment, the Broncos wreaked havoc with Miller and DeMarcus Ware rushing from the outside as the team’s dominant secondary took away any options for quarterbacks hoping to get rid of the ball quickly. They expertly disguised who would be rushing the passer on every play and made star quarterbacks look like amateurs.
When a Super Bowl win was on the line, the Denver defense kept Cam Newton, the league’s most valuable player, out of his comfort zone, limiting him to 18 for 41 in pass completions with 265 yards and an interception. Factor in the 68 yards the Broncos took away with seven sacks, and Carolina had only 197 passing yards.
Denver was even more dominant in stopping the run, holding Jonathan Stewart, a Pro Bowl running back, to 29 yards on 12 carries. Newton found some room to run, with six carries for 45 yards, but the Broncos seemed content to take away all of his other options and force him to run, and the tactic ended up working.
The Broncos, in many ways, were held back by their offense. That unit, led by Manning, committed 31 turnovers during the regular season, giving their opponents short fields to work with. It was more of the same against Carolina, with the Denver offense failing to score a touchdown until given a drive in which it needed just 4 yards to score.
But as was the case in the regular season, when someone was writing them off as pretenders each week, the determined Broncos won the Super Bowl, regardless of how many people wanted to see Newton prevail.
“I guess people don’t like how we win,” Denver cornerback Chris Harris Jr. said when asked why his team was not given much of a chance to beat Carolina. “We have a lot of ugly wins; people don’t like that, and I would say that’s why. We win those tough, gritty games that make you fight until the very end, and that’s how we’ve done all year.”
Finding beauty in something ugly seemed fitting for a unit that Phillips had coached to take opportunities anywhere it could get them and to never let up.
Now that the current Broncos have won a Super Bowl, they will be compared to other great teams. But Miller, after forcing two fumbles that led to touchdowns, said such talk made him nervous. Still, he expressed the confidence that Phillips and coach Gary Kubiak had instilled in the team.
“We just had to play our defense,” Miller said. “We came into the game wanting to play our defense. We knew if we were able to come out and be consistent, we would win this game.”
Now the Broncos’ defense just needs a nickname.
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