It’s not often that a new defensive coordinator inherits a truly elite unit, yet that is exactly what happened when the Denver Broncos promoted defensive backs coach Joe Woods. Now, at the helm of this generation’s Orange Crush, he inherits high expectations; but he doesn’t feel pressure, he feels excited.
“You want to be put in this position, where you’re on a really good team that has a chance to win it all, you’re coaching really good players,” Woods told Eric Goodman and Les Shapiro of The Afternoon Drive on Mile High Sports Radio. “To me, that’s not pressure. That’s just knowing that if I come in and I do my job the way I know I’m capable of, we have a chance to win a championship.”
The Broncos’ vaunted defense carried the team to all the way to Super Bowl 50 a little over one year ago, where they captured the franchise’s third Lombardi Trophy. Last season, the unit took a small step back, but Woods knows what area he needs to address most.
“Absolutely, without any doubt, the run game,” he said. “This last year, the run defense fell off. It’s something we have to look at, from the scheme that we were doing defensively, from an execution standpoint, in terms of what the players were doing and then from a coaching standpoint. We’re in that process right now, and to be honest with you, it’s a little bit of everything.”
A longtime defensive backs coach, run defense isn’t exactly Woods’ area of expertise. Over the past two seasons, he has guided the “No Fly Zone,” which has been the top secondary in the NFL during his tenure. Though they have performed well, Woods doesn’t plan on treating the Broncos defensive backs any differently from the rest of the team.
“Everybody’s responsible for getting the job done. Whether you’re a secondary player, linebacker, d-line, I’m going to hold those guys accountable for doing it the right way.”
Hear the full interview with Joe Woods, including whether or not he has any aspirations to be a head coach and what input he plans on giving John Elway when it comes to personnel decisions, in the podcast below.
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