Strike 2: During the afternoon hours of Sept. 24, 2023, the vast collection of amateur general managers throughout Broncos Country were all busy speculating on who was going to replace Broncos defensive coordinator Vance Joseph. It was a matter of when, not if, the embattled former head coach of the Broncos was getting the boot from the organization for a second time. Three games into his first season as Denver’s DC (after previously serving as the team’s head coach in 2017 and 2018) Joseph’s defense was a disaster. It was clear a change needed to be made. Immediately. What time would first-year head coach Sean Payton be holding his news conference the next day?

Earlier that day, the Miami Dolphins hung an unheard of 70 points on the Broncos in South Florida. Playing without Pro Bowl safety Justin Simmons, the Broncos couldn’t even slow down the Dolphins, much less stop them. It was a complete you-know-what kicking.

Something had to be done to save the season.

Payton didn’t do anything. Monday came and went, Joseph kept his gig and the Denver defense proceeded to pick up the pieces and carefully put things back together. The Broncos’ improvement began in the second half at Chicago the following week and included a 10-game stretch where they gave up less than 19 points per game and won seven of 10. That included holding the Super Bowl champion Kansas City Chiefs to nine and 19 points in two games – one of them a Denver victory.

By no means were they the Orange Crush, but as all those lounge chair GM’s discovered, Joseph’s defense wasn’t Denver’s biggest issue a season ago. In fact, you could say his unit ended up being Denver’s biggest strength.

While the Russell Wilson Saga rolled on into the last offseason, Joseph quietly went about re-making the Broncos defense into what is this season one of the league’s best units. So far through four games they’ve performed well every week, allowing the Broncos much ballyhooed rookie quarterback Bo Nix some time to deal with those inevitable growing pains.

Now, after winning both road games on back-to-back weeks on the east coast (and when has that ever happened before?) Denver’s defense has proven they’re very clearly the strength of this team. They just cruised into the Big Apple and clamped down on Aaron Rodgers and the New York Jets, keeping the future Hall of Famer out of the endzone entirely (for only the third time in his career) in a 10-9 win.

Perhaps the best part of Denver’s defensive performance was the final two and a half minutes of the game – typically a point where Rodgers works his late game magic and sends the visitors home disappointed. Instead, it became one of Joseph’s finest moments.

Guarding that one-point lead and needing to keep Rodgers out of field goal range not just once, but twice in the final two and a half minutes, Joseph cast aside the notion of playing the tired old “prevent defense,” and instead turned up the heat. The Jets got the ball and moved to their 45-yard line. From there, Rodgers was hurried into three straight incompletions, followed by a fourth-down sack on a gutsy safety blitz.

The Bronco offense went three and out before missing a long field goal, giving Rodgers the ball back at his 40 with 1:27 left. A pass interference penalty got the Jets to the Broncos 36. Once again, the script says this is where Rodgers wins the day. Instead, the Broncos kept coming, forcing three more incompletions from Rodgers before a long field goal attempt sailed wide right.

For the game, Denver sacked Rodgers five times and hit him nine more. They were in his face on almost every passing play.

So while Nix and the Broncos offense produced just 60 yards passing – including the rookie’s first NFL TD pass – and just 186 yards of total offense, this win was earned by Joseph and the defense, which deserves every bit of credit from those lounge chair GM’s after casting aside the ol’ prevent defense, and instead playing to win.