For the Denver Broncos to take a major step in their rebuild during the 2024 season, they’re going to need some players to experience breakout seasons. That’s especially true on defense, following the loss of key contributors like Justin Simmons, Josey Jewell, and Mike Purcell.
With the need for new stars, who can Broncos Country expect to break out for them on the defensive side of the ball? Let’s look.
Check out our Breakout Player Draft:
4. Jonas Griffith
It seems like Jonas Griffith’s absence in 2023 has led to a large swath of Broncos Country completely forgetting about the talented inside linebacker.
Fortunately, fans should become re-acquainted with Griffith rather quickly, as he’s primed for a massive role, especially following the devastating injury to Drew Sanders.
As it stands now, the Denver Broncos have just Alex Singleton, Justin Strnad, Cody Barton, Durrell Nchami and a handful of undrafted free agents to fill out the room, outside of Jonas Griffith. Strnad has been a borderline disaster every time he’s been asked to play a large number of defensive snaps, while Barton was arguably the most reviled player on a 4-13 squad that wound up picking second overall.
Those are the Broncos’ best options for their starter alongside Singleton, outside of Griffith.
So, the opportunity is clearly there, but is the ability?
The last time we saw him, he lost his starting job to Alex Singleton and faded into the background as the team’s clear No. 3 option.
Yet, the season before, in 2021, he was a revelation for the Denver Broncos, and looked every bit like a potential long-term solution at linebacker, and one that could provide Broncos Country with the athleticism they’ve long pined for from the position.
If Griffith can seize this opportunity, it would be a tremendous boon for the Denver franchise, as it could help erase any pain felt by missing on Sanders, which unfortunately seems more likely than not at this point.
3. Riley Moss
The Denver Broncos are begging Riley Moss to break out this season, and he’s set up wonderfully to do just that.
The only competition Moss will have to face for the starting job is Levi Wallace and Damarri Mathis, plus, the Broncos have far more invested in Moss than they have in his two counterparts combined. That gives him the inside track on an already easy competition.
Plus, once he (likely) wins the starting job, the opportunities should only continue to prevent themselves. With Ja’Quan McMillian and Patrick Surtain II as the team’s other two corners, Moss will be picked on early and often. Pair that with the fact Moss is a bit of a ball hawk (11 interceptions and 26 pass breakups in college), and it’s easy to imagine the second-year corner making a ton of splash plays this season, so long as he’s up to the challenge.
Along with the opportunity, Moss will have a fairly low bar to clear in order for his 2024 to be considered a ‘breakout season’. With him not playing a lick as a rookie, if Moss is even a viable starter, it would constitute a pretty serious leap.
2. Nik Bonitto
After ranking 30th in the NFL in pass rush win rate last season, the Denver Broncos are desperate for one of their young edge rushers to have a breakout season. Nik Bonitto seems to be the best bet of the bunch.
Last season, Bonitto was the team’s most impactful edge rusher. He created one pressure every 21.8 snaps, which was dramatically better than Baron Browning (once every 44.6) and Jonathon Cooper (once every 38.0 snaps). The same is true about their sack rates. Bonitto averaged a sack once every 65.5 snaps, while Browning tallied a sack once every 99.1 snaps and Cooper recorded one every 98.4 snaps.
Now, Browning has plenty of breakout potential in his own right, and could wind up beating Bonitto out for the starting role, and thus, this opportunity. Nonetheless, Bonitto seems like the safer bet here because of Browning’s injury history.
Browning’s lack of playing time was a red flag as he entered the draft, and he’s missed at least three games every season of his NFL career, including seven a season ago. Meanwhile, Bonitto has missed four games total over his two seasons in the NFL and his final season in college.
The snag in this vision is Bonitto’s physical limitations as a run defender. As of now, he’s a negative against the run, and it’s hard to imagine him ever being much better than average, which limits his usage. Nonetheless, no one in the NFL tallied as many sacks as Bonitto did this season on as few snaps (eight sacks on 524), except for the New York Jets’ Bryce Huff — arguably the NFL’s best ‘designated pass rusher,’ who just signed a three-year, $51 million extension with the Philadelphia Eagles.
Even without a major leap as a run defender, Bonitto should be able to cement himself as one of the league’s most dangerous pass rushers on a per-snap basis with just a little continued progression. After the leap Bonitto took between his rookie and sophomore seasons, another step in his development isn’t hard to imagine at all.
1. PJ Locke
It is extremely easy to believe that 2024 will be the season PJ Locke truly breaks out.
First, the opportunity is right there for the taking. He’s the team’s second-highest-paid safety and their second-most-proven veteran who didn’t suffer a devastating lower-body injury in 2023. The competition with Caden Sterns, JL Skinner and Delarrin Turner-Yell is legitimate, and Locke has the head start and the inside track on all of the other horses in the race.
Beyond that, Locke has demonstrated time and time again, almost without exception, that’s he’s capable of filling whatever role the Denver Broncos want him to fill.
Early in his career, his role was as one of the team’s ace special teamers. However that responsibility soon blossomed into snaps in the nickel and at safety, due to injuries ahead of him, and Locke filled in tremendously.
It’s easy to forget now, but him filling in for an ejected Kareem Jackson the week of the Green Bay Packers game, and taking over the starting job from that point forward, was a major part of Denver’s defensive turnaround in 2023.
On top of his track record and the opportunity laying before him, Locke is reportedly wowing at training camp.
During last week’s episode of “Altitude Adjustment with Mario Vetanze and Patrick Chiotti,” guest and 850 KOA’s Denver Broncos insider Benjamin Allbright reluctantly compared Locke’s play during this summers early practice periods to the Honey Badger.
“PJ Locke, I think, is gonna have a breakout year,” Allbright said. “I think this is the year he’s going to get some national recognition. He’s the guy who keeps picking off Zach Wilson, he’s the other safety, like he’s the guy opposite Brandon Jones. So, it’s going to be fun and interesting to watch him, because the last couple of years we’ve all kinda seen him in microdoses and we’ve seen him have a nose for the football. I always hate to invoke names, but Tyrann Mathieu is always around the football [and] PJ’s kinda got that same thing, where he’s always around the ball.”
The next day, on Wednesday’s episode of “The Let’s Talk Broncos Podcast,” DNVR Broncos analyst Henry Chisholm echoed Allbright’s praise, as he highlighted Locke as two of the players that stood out the most to him so far at Broncos practice, and the only one on defense.
Plus, he’s now entering his second season in this defensive system, and is now getting coached up by a former NFL safety renowned for his football IQ (Jim Leonhard).
All signs point to 2024 being the year of Locke.
