DJ Jones of the Denver Broncos talked about the NFL sack record, and Bo Nix was recently sacked in practice.
The Denver Broncos defense has an obsession of sorts, and it’s all about the NFL’s all-time sack record. The Broncos were on track to break it at the halfway point in the season last year, but they came up just short, and defnsive lineman D.J. Jones says they can get there this year, according to a report from Michael David Smith of Pro Football Talk.
“We can break it. We can break the record,” Jones said, picking up on comments his running mate, Zach Allen, made last month. “What is that, 72? Yeah, we can break it.”
The Broncos finished with 68 sacks, but they definitely slumped down the stretch. The Green Bay Packers and Jacksonville Jaguars exposed the Broncos late in the season to some extend, but that didnt stop Denver from making it all the way to the AFC Championship game.
“We got what it takes,” Jones said. “We’ve tasted it. Now it’s time to cook the meal, eat it and take a break. You know how you eat a good meal, and you lay down after, take a good nap, and you wake up and go eat again? We’re about to eat again. It’s time. We got the numbers, we got the men, we got the willpower, we’ve got free will to go do it. So, it’s up to us, and we’re going to do that.”
Jones also provided an intriguing footnote that was probably the most important aspect of this story, as he stated that defensive end Malcolm Roach put quarterback Bo Nix on the ground during a recent practice, which is usually considered a serious no-no, as Smith put it.
“Bo got knocked down, but we play physical. You can’t slow down for nobody,” Jones said. “It got quiet. It got quiet real quick. Everybody stopped. But he was just doing his job.”
The job going forward will be doing the same to opposing quarterbacks. The Broncos have a brutal schedule early, and Nix is recovering from ankle surgery, although he’s looked reasonably mobile in training camp so far.
The players will be different this time around, though. Linebacker Jonathon Cooper has legal issues that need to be resolved after he was arrested twice in a domestic violence incident, and fellow linebacker Nik Bonitto left the field earlier this week with what’s being called a minor injury.
There’s plenty going on with the parts and pieces on defense, and we won’t know who will or won’t be on the field until the end of training camp.
