The Denver Broncos want to shift Jonah Elliss inside, and his college coaches at Utah think he can handle the switch.
The Denver Broncos are talking about making an interesting shift on defense this year by moving linebacker Jonah Elliss inside, and there’s not a lot of good intel available right now on Elliss’s ability to do this.
But Kyle Whittingham coached Elliss at Utah, and the college coach offered a strong endorsement of Elliss’s ability to handle the switch, with the possibility introduced by coach Sean Payton at the NFL spring meetings in Arizona.
“Sometimes, that inside ‘backer position — one of the best in our league in San Francisco, Fred Warner, you saw him play more out in space, outside ‘backer,” Payton said in Arizona, according to Luca Evans of the Denver Post. “So, sometimes, you have to look at the skillset and then project where you think it can go.”
Whittingham is now the head coach at Michigan has a vested interest in seeing Elliss succeed, and he clearly loves the idea.
“I’m excited to see how he functions there,” Whittingham said. “Because, like I said, he’s fully capable of it.”
Elliss was considered light for the task, literally, when he was at Utah. He was just 210 pounds when he started with the Utes, and they ended up moving the linebacker outside, where he racked up 12 sacks as a junior All-American.
There were teams that looked at Elliss as a possibility inside, and Whittingham used a specific term to describe what the linebacker would bring to the table.
“He’s certainly got the physicality to destroy blocks — block destruction is something he’s really good at,” Kyle Whittingham told The Post. “He’s also got very good just, flat-out speed … I think he’s got what it takes to be a very good all-around (inside) linebacker.”
Elliss has had a tough road to get snaps in Denver, as he’s playing behind two of the best linebackers in the league in Nik Bonitto and Jonathan Cooper. Elliss has flashed as a rotational edge rusher, according to Evans, but 96 percent of his snaps last year were on the outside.
The key now, Evans added, will be Elliss’s ongoing ability to improve in coverage. One of his hypothetical predecessors, Dre Greenlaw, was let go in part because of his struggles in coverage in the middle of the field.
Freddie Whittingham is Kyle’s son, and he was once Utah’s recruiting coordinator. He’s now the tight ends coach at Michigan, and he points to the mental side of the game as part of the reason Elliss can make the shift.
“As far as football intellect and also the discipline to get in the film room and watch tape and learn and understand assignments and adjustments, and everything that the linebackers need to be able to understand,” Freddie Whittingham said, “I think they’re going to be able to count on that guy.”
The Broncos won’t know if this will work until they see it on the field, but these kinds of endorsements are important, especially right now as Denver finalizes its draft strategy.