Horse Tracks: Broncos’ defense picks up where it left off

Sean Payton acknowledged there are “just a handful of things” he might be mad about following the 27-7 preseason win over the Falcons last weekend, but that would be an improvement over his mood following the first preseason game last year when he had “14 things to be pissed off about.”

And other than “too many penalties,” Payton admitted there was a lot to like in the Falcons game, calling it a “good first time out.”

After watching the tape over the weekend, the head coach was still pleased with the players’ performance.

“It was good in a lot of areas. I thought the intent, the focus was good overall,” he added. “There’s enough on there to coach off of where there are some techniques we can clean up, but I thought overall for the first time out it was good.”

Among the “good” was a defense that not only looked like it picked up where it left off last season, but that it had improved.

With one sack, nine QB pressures and three tackles for a loss, the pass rush was decent all night — as expected.

But two takeaways from different defenders perhaps signaled an area of improvement after being an area of emphasis this offseason.

“Got our hands on a couple. …We had a chance for two or three more. We got the sleeves on. I think there’s some things we can be better at; that was encouraging,” Payton said after the game. “I like the energy we played with.”

Defensive tackle Zach Allen definitely liked it.

“Yes, it’s definitely encouraging. We played a really good football team, and they played their starters for the most part,” Allen said. “When [a takeaway] happens, it’s exciting and obviously we have to just keep working it every day and hopefully it translates into the regular season.”

While there had been concern about replacing John Franklin Myers on the line, several young guys last week showed they were ready to step up.

“That’s just a character thing,” Allen added. “The good thing is we have a bunch of guys that think like that on this team. Any time you roll the ball out, you want to win. Culture is a huge thing, especially in this league. We just want to keep on doing it.”

With most guys returning and a lot of young talent for Vance Joseph to coach up, preseason isn’t just a time for this defense to get on the same page, it’s a chance to build on previous success.

“I think definitely out here there’s probably more experimentation,” Allen added. “We definitely want to keep a couple of things under our hat for the regular season, but if the basics are working in the preseason games, especially if you’re going against starters, it’s huge. … There’s still a lot more work to do and [we] just have to take it day by day.”