Joseph gets help from Parker, Dixon
As Vance Joseph’s candidacy for Denver’s defensive coordinator position advanced from whispered theoretical to actual possibility, he encountered a couple of wrinkles in the interview process.
First, of course, was the fact that he spent 2017 and 2018 as the Broncos head coach before getting fired after an 11- 21 run. He and coach Sean Payton said that era didn’t take up much of their early conversations.
Another unique element: Payton included defensive backs coach Christian Parker and defensive line coach Marcus Dixon, the two only two assistants he planned on keeping from Nathaniel Hackett’s 2022 staff, in the interview process for coordinator candidates. Payton had the final say, of course, but he wanted the highly regarded young coaches to hear what Joseph and others had in mind for a Broncos defense that they knew better than anybody left in the building. He wanted them to listen for what fit Justin Simmons and Pat Surtain II and D. J. Jones and Josey Jewell. To take a clear- minded approach to what went well in 2022 — there was plenty — what didn’t and think about how candidates might help fill in the gaps.
“We were going to be here and he wanted to keep us here, so it was to kind of understand that, ‘ hey, these guys know the system from last year, what these guys did well,’ so he wanted us to hear what other ( candidates) brought to the table,” Dixon told The Post recently. “End of the day, though, he’s making the decision on that.
“And I thought he made a great decision with VJ.” The translators
The four months since have been about setting the foundation for Joseph’s second turn running the Broncos defense. If there’s one thing his staff has in spades, it’s experience. Joseph himself has called defensive plays seven straight years in the NFL. Inside linebackers coach Greg Manusky played 12 years, coached 22 and coordinated defenses in San Francisco, San Diego, Indianapolis and Washington. Joe Vitt, a senior defensive assistant and the defensive staffer closest to Payton, first started working in the NFL 44 years ago.
All the same, though, perhaps none are more important to the Broncos’ current transition from Ejiro Evero’s 2022 defense to this year’s version than Dixon, 38, and Parker, 31. They have helped Joseph determine what to keep and what to change schematically and have translated much of the terminology to help players make the transition smoothly.
“Every coach will tell you that they give you the system, but the players and coaches have got to work together,” said inside linebacker Alex Singleton, who thrived in Evero’s system last year and finished with a career- best 163 tackles. “It’s not like high school where, ‘ You have to do it this way.’ The best part is with ‘ CP’ and Marcus staying, they were really able to help use some of the same verbiage we used last year. So it wasn’t just throwing away everything we’ve done.
“Some of the guys, like Justin, he’s been here for the past seven years playing at a high level. So they didn’t just throw that away and they have been able to really combine the two defenses.”
Defensive linemen and defensive backs will line up to say they’re glad Dixon and Parker are back just because they’re good coaches, but it has made installing new defensive elements and ideas simpler, too.
“It’s been smooth,” secondyear defensive lineman Matt Henningsen said. “Coach Dixon and ‘ CP’ both were here and they knew what we knew, they knew the defense in and out and now they know VJ’S defense in and out. So essentially just connecting the dots between the the two of them — what’s changed, what’s the same, how are we going to improve?”
Added Simmons, “It means more than I think people give it credit for. Especially when you’re moving from defensive scheme to defensive scheme, having a coach that can relate things really well and explain things really well and kind of give the transition. ‘ This install right here is the same as this call that we ran last year.’ OK, I can put those things together, I can marry those things together.”
Open to adapting Singleton credited Joseph as “one of the guys that started this defense here,” during his time as the head coach and, indeed, he has a few familiar faces around Dove Valley. Joseph coached Simmons and Josey Jewell during his time with the Broncos.
He also had defensive lineman Zach Allen the past four years in Arizona and coached Kareem Jackson from 2011 to ’ 13 in Houston’s secondary.
Add in an All- Pro corner in Surtain that any coach in the NFL would love to have at his disposal, and that’s a pretty good starting point for Joseph to work with.
“It’s been a very good defense for a very long time here in Denver,” Joseph said. “The challenge for me is to take what they did well last year and continue that and improve. You can always improve in certain areas. It’s a good group. It’s an engaged group. They want to be coached, and it’s an experienced group in the backend.
“It’s fun to watch those guys talk through concepts and follow my lead. It’s my job to marry the language of both systems and what they’ve done well.”
Joseph pointed out that calling plays for seven years, while it provides the benefit of experience, also means opposing teams know him inside and out.
“My tape is out there,” he said.
The Broncos had a substantial amount of good tape last year on defense, particularly in the first half of the season. They finished 10th in DVOA, a Football Outsiders efficiency metric, and near the top of the league in several categories, including yards allowed per play ( tied for third), third down conversion percentage allowed ( second) and red zone touchdown percentage allowed ( seventh). Only the New York Jets ( 15.1%) allowed touchdowns on a stingier percentage of opponent drives than the Broncos ( 16.16%).
“You’re always trying to learn and grow, and with him coming in, his mindset, it doesn’t matter whether he was here or somewhere else, I guarantee you he’s still trying to learn and grow,” Dixon said of Joseph. “Just like us. We had a good defense last year, but we weren’t great. We can be a whole lot better, of course. But we did some good stuff, so why change a lot of that? Let’s mix together the things you’ve done great with the things we did great last year and just kind of build off of that.
“But we’re still growing.
It’s all a process.”
“He’s a star”
It did not take Payton long to identify Parker and Dixon as coaches he wanted to retain. The incoming coach also had interest in keeping Evero, sources told The Post at the time, but he was eventually released from his contract and picked Carolina among several options.
Payton got an early recommendation on Parker and Dixon and then matched his own first impression.
“I knew ( former Broncos senior assistant) Dom Capers — I hope that doesn’t age me,” Payton said. “There were not many people I was familiar with ( from Hackett’s staff), but those guys were very impressive. I think I’ve got good instincts and I felt they were good teachers and I felt passion with them.”
Clearly they were not hand- picked by Joseph, considering they were part of his interview process, not vice versa, but he’s arrived at the same conclusion.
Joseph coached defensive backs before becoming a coordinator, so he’s in a particularly strong position to evaluate Parker.
“He’s sharp, man. He’s a star,” Joseph said. “He’s a great partner to work with. As a veteran coach, I’ve coordinated for about seven years now. … Speaking with Christian every day and bouncing ideas off him, from what he’s done with ( former Broncos head coach Vic Fangio) and guys in the past has been fun. We’re making changes and growing off what they did last year.
“He’s smart, he works his butt off and his players love playing for him. He’s a star.”
The proof, ultimately, will come this fall on how well this experiment works right away. But the early confidence in this transition would not be where it is at summer’s arrival if not for Parker and Dixon and, importantly, if not for Joseph’s willingness to give them the kind of input Payton appeared to telegraph that he wanted all the way back during the interview process.
“That’s huge, ( for Vance) to be able to take a step back, I guess, and not just choose his defense but choose the team,” Singleton said of Joseph’s return to Denver. … “He had Justin, he had Josey, had all these guys in their rookie years. So it’s probably kind of like seeing it now but from a different perspective.
“I respect it and it makes our jobs a lot easier, it’s awesome he’s been able to do that.”