In his 14 seasons as Denver’s head coach, Mike Shanahan has established quite a few traditions around the team’s Dove Valley headquarters.
Now, consider one of his major practice tenets to be history.
After disappointing performances by the run defense and too many costly turnovers by the offense in a four-game stretch spanning all of October, Shanahan decided it was time to stop playing it safe.
Grab your pads, guys. It’s time to hit. Ever since the defense gave up 257 yards rushing in a 41-7 loss to New England on Oct. 20, Shanahan has reverted to three full-contact practices a week instead of just one practice in pads.
“Our rush defense was going downhill, and we felt like we needed to tighten things up a little bit,” Shanahan said.
The previous theory was that lighter midweek workouts helped keep players fresh and prevented injuries.
Yet the result coaches found this year was that those practices were contributing to poor tackling by the defense on Sundays and too many turnovers by offensive players not used to being hit in drills.
“When you’re playing the type of rush defense that we were playing for three or four games, you’ve got to make a decision what direction to go and take a chance on injuries and get better,” Shanahan said. “I think we have.”
Since making the switch, the Broncos are 2-1, with back-to-back wins on the road, including Sunday’s 24-20 victory at Atlanta.
The run defense has noticeably improved. Against the Falcons, Denver held Michael Turner — who was No. 3 in the league in rushing before the game — to 81 yards on 25 carries. More than half of that total came on two carries — a 16-yarder and a 28-yard touchdown run.
“Since we have been going pads during the week and having more physical practices, that’s when we’ve been playing better against the run,” defensive end Ebenezer Ekuban said.
The change to tougher practices has coincided with a return to a strict 4-3 defensive scheme after the team experimented with a 3-4 look for five games.
While it was injuries to linebackers Boss Bailey, D.J. Williams and Nate Webster that forced the Broncos back into their traditional scheme full time, it appears to have rejuvenated the defensive front.
“We didn’t really change a lot of principles. What we were trying to do is get a little better at what we do,” Shanahan said.
Aside from Turner’s 28-yard score in the fourth quarter, the Broncos’ linemen bottled him up quickly inside, and linebackers tracked him down when he tried to cut outside.
“We were just hustling as much as we could, keeping our heads in the game and just fighting,” said linebacker Jamie Winborn, who led the team with 10 tackles against Atlanta.
Practicing in pads also has seemed to help the offense.
After committing 15 turnovers (seven lost fumbles and eight interceptions) in five games from Weeks 4-8, Denver’s offense has only one turnover in the past two games — an interception thrown by Jay Cutler in the second quarter against Cleveland.
“One of the reasons I thought we’d go to pads is so we could practice getting hit,” Shanahan said. “So we could learn to hold onto the football better and show them situations in practice they’re going to see in games.”
Lindsay H. Jones: 303-954-1262 or ljones@denverpost.com
