The Broncos’ normally stout defense had already been finely shredded when Que Robinson provided a glimpse of the future.
In Week 16, Jacksonville torched Denver for 34 points at Empower Field and put the Broncos on notice that they would not waltz through the rest of their regular season, let alone the postseason.
Quarterback Trevor Lawrence engineered a quartet of red zone touchdown conversions against the NFL’s best group.
Early in the fourth quarter, though, Robinson, a rookie outside linebacker, made a stand.
On first-and-goal from the 5-yard line, Robinson ripped unblocked off Lawrence’s left side as the quarterback meshed with running back Travis Etienne. Earlier, Lawrence, on a similar call, had pulled the ball, got leverage on Robinson, and walked in for a 1-yard touchdown.
He tried again.
This time, Robinson crashed into the quarterback and dropped him for a 5-yard loss.
On second-and-goal, Robinson blew off the line of scrimmage, ricocheted off of Etienne, and into an inside spin move past tackle Cole Van Lanen. Hurried, Lawrence dumped the ball off for a 3-yard gain.
Then, on third-and-7, the Jags finally wised up. Lawrence motioned running back LeQuint Allen into the backfield and deployed him to chip Robinson, effectively double-teaming him. An incomplete pass meant Jacksonville’s lone red zone failure of the afternoon.
Robinson’s on-the-job training as a fourth-round rookie came in fits and spurts last fall. He dressed for only six regular-season games, but played regularly in rotation when he was in uniform. He made the most eye-popping play of his first professional season — a turbocharged sack of New England’s Drake Maye in the AFC Championship Game — only after he was a gameday inactive in the divisional round against Buffalo.
Over the course of 162 defensive snaps and about the same on special teams, though, Robinson put himself squarely on the Broncos’ radar as a Year 2 breakout candidate. He did so long before fellow outside linebacker Jonathon Cooper ran into legal trouble that has clouded at least his 2026 outlook and potentially his standing with the club altogether.
Before Cooper’s two arrests in the span of one June week, Robinson was part of an interesting, productive young group of edge rushers that give Denver options and enviable depth behind star rusher Nik Bonitto. Now Robinson and that group may well be counted on in a much more substantial way for weeks or longer this fall.
Que Robinson starting to tap into vast ‘physical gifts’
George Paton is not prone to hyperbole.
The Broncos general manager is a scout at his core, and he talks about players in that manner.
Just after Denver’s AFC title game loss, Paton was asked about the progress of the team’s rookie class — headlined by first-round pick Jahdae Barron, second-round running back RJ Harvey and also including third-round defensive lineman Sai’Vion Jones, whom the Broncos traded up to draft. Paton said it was Robinson, though, who “may have the most upside of anyone in our draft class, and you could see it the other day.”
The other day, in this case, was when Robinson started up the field against the Patriots, put his hands on tight end Hunter Henry to disrupt his route to the flat, then eliminated a 5-yard gap between himself and Maye in a blink for a 9-yard sack.
Thatap the kind of play that can launch a young player into an offseason and a second season brimming with confidence.
“Itap huge. Itap huge,” outside linebackers coach Isaac Shewmaker told The Post earlier this month. “Take the teaching. We talk about the upfield shoulder of the tight end to help you redirect to the quarterback. That kind of thing, when those little things start happening and then you get the results, just the confidence you feel. …
“Thatap just what helps you begin to play confident and grow.”
Robinson, listed at 6-foot-4 and 243 pounds, has long arms and a powerful frame. The Broncos loved his physical traits when they drafted him No. 134 overall last spring, but they didn’t know exactly how fast they’d start to see returns. After all, the former five-star high school recruit played just 370 defensive snaps in his four-year career at Alabama. That was hardly his fault. Robinson found himself behind the likes of future first-rounders Will Anderson Jr. and Dallas Turner.
“Throughout the whole draft process, I liked what I saw,” Shewmaker said. “There were physical traits that I really liked. When he got here, same thing. He kept showing it. His thing is, just making him play with confidence. Giving him the confidence that, ‘you go out there and you play fast. Everything else is on me.’
“When he lets it loose, you see the physical gifts he has.”
Broncos defensive coordinator Vance Joseph saw them when Robinson was on the field, but even more acutely when he did his annual postseason film review.
When Robinson’s name came up earlier this month, a smile creased the veteran coordinator’s face.
The Vance Jospeh smile when Que Robinson’s name comes up.
Said the second-year OLB looks like a player who “can be a future starter for us.”
— Parker Gabriel (@ParkerJGabriel)
“When Que played, he played really well,” Joseph said. “It looked like a guy who can be a future starter for us.”
Joseph uttered those words after Cooper’s first arrest but hours before his second.
The future typically arrives faster than expected in the NFL. For Robinson, there’s at least a chance itap arriving this summer.
Healthy Jonah Ellis, steady Dondrea Tillman and a wildcard
One of Shewmaker’s favorite sequences of the season arrived early.
When Marvin Mims Jr. muffed a Week 1 punt early in the fourth quarter, Tennessee and rookie quarterback Cam Ward were set up at the Broncos’ 22-yard line and trailing 13-12 with 11:43 to go.
Thatap not exactly game on the line, but it was a huge moment in a game teetering toward trouble for the heavily favored Broncos.
The defense trotted onto the field with Jonah Elliss and Dondrea Tillman at outside linebacker instead of Bonitto and Cooper.
After a 2-yard Tony Pollard run, Elliss sacked Ward for a 16-yard loss. Then on third-and-24, Tillman won clean off the edge and forced Ward to spin away and into Zach Allen’s arms for another 11-yard backtrack.
From sure to take the lead to out of field goal range, largely at the hands of a pair of reserve edge rushers.
“Thatap what it is,” Shewmaker said. “There’s no one, two, three, four. There are the guys that are up for each game and letap go. … I’m not worried about, ‘Oh, I have to have one of those (starters) on the field.’ I’ve got full confidence in everybody else, so we’re going to try to keep everybody as fresh as we can.
“I don’t like playing more than three to four plays in a row and then we’re going to get the next guys in. And we’re just going to keep on that.”
Elliss and Tillman have been the primary reasons the Broncos have been able to play that way the past two seasons. Tillman, a summer signing out of the UFL in 2024, has nine sacks the past two seasons and has played in 25 straight games plus three playoff contests since November 2024.
Elliss burst out of the gate as a rookie with five sacks in 2024, but dealt with shoulder and hamstring issues last fall and never looked like he was really in top form.
Broncos staff praise Elliss’ versatility and the group pondered moving him inside this year, but “at the end of the day he’s a really good rusher,” Shewmaker said simply.
“Last year he got dinged up a little bit and it was hard to get into a rhythm,” he added. “But he’s a great player for us on the edge and then we’ll just try to find more ways to get him on the field.”
Drew Sanders has been more than dinged up and represents the wild card in the group this summer. The 2023 third-round pick didn’t play a snap last year after injuring his foot in training camp and missed 13 in 2024 due to an Achilles tear. That means Sanders has played in just four games the past two seasons after appearing in all 17 as a rookie in 2023.
Can he stay healthy? Can he unlock the potential thatap so far sat idly in an athletic, explosive player?
For now, the Broncos have smaller goals for him.
“He can get the alignment, the assignment, all of that,” head coach Sean Payton said earlier this month. “There’s a young player that, knock on wood, we feel like is really talented. …
“He’s coming into this portion of training camp healthy, so I’m encouraged with that.”
The Jonathon Cooper question will need an answer eventually
The next date on Cooper’s court calendar is a hearing on July 24, four days before Broncos veterans report for training camp.
Cooper’s criminal cases have been consolidated into one that includes four charges, led by one for felony assault. They stem from two incidents involving his girlfriend, the first an argument that turned physical, including Cooper acknowledging to a police officer that he picked his girlfriend up by the neck, according to an updated arrest affidavit. Cooper participated in Broncos OTAs after the initial arrest but then was arrested again a week later, hours after Denver’s practice ended, after his girlfriend said he showed up at her apartment and pounded on the door for 5-10 minutes and also sent her 20 unreturned messages. He has not been with the team since and was an excused absence from the club’s mandatory minicamp on June 16 and 17.
If Cooper’s case goes to trial, it will almost certainly be well into training camp or even the regular season. That means the NFL and the Broncos could have to decide what, if any, punishment they will levy before the criminal proceedings play out.
The league’s personal conduct policy does not require a player to be convicted in criminal court to be subject to discipline and lays out a baseline six-game suspension for players found to have engaged in domestic violence, “with possible upward or downward adjustments based on any aggravating or mitigating factors.”
There is also the eventual question of whether the Broncos will consider cutting ties with Cooper altogether. He is the first player to be arrested since Payton arrived and since the Walton-Penner Family Ownership Group purchased the team in August 2022.
After Cooper’s initial arrest, Payton said that the team had “a long visit” with him. After the second, the veteran coach spoke about the organization’s high standards and said, “We’ll consider all of that as we continue to gather the information.”
An eventual decision will undoubtedly be seen as a marker for how Payton and how the ownership group will handle such cases going forward.
Money is unlikely to be a driving factor, but it will become part of the equation if Denver releases Cooper.
The 28-year-old signed a four-year, $54 million extension in 2024 and pocketed $15 million of that money during the first two seasons. He’s due $12 million more this year.
Denver, though, could go after a substantial portion of that money if it wants to, following a potential release.
Only $1.7 million of Cooper’s 2026 pay is guaranteed. On top of that, more than $20 million of Cooper’s deal has been paid or allocated as signing bonus. Any of that bonus money allocated for 2026 or beyond — a total of $17.1 million — is eligible for forfeiture, multiple player agents told The Post. If the Broncos tried to claw back all or some of that money, a grievance would likely follow. If the club succeeded, it would gain salary cap credit for the money forfeited.
All of that is of downballot concern, but it could enter the picture at some point.
In the meantime, the Broncos’ young pass-rushers step to the fore. Robinson would have been a player to watch even without Cooper’s troubles. Now, he’s even more so.
“The strength and size he has, there’s not going to be many tight ends that can block him,” Shewmaker said. “Not many tackles that can block him one-on-one, either.”
