LONDON -- Scrutiny of Aaron Glenn reached international levels Sunday as the New York Jets' head coach allowed the clock to run out in the first half instead of at least launching a Hail Mary from midfield.
"That was a little surprising," said Denver Broncos coach Sean Payton, who coached Glenn as a player and later employed him as an assistant. "That was unusual."
The final decision from Glenn at Tottenham Hotspur Stadium, though, may deserve even more derision given how his team's game against the Broncos and their ferocious, inevitable pass rush had unfolded.
The Jets, trailing by two point,s faced a fourth-and-8 at the Broncos' 44-yard line with a little more than one minute remaining in the game. Yes, it would have been a 62-yard attempt from kicker Nick Folk, a distance that is 4 yards longer than the veteran's career-best boot. The Jets simply didn't feel like they were in range for a field goal. It is hard to think of any option, though, that wasn't better than the one Glenn chose: dropping back Justin Fields with the game on the line against a Broncos defense that finished the game with nine sacks.
What happened next could only be described as inevitable. Fields was swallowed up by a tidal wave of pressure that pulled him underwater all day.
"Man, we just can't be blocked," Broncos outside linebacker Jonathon Cooper said after he and Brandon Jones combined to sack Fields on the Jets' last play, preserving a 13-11 win that sent Denver back to America with a 4-2 record and no worse than a share of the AFC West lead. "We hold ourselves to a certain standard and that's being the best in the league."
Make no mistake, the Broncos' dominant defense, which hassles passers at a tier above any other unit in the NFL, was the only reason the Broncos didn't follow their surprising victory in Philadelphia last week with a disastrous flop abroad. The Broncos danced on a precarious edge all day because of shortcomings almost everywhere else, some of which could pose real concerns going forward. They lost a fumble on the third play of the game, giving the Jets their first takeaway of the season. The first four possessions of the second half for Denver produced a trio of three-and-outs and a safety.
"We didn't play to our standard," said right guard Quinn Meinerz, who was responsible for that safety after he was ruled to have held Jets defensive lineman Micheal Clemons in the end zone. "We weren't firing on all cylinders like we have in the past couple of weeks."
The Broncos' special teams floundered, giving up a 72-yard return on their first kickoff of the game and generally losing the field-position battle. The running game produced only 2.6 yards per carry from its backs. Bo Nix completed only 4-of-10 passes in the second half for 47 yards. The Broncos committed five offensive penalties, including two holding infractions on Matt Peart in his first start of the season in place of injured left guard Ben Powers.
"I didn't think we played well up front," Payton said, whose questionable call to drop Nix back for a long-developing pass in his end zone in the third quarter resulted in the safety. " ... I think Darren (Rizzi, the special teams coordinator) is probably just as disappointed relative to his units as I would be relative to our offense. Nonetheless, as the head coach, you've got to be excited for the team win."
The nine sacks for the Broncos were the team's most in a game since at least 2000, according to TruMedia, and Denver had no other game with even eight sacks in that span. The Jets had a franchise-worst minus-10 net passing yards as the 55 yards worth of sacks for Denver pulled New York, which got only 45 yards passing from Fields, into the red. The previous low mark in the last quarter century for the Broncos' passing defense was a 14-yard performance against the Cincinnati Bengals in 2000. The 82 total yards the Broncos surrendered Sunday? You guessed it, another low mark in the TruMedia era, besting a 96-yard yield against the Chargers in 2003. The Broncos did not allow a single explosive play (12-plus-yard run; or 16-plus-yard pass), according to Next Gen Stats, the first time a team has done that in an NFL game since 2021.
"It's almost, you know, impossible what they did," Nix said. "It was impressive. Unfortunately, it's one of those things where I don't get to watch a whole lot of it. I wish I could. They'd be a fun defense to watch, probably an awful defense to play against. I know that, kind of, from practice. But they turned it on."
Of course, Nix never has to worry about the pain his defensive teammates can inflict, protected in practice by the strict don't-touch-the-QB edict. Fields wasn't so fortunate. The Jets started five different drives at their own 42-yard line or better, yet they never reached the end zone. Fields couldn't survey the field long enough to find his targets. The Broncos closed his escape routes, too, limiting his impact as a scrambler.
"It's barely one or two seconds, I look up, there's a sack," said cornerback Pat Surtain II, who blanketed Fields' top target, Garrett Wilson.
The Broncos now have 30 sacks this season. No team through six games has ever had more, according to NFL Research. It's that figure that is perhaps the most important one. Nine sacks may be abnormal, but the constant pressure that disrupts game plans is not new for Denver's defense. The Broncos sacked Eagles quarterback Jalen Hurts five times last week, buying time for Nix and Denver's offense to finally heat up in the fourth quarter. They brought down Chargers quarterback Justin Herbert five times one week earlier. Let us not forget that this team led the NFL in sacks last season. This is the DNA.
"You can't be at that level one week and not be there the next week," said Cooper, who finished with two sacks and seven pressures on 18 pass-rush plays for a career-best 38.9 percent pressure rate, according to Next Gen Stats. "You've got to be consistent always. We'd be doing a disservice if we didn't go out there and play at the standard that we know we can."
Defensive perfection, sublime though it was Sunday, can't be a game plan for the Broncos. Payton knows it. That's why it was hard for him to hide his disappointment about what took place in the game's other two phases on Sunday. The offense had some flashes early. Evan Engram ran a sharp route to get open and convert a fourth down on Denver's lone touchdown drive. He caught a third-down pass on that same possession and later jumpstarted Denver's lone scoring drive in the second half -- a short Wil Lutz field goal -- with a 12-yard reception. On that same fourth-quarter drive, Payton dialed up a play that got Marvin Mims wide open up the right sideline and Nix hit him for a 26-yard gain, the game's longest play.
Still, there were too many lulls offensively, too many squandered chances to add more points. Jeremy Crawshaw ended Sunday's game ranked second in the NFL with 30 punts this season. It's not a leaderboard you want to see your rookie punter inhabit. The Broncos were starting to find their groove in the run game before Sunday's flop, a concern since the step back came in the first game without Ben Powers, who is expected to miss at least two months after tearing his biceps. Whether the Broncos turn again to Peart or entertain a lineup change, they'll need to find a way to be better on the line to combat a stout New York Giants defensive front next week.
"We are going to look at the film and see that we left a lot of yardage out there and opportunities out there," Payton said. "But, again, the way we played defensively, it was impressive."
Suffocating. Dominant. Relentless. The Broncos could pick any adjective they want to describe their best-in-class pass rush. They just can't keep asking that group to do it all.