Dre Greenlaw has thump.
Dre Greenlaw can cover.
And if not for a ruptured Achilles tendon suffered in Super Bowl LVIII that sidelined him for all but 34 snaps of the 2024 season, Dre Greenlaw might have been the most coveted inside linebacker on the free-agent market — if he even hit the market to begin with.
Because like Zack Baun and Nick Bolton, he might have been re-signed by the San Francisco 49ers — although that move may not have been an 11th-hour decision as it was with those players; 49ers general manager John Lynch might have sealed the deal long ago.
But the injury did happen, and in a title game that ultimately required overtime to be decided, his injury might have been the difference; one can never know.
Certainly Greenlaw’s absence was felt by the 49ers last season; he played just 34 snaps before soreness forced him back to the sideline, and San Francisco slumped across the board, dropping from 4th to 13th in defensive DVOA, 4th to 10th in pass-defense DVOA and 15th to 23rd in run-defense DVOA.
But injuries have been an unfortunate part of Greenlaw’s path; he’s missed 36 games over 6 seasons.
As ESPN reported in December, the 49ers defense allows an average opposing QBR of 45.4 when Greenlaw plays, compared with 57.4 when he doesn’t. (50.0 is considered average.) Further, the 49ers allowed 1.15 fewer points per game with him than without him … and forced 1.55 takeaways per game with him compared to 1.19 per game without him, which translates to 6.09 more takeaways per season.
Greenlaw isn’t personally responsible for that, but it is testament to the impact he has all around the field and the havoc he wreaks from the core.
And that’s something the Broncos lacked last year — which caught up with them late. That’s part of why the Broncos pinpointed inside linebacker as a priority position in free agency, coming out with Greenlaw, whose only glaring flaw is his injury history.
But Sean Payton often references his team’s training and nutrition staff; he believes in their ability to extract better outcomes, citing the fact that the Broncos have gone from being one of the league’s most-injured teams to one of its least-injured.
If they can keep Greenlaw healthy, he will be transformative for an area that was lacking.
WHY THE BRONCOS DESPERATELY NEED DRE GREENLAW
Make no mistake, Dre Greenlaw was a “must have.”
The Broncos had scant margin for error at inside linebacker last year. They let Josey Jewell walk and replaced him with Cody Barton, who was a value signing at $2.5 million for one year. Barton didn’t even get his starting job immediately; he competed with Jonas Griffith.
The margin vanished when Alex Singleton tore his ACL in Week 3. Barton slid over to the “green dot” role. Justin Strnad moved into the starting lineup for the first time in three years, and although the Broncos took looks at veterans Kwon Alexander and Zach Cunningham, ultimately Strnad ended up as the starter for the balance of the season.
For a while, it worked.
Then, December happened, and the core of the defense slowly collapsed. Teams attacked the middle of the field. Signs of trouble in this regard revealed themselves in the win over Indianapolis. The Broncos pulled away after Jonathan Taylor’s ill-advised drop of the football, but until that momentum-altering gaffe, Taylor shredded the Broncos up the middle and galloped through the second level.
Four days later, Los Angeles gashed Denver through the air down the middle. And by the month’s finale, so broken were the Broncos from the inside out that they couldn’t even force a punt until overtime.
The Broncos rolled into December with the No. 3 defense in the NFL. They left the month ranked 15th. Only the Week 18 game against Kansas City’s backups allowed the Broncos to rebound and finish in the NFL’s top 10 (No. 8, to be exact).
Denver’s defense sagged across the board. From Week 13 through Week 17 — and then in the playoffs, since Week 18 had many teams resting their starters, so the data is a bit skewed — the Broncos ranked last in the league in total defense.
That broke down to 32nd against the pass and 22nd against the run. It crested in the wild-card loss, when Buffalo was so dominant up the middle running through and beyond the second level that the Bills held the football for longer than any other team had against the Broncos in any game — regular season or postseason — in at least 41 years.
Once you got beyond the defensive line, the Broncos’ defensive spine was lacking.
Singleton’s return will help, but he’s only half of the equation. Greenlaw completes the picture.
And with his fellow ex-49ers teammate, 2022 All-Pro Talanoa Hufanga working a level behind him at safety alongside Brandon Jones, the Broncos will have three different players at the interior defensive spots at the second and third levels than they did in Buffalo.
Joseph now has a pair of aggressive players with range at the center of his defense. Both are adept at diagnosing plays as they develop. Both are capable of making plays from sideline to sideline.
Vance Joseph now has myriad tools at his disposal to run the type of aggressive defense he prefers. The Broncos have the personnel to dictate terms at every line of defense and every position group. And Greenlaw — who is effective generating pressure as well as dropping into coverage — is particularly adept at confusing an opponent in the myriad ways in which he can be used.
Most importantly, for the Broncos, he fixes a glitch that turned a defense from one of the league’s best into an ordinary unit in the 2024 season’s final act.