On the brink of a new season, the 2022 Denver Broncos are pinning their hopes on some younger players making their mark and putting up some serious numbers.
One player the Broncos are showing a lot of faith in is second-year outside linebacker Baron Browning, a player who has transitioned from playing on the inside to manning the edge.
Coaches and teammates alike have been massively impressed with how quickly the Browning has taken to his new position. To such an extent that Browning now feels completely at ease with his new responsibilities as a full-time edge rusher.
“I just feel like it’s my position now. I don’t feel like it’s new for me anymore,” Browning said on Saturday. “I’m kind of pretty hard on myself and I don’t treat it as if it was a new position. I just try to be on point with everything that I do.”
A lot of credit must go to head coach Nathaniel Hackett and his coaching staff for identifying Browning’s unique skill set and how it could make him an essential piece of the Broncos' pass-rushing puzzle. Undoubtedly, what also helps is having veterans around to show him the finer points of technique and leverage.
In that particular department, Browning gave his teammate Randy Gregory considerable props for teaching him up.
“Randy is a very interesting guy," Browning said. "I call him, ‘Spider Monkey,’ because he just has those long arms. He just sits low and bursts off of the ball. I definitely enjoy working with Randy. He’s coached me up pretty hard, especially back in OTAs when he wasn’t kind of practicing as much. He would point out things from the sidelines and I would correct them right there on the next play. He’s been very helpful for me.”
Such is the very nature of the NFL — getting younger and more explosive frequently finds veteran players moving on to facilitate the process. The Broncos feel it’s time to promote Browning, and it meant they were comfortable trading rotational pass rusher Malik Reed to the Pittsburgh Steelers for a late-round draft pick exchange.
While it's a major vote of confidence for Browning’s prodigious skill set, not having his friend and trusted teammate around the building is still felt.
“Malik is an all-around great guy and I definitely miss him being around the building,” the former Ohio State Buckeye admitted. “But I definitely took a lot of things from him that I can put in my game to help me get better.”
Just how much playing time Browning gets on Monday Night Football against the Seattle Seahawks might well still hinge on the injury availability of the aforementioned Gregory. It may well be that Gregory's wealth of knowledge will still prove crucial, albeit channeled through Browning, so that his understudy is ready for every eventuality.
“I’m not the coach, so I can’t tell you that. I will say I definitely embrace having all of the guys that we have in our room,” Browning said. “I feel like it’s made us all better, especially myself. [I] kind of feel like there’s that standard where no matter who’s in, the standard doesn’t want to drop. I feel like we’ve been doing a great job of that as a unit and just upholding that standard.”
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