Zach Allen works as a mosh pit mixologist in Colorado, making his living blow by blow. a scrum in rugby. A turbulent assemblage of enormous humanity.
As they bounce off face masks, thigh pads, biceps, triceps, hands, fingers, elbows, and cleats, it’s amazing they can see where the ball is. At a football game, the line of scrimmage is just a mass of chaos.
Top Broncos defensive lineman Allen stated, “There definitely is,” during this week’s Broncos Huddle interview with 9NEWS. “You see a little, you see a lot,” goes the saying. You simply attempt to read your keys in the hopes of making a play.
When the Broncos take on the Los Angeles Chargers at SoFi Stadium today, fans can expect the 6-foot-5, 285-pound Allen to play rough and tumble football. The 6-6 Broncos have won five straight games and are one game and one tiebreaker away from the No. 7 and final AFC playoff spot. They still have five games to make up the deficit.
“Every game is even more important because we’re in the hunt for the playoffs,” Allen stated. It resembles being down 2-2 in a hockey or basketball series. For now, the Chargers are our main concern. We can’t look too far ahead, but it’s nice that many of the teams we play are vying for the final playoff spots, so we have some degree of control over our own fate.
Since the Chargers relocated to SoFi in 2020, the Broncos haven’t performed well there. At the magnificent stadium that Stan Kroenke designed, Denver is winless—0-1 against the NFC Los Angeles Rams, who destroyed the Broncos on Christmas Day of last year, and 0-3 against the Chargers. It is well known that the visiting offence finds the road challenging because crowd noise can make it challenging to hear the snap count. What, therefore, makes playing defence on the road for the visiting team challenging?
Because of the number of hard counts and dummy counts that defences can employ, Allen stated that playing defence on the road can occasionally be challenging. “But fortunately, we have a really great fan base that will help us with that because even in Houston (last week), our fans travel well, neutralising or limiting it.”
It may be around 40% Broncos fans among the SoFi crowd today as the Chargers continue to struggle to gain a segment of fans from the L.A. fan base.
In Allen’s last two seasons in Arizona, he was coached up by defensive line mate and future Hall of Famer J.J. Watt. They remain in touch even though Allen moved on to Colorado and Watt retired from playing and is now an NFL studio analyst.
‘Obviously, the player everyone knows about but being the leader and a mentor, he definitely helped me a lot with my career,’’ Allen said. “I think that’s why you saw those two years I was with J.J., I kind of made some big jumps.
“Even now, he’ll be doing the CBS broadcast and he’ll be texting me when he sees my game and sees our film. We still talk about it and he’s a great friend.’’
Allen, 26, joined the Broncos in March after becoming a free agent and signing a three-year deal worth more than $15 million a year. After growing up in New Canaan, Conn., playing his college ball at Boston College, and first four NFL seasons in the Arizona desert, what does he think about his new home city in Denver?
“Love it,’’ Allen said. “Love it. I actually went to B.C. with Justin. Obviously, he’s been here for so long and all he does is talk about how great it is. Everybody who comes here, it seems like they all retire here, they stay here forever. I definitely see why now. The weather’s great. The people are great. The living is great. The nature is beautiful and also, too, it’s fun coming to work every day here so I really lucked out.”
After sleeping in a Los Angeles hotel room Saturday night, Allen will get ready to defend quarterback Justin Herbert and the Chargers’ offense today.
“Definitely impressed with how he moves in the pocket,’’ Allen said. ‘And his arm, everyone can see how talented a thrower he is. But he can create space to make throws on the run. He has some good scrambling ability and luckily it seems like the past six, seven weeks we’ve only played scramblers so we’ve had a little bit of practice in that.’’
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