Derek Wolfe
It’s hard to pin down Derek Wolfe’s performance on Thursday since he was dealing with a back injury during the second half of the evening, but, at face value, it wasn’t great.
According to Pro Football Focus, Wolfe received a 40.9 grade against the Panthers, which was good for 84th amongst all interior defenders, one spot above Jared Crick (40.8). The Broncos need him to be better than that.
In fact, the Broncos need him to be a superstar.
John Elway made his decision, and his decision was to choose Wolfe over Malik Jackson. Six months ago, Jackson made Cam Newton‘s life miserable, pressuring him consistently from the inside. On Thursday, the only pressure Newton saw for the majority of the game came from Denver’s edge defenders.
Again, it’s just one game — the person graded directly below Wolfe and Crick was J.J. Watt (40.7) — so it’s hardly time to panic, but there will be a lot of pressure on Wolfe all season to show what he showed in the final quarter of last year.
