Mile High Sports
Denver Broncos defensive end Zach Allen is a beast.
“Sack” Allen, if you will.
While Patrick Surtain and Nik Bonitto are the ones gaining all the notoriety, the guy in the middle of the line is essential to the unit’s success as well.
Allen is awesome.
After coming here from Arizona, he’s been sensational the last three years as an interior defensive lineman.
In 2023, he recorded 5.0 sacks and 24 QB hits. They were basically career numbers for him, but since he’s just gotten better.
2024 saw him rack up a career-high 8.5 sacks. Along with that, he recorded a safety against the Seahawks early in the season, and totaled 40 QB hits. He finally started getting recognition around the NFL and earned Second-Team All-Pro by the Associated Press.
But 2025 was his best season yet. His sacks dipped slightly to 7.0, but he was a member of the NFL-leading and franchise record-holding 68-sack team. And when he’s not getting the QB to the ground with the ball in their hands, he’s still hitting them. Allen’s 47 QB hits last year were not only a career-high, but he led the NFL for a second straight season. He also enjoyed 73 QB pressures per Pro Football Focus, which were the most by an interior defensive lineman.
Given all that success, he earned First-Team All-Pro last year, one of the greatest individual honors a player can receive while they’re still playing.
And sure, even the most die-hard Denver Broncos fans likely name both Surtain and Bonitto when talking about this dominant defense from the last few years. But Allen’s now getting recognition among his peers as well as the national media.
On the latest NFL Top 100 for 2026, Allen came in at No. 73 overall. Last year, he cracked the Top 100 at No. 90. He moved up a significant amount this time around.
Oftentimes, we think back to the No Fly Zone as an absolutely dominant defense.
What made that group tick, and how they led the Broncos to the Super Bowl 50 win, was by playing complimentary.
The defensive front seven put pressure on quarterbacks at an alarming rate. Von Miller, DeMarcus Ware and Shaquil Barrett were monsters up front. Sometimes they’d get sacks—totaling a then-record 52 in the season—and sometimes the quarterback would slither away.
But, if a QB did get away, they’d often be running for their life and throw without fully thinking it through. That left Chris Harris and Aqib Talib to pick the ball off.
Pressure up front, a stellar secondary in the back end.
In many ways, this current era of Denver Broncos defenses have mimicked that success.
Bonitto on the outside has resembled Von Miller in his heyday.
And Allen has been a huge part of the pressure up front. It’s one thing when a team has two dominant outside...
