The Bron­cos’ rush defense didn’t wake up until Week 5 last year when the team was already in an 0–4 hole.

They can’t afford a month-long snooze this year.

A week from Mon­day, Ten­nessee Titans run­ning back Der­rick Hen­ry — nick­named by yours tru­ly as “The Yulee Bull­doz­er” when he was a high school star in north­east Flori­da — will vis­it Mile High.

Hen­ry led the NFL in reg­u­lar-sea­son yards (1,540), car­ries (303) and rush­ing touch­downs (16) last year and added 446 yards in three post­sea­son games.

“Once he gets those wheels truck­ing, there’s no stop­ping this guy,” said Bron­cos defen­sive end Jur­rell Casey, who played the last nine years in Ten­nessee. “The biggest thing is going to be up front build­ing a wall. Don’t let him have any holes to be able to just go down­hill. As long as we can keep him run­ning side­line to side­line, we’ll be in great shape.”

Last year’s Bron­cos rush defense can be divid­ed into two sea­sons: Lousy shape and great shape.

Sea­son 1 (Games 1–4): The Bron­cos allowed 149.3 yards per game (30th), 5.1 yards per car­ry (30th), five touch­downs (tied for third-most) and 11 explo­sive rush­es (at least 12 yards).

Sea­son 2 (Games 5–16): The Bron­cos allowed 98.8 yards per game (sev­enth), 3.9 yards per car­ry (tied for fifth), four touch­downs (tied for fewest) and gave up 19 explo­sive rushes.

Before the Week 5 Charg­ers game, coach Vic Fan­gio moved nose tack­le Shel­by Har­ris to defen­sive end, named Mike Pur­cell the new nose tack­le and gave Alexan­der John­son a shot at inside line­backer. It was the right solu­tion. Those three play­ers will be joined by Casey, acquired in a trade from the Titans.

In just the first four weeks of this year, the Bron­cos face Hen­ry, James Con­ner (Pitts­burgh), Leonard Fournette/Ronald Jones/LeSean McCoy (Tam­pa Bay) and Le’Veon Bell/Frank Gore (New York Jets).

Uni­form sto­ry. The Bron­cos will start the sea­son with their best jer­sey (navy blue).

Navy blue: Against Ten­nessee and at Atlanta.

White: Road games against Pitts­burgh, the New York Jets, New Eng­land, Las Vegas, Kansas City, Car­oli­na and the Los Ange­les Chargers.

Orange: Home games against Tam­pa Bay, Mia­mi, Kansas City, the Charg­ers, New Orleans and Las Vegas.

Col­or rush orange: Home game against Buffalo.

Foot­notes.  Among the Bron­cos’ ear­ly-sea­son oppo­nents, Tam­pa Bay (Week 3) signed Four­nette and New Eng­land (Week 5) named Cam New­ton its start­ing quar­ter­back. The Bron­cos could face four teams with new quar­ter­backs — the Buc­ca­neers (Tom Brady), Patri­ots (Cam New­ton), Los Ange­les Charg­ers (Tyrod Tay­lor or Justin Her­bert) and Car­oli­na (Ted­dy Bridge­wa­ter). … It will be the new ESPN “Mon­day Night Foot­ball” crew of Steve Levy, Louis Rid­dick and Den­ver area res­i­dent Bri­an Griese on the Titans-Bron­cos call. At Pitts­burgh in Week 2, it will be Greg Gum­bel and Rich Gan­non on the CBS call.

Around the NFL

Peterson’s future. Wash­ing­ton released vet­er­an run­ning back Adri­an Peter­son on Fri­day, sur­pris­ing because of the team’s lack of depth and expe­ri­ence at the posi­tion. Washington’s new starter is third-round rook­ie Anto­nio Gib­son, who had only 33 car­ries at the FBS lev­el for Memphis.

Peter­son, 35, is a Pro Foot­ball Hall of Fame lock five years after he retires and he could help a contender.

Fre­quent helper Dan Daly tweet­ed two great sta­tis­tics about Peter­son. From 2007–13, he gained 10,115 yards — a whop­ping 2,150 yards more than any play­er. And from 2014–19, Peterson’s 4,101 yards is the 12th-most, impres­sive con­sid­er­ing he played one game in 2014 and three games in ’16.

Pil­ing on Jaguars. What did Jack­sonville gen­er­al man­ag­er Dave Cald­well do to for­mer NFL executive/current ana­lyst Michael Lom­bar­di? Lom­bar­di has been bash­ing the Jaguars in gen­er­al and Cald­well in par­tic­u­lar as his main hob­by. Does Lom­bar­di want to replace Cald­well? Is he ticked from an inci­dent in the past about a trade or non-trade? Why so personal?

What Lom­bar­di and fel­low Cald­well bash­er Joe Ban­ner should admit is Jacksonville’s mess — chiefly trad­ing dis­grun­tled stand­outs Jalen Ram­sey and Yan­nick Ngak­oue — falls entire­ly on for­mer foot­ball chief Tom Coughlin.

Before Cough­lin was hired in Jan­u­ary 2017, you didn’t read (and I didn’t write) sto­ries about how play­ers were des­per­ate to escape the orga­ni­za­tion. Just the oppo­site, in fact.

The Jaguars are rebuild­ing. No GM would have turned down two first-round picks for Ram­sey, let Ngak­oue sit at home with­out get­ting any­thing in return (to Min­neso­ta for two picks, includ­ing a sec­ond-rounder), kept under­per­form­ing safe­ty Ron­nie Har­ri­son (to Cleve­land for a fifth-round pick) and kept the high salaries of A.J. Bouye and Calais Camp­bell when a reset was in the offing.

Patri­ots miss on Sanu. Some­times, Patri­ots gen­er­al man­ag­er Bill Belichick puts Patri­ots coach Bill Belichick in a bind. The lat­est exhib­it was giv­ing up on receiv­er Mohamed Sanu, who played only nine games for New Eng­land and cost a sec­ond-round pick (trade with Atlanta).

The Patri­ots acquired Sanu with the idea he could team with Julian Edel­man and 2019 first-round pick N’Keal Har­ry. Now the pres­sure is on Har­ry after he caught only 12 pass­es last year.