With poten­tial­ly all three Week 1 starters side­lined, the Bron­cos defen­sive line will look a lot dif­fer­ent this Sunday.

Defen­sive end Jur­rell Casey suf­fered a sea­son-end­ing biceps injury in Week 3, nose tack­le Mike Pur­cell had a sea­son-end­ing foot injury in Week 7 and coach Vic Fan­gio said Fri­day that end Shel­by Har­ris, who’s been on the COVID/Restricted list since Wednes­day, has “below a 50/50” chance to be avail­able in Atlanta.

That new-look line means extend­ed oppor­tu­ni­ties for defen­sive ends Dre’Mont Jones and DeMar­cus Walk­er, both of whom were hurt in Week 2 and returned in Week 7 off injured reserve. Those play­ers, high­ly acclaimed at the time of their draft­ing — Jones in the third round last year, Walk­er in the sec­ond round in 2017 — have an oppor­tu­ni­ty to take a career step for­ward as well as alle­vi­ate Denver’s depth con­cerns at the position.

“I thought DeMar­cus had a very good game last week in the snaps that he did get,” Fan­gio said. “He made some good plays for us, and had a sack that got tak­en away by a bad penal­ty called in the sec­ondary. We need him to build on that game and con­tin­ue to get bet­ter and I think he can. Same thing with Dre… He’s def­i­nite­ly improved each and every game. You can see him get­ting his strength and his con­fi­dence back.”

Jones has played 140 snaps in four games, with nine tack­les, three run “stuffs”, one sack and one quar­ter­back knock­down. Walk­er, mean­while, has played 69 snaps in four games — but 48 in the last two — with four tack­les and a half quar­ter­back pressure.

For Jones, the sec­ond half of 2020 sets up as a lit­mus test to prove to the Bron­cos he can be a start­ing, every-down defen­sive line­man. He admits he still has “a lot to improve on in run defense.”

“It real­ly just depends on me focus­ing up and watch­ing the film some more,” Jones said. “Just real­ly con­cen­trat­ing on the lit­tle things in the run game. I don’t feel the pres­sure of try­ing to keep it up more (against the run). I think I just have to go out there and play nor­mal foot­ball that I’ve been play­ing, and just remind­ing myself that I can play.”

For Walk­er, it’s the final sea­son of a four-year deal before he hits free agency. But he’s not focused on that — he’s “con­trol­ling what I can control.”

“Every­body keeps look­ing at it as my con­tract year, and my need to per­form,” Walk­er said. “But all that (talk) is just water run­ning down my back. This is an oppor­tu­ni­ty right in front of me, and I’m ready for this week­end and I can’t wait.”

The turnover up front hasn’t seemed to neg­a­tive­ly affect the pass rush. Bradley Chubb has 5.5 sacks in the last four games, while no one in the NFL had more sacks through Weeks 6–8 than fel­low out­side line­backer Malik Reed’s five. The Bron­cos rank tied for 7th with 20 sacks over­all, but 18th in rush­ing yards per game allowed at 123.4 fol­low­ing a sea­son-high 210-yard ground per­for­mance by Los Ange­les last week.

Cor­re­spond­ing­ly, the turnover up front hasn’t caused the line­back­ing corps to lose faith.

“I see what they do every day — the ener­gy they bring, the inten­si­ty they bring,” Chubb said. “We’ve got (defen­sive line) guys hun­gry for the oppor­tu­ni­ty to get the chance.”

The sec­ond part of Chubb’s state­ment was also in ref­er­ence to nose tack­le Sylvester Williams and defen­sive end DeShawn Williams, jour­ney­men vet­er­ans who are both pro­ject­ed to play along­side Jones on Sun­day. Sylvester start­ed 15 games for the Bron­cos at nose tack­le in their 2015 title sea­son and took the long road back to Den­ver after stops in Ten­nessee, Detroit, Mia­mi and Los Ange­les. DeShawn, mean­while, entered the NFL as an undraft­ed free agent in 2015 and is in his third stint with Denver.

“It’s a real feel-good sto­ry with (DeShawn),” Fan­gio said. “I don’t know if we could ask for more from him than we’ve got­ten. And Sly, he’s a guy who’s been a play­er in this league — and ex-high pick (in the first round in 2013), played here before and with oth­er teams. He’s lov­ing his sec­ond oppor­tu­ni­ty to come back here, and he’s mak­ing the most of it.”

DeShawn’s played 153 snaps in five games with 13 tack­les, two run “stuffs,” a quar­ter­back knock­down and an acro­bat­ic inter­cep­tion off a tipped pass against New Eng­land. Sylvester’s played 31 snaps in two games, with two tackles.

If Har­ris can’t play Sun­day — he has con­tin­ued to test neg­a­tive, but hasn’t been cleared by the league — Fan­gio said the team would acti­vate rook­ie McTelvin Agim on the game day ros­ter as the team’s fifth defen­sive line­man. It would be Agim’s third game this season.