The Denver Broncos pass defense finally took a step back last season. After landing in the top five for five consecutive years (including back-to-back years at No. 1), the Broncos crashed down to 15th in pass defense per DVOA.

All-Pro cornerback Chris Harris, in particular, had a down year considering his high standards. He saw his streak of consecutive Pro Bowls snapped at three as a result of his dip in play. Harris fully owns up to the fact that he wasn’t nearly as good last season. As a result, he’s motivated to get back to his All-Pro-level and help the team back to winning ways as well.

“This whole offseason I’ve been mad,” Harris says per Nicki Jhabvala of The Athletic. “I didn’t get the goals I wanted last year, so I’m angry. My focus is to come back, be All-Pro-level this year and get this team winning. Every year except for the past two years I’ve been in the playoffs. I’ve been chasing Super Bowls. We don’t like having the Chiefs and the Raiders and Chargers ahead of us in the division. We don’t like that. We used to have mind control over them. We want to bring that back.”

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The Broncos lost another key member of the vaunted “No Fly Zone” this offseason with Aqib Talib’s departure to the Los Angeles Rams. That puts even more pressure on Harris and fellow corner Bradley Roby to step up. But to their credit, they’ve been hard at work along with some of their younger teammates to get better ahead of the new season.

Of course, the other parts of the team need to rise up to the challenge as well if the Broncos are to improve from last year. But individually speaking, Harris has shown he can play much better than he did last year, and if he does, the Denver defense will be that much better.