Player
Malcolm Roach
DL · Broncos
Malcolm Roach: facts drawn from the play-by-play.
6 NFL seasons — but the pass-rush has only shown up in Denver.
TrendRoach by season
| Season | Team | G | Tk | TFL | Sacks | QB Hits |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2020 | NO | 7 | 7 | 2 | 0 | 2 |
| 2021 | NO | 6 | 4 | 0 | 0 | 2 |
| 2022 | NO | 12 | 11 | 2 | 1 | 2 |
| 2023 | NO | 11 | 10 | 3 | 0 | 1 |
| 2024 | DEN | 16 | 14 | 5 | 2.5 | 8 |
| 2025 | DEN | 14 | 19 | 6 | 6.0 | 10 |
Across four years in New Orleans (2020-2023), Roach totaled just 1.0 sack in 36 games. After signing with Denver in 2024, he's posted 8.5 sacks and 18 QB hits in 30 games — more pass-rush production in two Broncos seasons than his entire Saints tenure.
2025 is the breakout: career highs in tackles (19), TFL (6), sacks (6.0), and hits (10), all through 14 games.
Sacks per season
| Season | Sacks |
|---|---|
| 2020 | 0 |
| 2021 | 0 |
| 2022 | 1 |
| 2023 | 0 |
| 2024 | 2.5 |
| 2025 | 6 |
Career-best 6.0 sacks in 2025 — already 60% of his career total.
MilestoneThrough Week 21 of 2025, Roach has 6.0 sacks — more than his previous five seasons combined (3.5). His 9.5 career sacks mean 63% of his pass-rush production has come in this single Denver season.
He added the milestone in a stretch from Week 10 onward: 5.0 sacks across 7 starts (Weeks 10-21), including a 1.5-sack, 3-QB-hit performance in the divisional round (Week 20).
2025 weekly: pressure rep stacks rather than splash games.
SplitRoach 2025 by week
| Wk | Tk | Sacks | QB Hits |
|---|---|---|---|
| 6 | 2 | 0 | 0 |
| 7 | 2 | 0.5 | 1 |
| 9 | 0 | 0.5 | 1 |
| 10 | 2 | 1 | 1 |
| 14 | 2 | 1 | 1 |
| 16 | 2 | 1 | 1 |
| 20 | 3 | 1.5 | 3 |
| 21 | 2 | 0.5 | 2 |
Roach's 2025 sack chart looks like a steady drip, not a spike: 8 different weeks with at least 0.5 sacks, never more than 1.5 in a single game. That's the rotational-DL pattern — repeated wins on inside power, no signature 3-sack outlier.
The 3 QB hits in Week 20 (divisional) is the loudest single-game performance of his career — on the biggest stage Denver has played in years.
5th-most sacks on Denver's 2025 D-line — behind a top-loaded rotation.
ComparisonBroncos 2025 sacks leaders
| Player | Sacks |
|---|---|
| Nik Bonitto | 15.0 |
| Jonathon Cooper | 9.0 |
| D.J. Jones | 8.5 |
| Zach Allen | 7.5 |
| Malcolm Roach | 6.0 |
Denver's 2025 pass-rush is a four-on-the-edges plus interior-rotation buzzsaw. Roach sits 5th on the team in sacks but 3rd among interior linemen behind D.J. Jones and Zach Allen.
With Bonitto and Cooper drawing attention off the edge, Roach's interior reps come against guards working alone — and he's converted them: his 10 QB hits would rank top-5 on most NFL defenses, but on this Broncos front it's only the 5th-most.
From career-low 0.5 sacks in 2023 to 8.5 across the next two — the Denver effect.
AnomalyRoach's contract trajectory matches the pressure jump perfectly. In 2023 (final Saints year) he played 11 games and registered 0 sacks, 3 TFL, 1 QB hit — production that suggested a rotational rest-of-career role.
In Denver under Vance Joseph's defense, two things changed: he's been used closer to the line as a true 3-tech (not strictly a 2-gap nose) and the snap share on passing downs has grown. The result: 6.0 sacks and 10 QB hits in 2025 with 4 games left in the playoff run — already a career year, with the Broncos riding him on every interior pass-rush package.
Texas product, 6 seasons in, finally producing like a starter.
RareRoach went undrafted out of Texas in 2020 and signed with the Saints as a UDFA. Six seasons later, at 27, he's posting 6.0 sacks / 6 TFL / 10 QB hits in his contract year — numbers that put him on the radar for his first real free-agency contract.
The career arc — UDFA → 4-year rotation in NO → swing for upside in DEN → breakout — is one of the cleaner late-career interior-DL development stories in this window.
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