With the trade acquisition of former Jaguar A.J. Bouye, the Broncos appear to have a new starting cornerback. To learn more about Bouye, we asked Mark Long, who covers the Jaguars for the Associated Press, for his take on the new Bronco.

Ben Swanson: What kind of play should people in Denver expect from A.J. Bouye?

Mark Long: "A.J. Bouye is a fantastic player — still really good, still really young. [He's] not even 30 years old; I think he's 28 right now, and I think he'll be 29 by the beginning of the season, but I wouldn't be surprised if his better football is ahead of him. He was fantastic in 2017, not a huge drop-off in 2018. The interceptions weren't there, but he still played at a pretty high level. He definitely did take a step back last year in 2019, but a lot of that was the defense had changed so much. They had a whole new linebacker corps for the most part, Jalen Ramsey gets traded early in the season, two new safeties on the back end. So really the whole secondary and most of the defense was in flux and A.J. Bouye was one of the lone carry-overs, but there were issues on the back end and not necessarily all of them his fault. But I think it made him a little bit tougher to play the way he's capable of playing last season. He still was able to start 14 games and have 65 tackles, which was indeed a career high, so there is that. He broke up eight passes, but he just didn't have the picks and those kind of things. But he still played at a pretty good level."

BS: That 2017 defense was indeed something special. Why do you feel he was so successful?