Denver Post Broncos writer Parker Gabriel posts his Broncos Mailbag weekly during the season and periodically during the offseason. Click here to submit a question.

In your estimation, has it been the offense, defense or combination of both that’s turned the Broncos season around?

— Ed Helinski, Albany, N.Y.

Hey Ed, thanks for getting us going this week. It’s never exactly one or the other — and, while we’re at it, don’t sleep on the role Marvin Mims Jr. and the Broncos return game has played or Wil Lutz’s five field goals Sunday night against Minnesota.

At the risk of oversimplifying, the defense is where we start regardless of the perspective you want to choose. Either the defense has spurred the turnaround or it’s the reason for the heinous start. Both, really, are reasonable answers. Consider that the Broncos’ offense averaged 21.5 points per game over the team’s 1-5 start. Over the four-game winning streak, they’ve averaged… 22 points per game. The defense, meanwhile, gave up 33.3 over the first six games and 17 per game over the winning streak.

Hi Parker. How close is Greg Dulcich to coming back from the hamstring injury? Assuming he comes back, do you think he can be a difference maker and help the offense break out? 

— Brandon, Rogers, Minn.

Hey Brandon, Difficult to say — maybe we’ll know more later this week — but since the Week 6 re-injury we haven’t seen Dulcich working on the side field during practice at all. Haven’t seen him around the locker room, either. So at this point we’re going mostly by what Sean Payton said recently, which is that he expects the second-year tight end to play again this season at some point. Dulcich is eligible to return off of injured reserve this week, but unless they have him on a regimen and protocol that is different than the first time he got hurt and much different than any other player, that’s not going to happen this week.

He’s missed so much time that any kind of production he gives down the stretch is probably just considered a bonus at this point. It would seem unrealistic to bank on him coming back and making a big impact.

Due to an abnormal number of team injuries in recent years, new Broncos ownership last year went on a mission to modernize their player health and performance departments. Can we say the effort is paying dividends so far this season?

— Dom Larison, Longmont

Whether it’s those efforts, the randomness that’s always part of a team’s injury picture, or a combination of both, what’s clear is that Denver’s much healthier this year than it has been in recent seasons.

The Broncos had a tough run in camp when Tim Patrick, Mike McGlinchey, Jalen Virgil, P.J. Locke and Jerry Jeudy all got hurt in relatively short order, though only Patrick and Virgil ended up being long-term injuries.

Since then, it’s been relatively smooth sailing. They’ve had injuries, of course, but the list has been much more manageable. Even still, there are always positions that seem to have spates of injuries. That’s safety this year for Denver. Last year, it was the offensive line. The Broncos used 10 different combinations in 17 games. This year, the same quintet has started all 10 games.

How long before Kareem Jackson plays his way out of Denver? It seems like every game he just launches himself like a torpedo at the other team. Eventually he’s really gonna hurt someone or get badly hurt himself.

— Mike, Denver

Hey Mike, yeah, Post columnist Mark Kiszla and I chewed on this point this week. If you want to use cold football calculus, Jackson’s absence — whether due to suspension or deciding to move on from him — would be felt to a lesser degree on the field if both Caden Sterns (torn meniscus) and P.J. Locke were healthy. Locke’s working back from an ankle injury at the moment.

The other part with Jackson that can’t be denied is that he’s loved in the locker room. The defensive guys are firmly behind him. At the same time, though, the Broncos coaching staff has to find a way to keep him from incurring the kind of penalty later in the season that could turn a game. If his hit on Josh Dobbs Sunday night vs. Minnesota was flagged as it should have been, a turnover comes off the board and who knows what happens from there.

Again, from a football perspective, I’d have been interested to see how Payton and Vance Joseph deployed their safeties if they had all of Justin Simmons, Locke and Jackson healthy and available. For a couple of games Simmons and Jackson started and Locke played here and there. But when Jackson got suspended the first time, Locke played well. We’ll have to wait at least a few weeks to see if the staff arrives at a different conclusion.

Courtland Sutton has been deadly in the red zone this year. Do you think they’ll start targeting him on more deeper routes in the coming weeks? Our offense moves along with the run game, but we never really air it out.

— Victor, Colorado Springs

Good one to end on this week, Victor. Sutton has indeed been deadly in the red zone. He’s got a career-best eight touchdowns down there already this season and has hauled in a touchdown five straight games. Impressive stuff.

Russell Wilson has targeted him on some shot plays in recent weeks, including a 33-yarder up the sideline against Minnesota and a 32-yarder on a crossing route against Buffalo. They like the deep comebacks and in-breakers with Sutton because of his size, but Wilson’s shown he’s not afraid to loft the ball down the field and let him go get it, either.

In general, the vertical passing game has been much more scarce in recent weeks after Denver generated a bunch of big plays over the top early in the season. It takes good protection and Payton has also noted after multiple games recently that teams are playing a lot of shell coverage against them because opponents know they want to hit the home run. That’s the quickest way to put points on the board. Payton, Wilson and company can’t completely sell out for big plays and cripple the commitment to the run game, but it wouldn’t be a surprise to see them ratchet up the aggressiveness a notch or two in the coming weeks. Next up, however, is Cleveland. That defensive front — highlighted by Myles Garrett — is dominant and the secondary is pretty darn good, too. Big challenge ahead.

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