Dirtman and The Prototype: Why Broncos’ Riley Moss is wired for the pressure as Pat Surtain’s CB2

He rolled into position meetings in a backwards baseball cap white tank top and scissor-cut sweat shorts consistently bringing a dash of predictable chaos Specific days he tugged on shoes without socks Particular days he clomped around in Birkenstocks He grew out waves of long brown hair that he never washed Riley Moss was the sociable hermit in the caverns of Iowa s practice facility Eventually Iowa linebackers coach Seth Wallace started calling Moss Dirtman So everyone started calling him Dirtman Moss was self-aware enough to realize the entire building was picking on him He was self-assured enough not to care So he doubled down as friend and longtime Hawkeyes teammate Jack Koerner remembered Moss would come over to Koerner s house after practice to watch a movie and crash on his leather couch shirtless Unshowered from the morning s practice Stinking up the joint He s gonna be him Koerner reported That s just the way that all of us describe him And you love him for it and you hate him for it He s never gonna deviate from being Riley Moss And everybody who ever has met him will tell you they ve never met anybody like Riley Moss Three years into his time in Denver he is still Riley Moss He still strolls up to chat with reporters in a backwards cap He s trimmed the hair somewhat But Moss has now grown out a scraggly Obi-Wan-Kenobi-style beard which strongly split his old Iowa buddies when he trekked home this summer Particular guys were like Dude you do not look like you belong playing the cornerback position in the National Football League ' Koerner recalled He never has Moss knows the story and the stereotypes first white corner to start in the NFL since He s had a runt-of-the-litter attitude as Koerner described since growing up dreaming of playing outside corner in central Iowa He was a two-star recruit who began his career at Iowa as a preferred walk-on a track star with little refined football sense Moss has the word underdog tattooed on his ribs with the definition scrawled underneath He has now become one of the bulk pivotal pieces of a Broncos defense with championship hopes primarily because of the guy he s next to A guy whose story couldn t be more different Pat Surtain II the NFL s reigning defensive sportsman of the year was made for this The son of a Pro Bowl corner the No corner in his recruiting class and the gem of Nick Saban s Alabama plan Every piece of Surtain s competition has been carved from marble since he was a teenager Eventually his high school DB coach and longtime trainer Chad Wilson started calling him The Prototype He s a technician nickel Ja Quan McMillian disclosed He just does the same thing over and over again Brandon Jones of the Denver Broncos celebrates recovering a fumble by Tony Pollard of the Tennessee Titans alongside teammates Riley Moss and Pat Surtain II during the second quarter at Empower Field at Mile High on Sunday Sept Photo by AAron Ontiveroz The Denver Post Related Articles Broncos scouting statement Predictions for Denver s matchup with Colts Daniel Jones Renck Broncos offensive improvement starts with Sean Payton And he knows it Broncos Journal Six Burnham Yard-related considerations after a busy week After poor Week Broncos QB Bo Nix didn t want to wait for next match Can t we just play again Broncos Vance Joseph feels it s a luxury to bring first-round rookie Jahdae Barron along slowly The -year-old has now become so consistent that NFL teams avoid him like never before The Broncos top corner was targeted once by the Titans in Week Such a distribution means opposing quarterbacks will look to the other side of the field nonstop Manning the mainland across from Surtain Island requires resilience as defensive coordinator Vance Joseph noted in September It requires self-belief and a complete lack of fear Enter Dirtman If they make one play Joseph stated he s going to make two Early on in Moss s Iowa career he and the rest of the Hawkeyes DBs were sitting in a meeting room after practice watching cut-ups Hard-nosed defensive coordinator Phil Parker threw on a clip of a Moss play where he d gambled jumped a path and just managed to tip a ball away Parker pointed out that Moss would ve given up a touchdown if the threat hadn t paid off Moss as Koerner remembered tossed back a saying his Iowa teammates would come to know all too well Scared money don t make no money Moss replied Well when you re gambling with my money Parker retorted as Koerner recalled you need to be able to learn to be protective with it At the same time Moss was rocking an earring and quoting Jeezy Surtain was rounding into an All-American at Alabama The kid was just good at everything from Day One at least as Wilson put it He came from Florida s American Heritage High where the head coach Mike Rumpf defensive coordinator Surtain Sr and DBs coach Wilson had all played DB in the NFL Fellow cornerbacks Marco Wilson and Tyson Campbell also went on to play in the NFL Surtain worked alongside greatness every day of his career From American Heritage to Alabama it molded a corner who has developed technique so perfect that Bengals star wideout Ja Marr Chase former great Chad Ochocinco and fellow Bronco Courtland Sutton went viral this summer trying to figure out how to beat him Every rep is the same Eyes zeroed in on a receiver s hips long slide-steps firm jams at the point of attack He s the kind of thing that batting champs in baseball are made out of noted Wilson who s trained Surtain every offseason Like a Tony Gwynn or a Wade Boggs or any of those kind of guys that have flirted with and just were consistent batting-title winners Because you have to be so consistent as a batter in baseball Surtain s challenge now is to stay sharp even as the ball avoids him the corner explained Wednesday And this Broncos stretch is the first time in the DPOY s life where he s been truly isolated Wilson reported High school teammate Campbell was the No corner in the country to Surtain s No In his All-American season at Alabama in Surtain s CB was Josh Jobe the No corner in the country in that same class All carried pedigree All commanded respect And then there s Moss who had a runway to understand what it takes to be a professional as Parker reflected Koerner was a second-year walk-on safety when Moss came to Iowa in And Koerner didn t much like him Moss was gifted with straight-line quickness but he was hobbled by the fact that he didn t really know much He started six games as a freshman off pure athleticism but he had to turn around and glance at the safety for instruction on preponderance every play Parker assigned Koerner to get Moss up to speed The complication Parker was also grooming Moss as a safety At times Koerner stood behind Moss in walkthroughs helped him with positioning and sought himself what the heck he was doing Dude this guy doesn t know anything Koener thought Why am I helping him out I m training him to take my spot Iowa defensive back Riley Moss returns an interception -yards for a touchdown during the first half of an NCAA college football competition against Indiana Saturday Sept in Iowa City Iowa AP Photo Charlie Neibergall The building knew Moss was an excellent athlete The building didn t know if Moss would be an excellent football player One preceded the other as Koerner described He got torched for three touchdowns in a loss to Purdue as a freshman lost his job and started all of one competition the next year He was not a popular man in Iowa s fanbase Three years later he broke up passes as a senior became one of the staples of Iowa s initiative and was drafted in the third round by the Broncos And he and Koerner had become best buds Everybody kinda knew that it was only a matter of time until you show this guy enough offenses and you get him in the defensive playbook enough he s gonna be extremely well-rounded Koerner disclosed There are hardly any stars attached to Moss name He did not come from a cornerback factory He was knocked off lesson several times He s wired perfectly because of it to line up opposite The Prototype He s got like a bulletproof confidence about him Koerner explained They could make him wear a Speedo out there and he d still be playing just as well They had their fun in the summers back at Iowa The boys as Koerner called them wandered up to a lake house for weekend benders They had their nights And Moss was never one to say no if you needed a guy to have fun with Koerner cracked My favorite memories of him former Iowa safety Quinn Schulte mentioned I seemingly can t share with you Still the life of the party rose each morning ran wind-sprints up hills and sweated it out in eight-minute ab workouts I ve never seen somebody who can just like show up the next day with a hangover and he ll just throw in a chew in his lip and he ll be the preponderance athletic guy on the field Koerner declared Like no stretch no nothing Just show up lace up the cleats not even brush the sleep out of his eye and just be the bulk twitchy athlete out there No switch flips Moss is just wired to go in all aspects He lives every day like his last as Koerner revealed It stands to reason that Moss loves Joseph s scheme in Denver as Schulte declared with its heavy doses of man-to-man And Moss loves the challenge of playing opposite Surtain too It makes it fun to come in to work knowing it s on me Moss commented I m going to be on an island and what can I do That s what I think makes this meeting so beautiful and why I love the position that I m in Riley Moss of the Denver Broncos breaks up a deep pass intended for Elic Ayomanor of the Tennessee Titans during the third quarter at Empower Field at Mile High on Sunday Sept Photo by AAron Ontiveroz The Denver Post In Week as the Titans moved No wideout Calvin Ridley around the formation to get him away from Surtain Moss chased after rookie No wideout Elic Ayomanor like a puppy after a Frisbee He was targeted eight times against Tennessee tied for the fifth-most of any corner in the league according to Pro Football Focus He allowed three catches for just yards and warded off two deep balls to Ayomanor on the same drive I think Riley is very mentally tough safety Brandon Jones explained And I think it s needed at corner In late December after returning from a month-long absence with an MCL injury Moss got shredded by Bengals star WR Tee Higgins for yards and two touchdowns It singlehandedly changed the perception of his sophomore year in Denver after a strong start to his But Moss was blatant quite blatant about owning a bad day and went about his offseason with a purpose He requested to get stronger on - balls Increase his aggressiveness at the point of attack So back in Iowa he trained daily with Koerner and Iowa State alumnus Jake Hummel There were no secrets here No dedicated outside trainers No incisive overhaul of Moss methods His buddies just barked at him in the weight room His was kind of a rag-a-ma-tag melting pot of a lot of different guys Koerner commented No one guy could take credit other than Riley himself Before he left Iowa he had dinner with Parker The Iowa defensive coordinator watched Moss work one-on-one with former teammate Cooper DeJean now with the Philadelphia Eagles at the Hawkeyes facility that summer Parker saw Moss maturity in his footwork smooth rather than hurried And Parker saw maturity in his demeanor at that dinner now a true goldfish who could shrug off any previous play He can process things faster now Parker reflected and understand what he has to do Surtain was born to dominate Moss was born to scrap Still the Prototype and still the Dirtman embracing their roles on separate islands in Denver Riley Moss and Pat Surtain II of the Denver Broncos walk during training camp at Broncos Park in Centennial Colorado on Tuesday July Photo by AAron Ontiveroz The Denver Post Want more Broncos news Sign up for the Broncos Insider to get all our NFL analysis