Could the Washington Commanders‘ struggling defense receive a boost for Sunday’s Week 13 game against the Denver Broncos?

The Broncos enter Sunday’s game as one of the NFL’s hottest teams, winners of eight straight. Meanwhile, the Commanders are one of three teams that are on a six-game losing streak. Washington has dealt with significant injuries all season on both sides of the ball. While injuries have played a significant role in the Commanders’ struggles, the defense has regressed into one of the NFL’s worst units.

Those struggles led to the demotion of defensive coordinator Joe Whitt Jr. Head coach Dan Quinn took over defensive play-calling just before the bye, and the defense had its best performance since Week 5. Now, Washington’s defense could be getting back a key starter and a promising young piece at a position of need.

Both safety Will Harris and defensive end Drake Jackson are currently within their 21-day practice windows and could return for Sunday’s game.

Harris started at safety in the Commanders’ first three games. Washington’s communication issues in the secondary seemed to coincide with Harris’ injury. He fractured his fibula in a Week 3 win over the Raiders.

Quinn seemed optimistic that Harris could play against Denver.

“Yeah, it looks good, and the reason being, like I said, he was chomping at the bit even before we started,” Quinn said on Monday. “He worked really hard to get himself back to it, and then it was really about the movements, the conditioning into those things. And so had the week, out in Spain as well, full on practice to go and then more conditioning, more movements this past week, and then, so yeah, we’re very optimistic heading into this week for him and all that he’s done to get himself ready to go.”

The Commanders’ safeties, specifically, Quan Martin, have struggled since Harris went down. Jeremy Reaves has played in Harris’s place for much of his absence.

As for Jackson, Washington signed the 2022 second-round pick last month and immediately placed him on injured reserve. Jackson tore his patellar tendon in 2023 and hasn’t played since. The 49ers waived him in May. With the Commanders’ injuries to Dorance Armstrong, Javontae Jean-Baptiste and Deatrich Wise, Jackson could get a long look to hopefully get his career back on track.

This article originally appeared on Commanders Wire: Washington Commanders: Defense could get some help against Broncos