Locked On Broncos - Daily Podcast On The Denver Broncos - Denver Broncos WR Troy Franklin's HUGE Confidence Boost | Best Offseason Since 2014

Starting point is 00:00:00 Troy Franklin shared some important insight into why this could be a big time breakout year for the second year wide receiver. And is this the best offseason the Broncos I've had since 2014? We're going to tell you why yes, it absolutely is on today's episode, Locked on Broncos. You are Locked on Broncos, your daily Denver Broncos podcast. Part of the Locked on podcast network, your team every day. Welcome in Broncos country to another episode of Locked on Broncos. We're going to talk about Troy Franklin's mindset entering his second NFL season and why this could be a breakout year for him.

Starting point is 00:00:44 We've already spent some time talking about Troy Franklin at the offseason workouts at mini camp and things like that. But he shared some insight with Denver broncos.com that I think is really important to unpack and why this could be a special year for the former Oregon Ducks star. Is this the best off season the Broncos have had since 2014? I certainly think so. I'm going to tell you why. And we've also got to talk about maybe some contract issues with the Broncos top two draft

Starting point is 00:01:13 picks, Jada Baron and RJ Harvey. That may be worth monitoring here as we get into the dog days of summer. But there are no dog days at lockdown Broncos. And as a matter of fact, Broncos country, mile high salute to all of you tuning in here at this portion of the off season. you are the true diehards. And we appreciate you for making us part of your day, however you choose to do so. If you're not already, take a couple of seconds, hit subscribe if you're watching on YouTube

Starting point is 00:01:40 or hit follow wherever you listen to podcasts. And today's episode of Lockdown Broncos is brought to you by our good friends over there at GameTime. Download the GameTime app, create an account, and use the code Lockdown NFL for $20 off your first purchase. Troy Franklin has been a major subject all offseason, whether we're talking about his jersey switch from number 16 to now number 11 out there, feeling more like himself wearing the number that he wore when he was with the Oregon Ducks at the college level, whether it's that or whether it's, and he's making some plays out there at minicamp, at OTAs.

Starting point is 00:02:18 He stood out. We know, Cody said that when he was out there at the mini camp practices and at the training care, or the, excuse me, the OTA sessions, Troy Franklin was looking much better than he did a year ago, and he's got a newfound confidence that comes directly from his mental approach to the game. And I found it really interesting. I was reading a post from Eric DeLala over there at Denver Broncos.com. He got the chance to talk with Troy Franklin.

Starting point is 00:02:46 And Franklin said something really interesting here. I'll quote him, football is easy. It's the mental part, right? Football is easy. He said once you get the mental part down, you can just go out there and line up and play. He said last year, I felt like I was lining up and still thinking. So Troy is not really saying anything that we couldn't tell by watching him play out there on the field. But obviously, when you're a rookie in the NFL, you're sort of drinking through a fire hose, right?

Starting point is 00:03:16 Obviously, there's an expectation on a guy like Troy Franklin, especially because the Broncos drafted his college quarterback, Bo Nix. And so there's expectations being heaped upon him to fill a need the team had. And the Broncos definitely had a need last year at the wide receiver position. And it almost feels like the plan for Troy Franklin shifted dramatically when Josh Reynolds went down with that hand injury that he suffered after he caught a touchdown pass against the Las Vegas Raiders. You remember that play. The Broncos are just pouring it on against the Raiders.

Starting point is 00:03:49 Josh Reynolds caught a touchdown and he ran into the wall. He injured his hand. And from that point, that was the last time we ever saw Reynolds take the field for the Denver Broncos. And from that point on, it was really, okay, we've got to figure out how to get Troy Franklin into the offensive game plan every week. They may have wanted to bring him along a little more slowly, but that couldn't be the case after Josh Reynolds went down with the injury. And then you already had Devon Velae dealing with an injury early last season. It was kind of grow up quickly for Troy Franklin. And what was odd is that the timing between he and Bo Nix was off pretty much all year.

Starting point is 00:04:28 We kind of saw that issue rear its ugly head on a number of occasions, including in that Raiders game, right? Where Troy had an easy touchdown, an easy, relatively speak, maybe easy for an NFL wide receiver. But a touchdown nonetheless, that went through his hands from Bo Nix. And that was the infamous play in which Bo, you know, was on the sideline yelling at Sean Peyton and they're kind of getting into it. And, you know, after the game, Bo Nix is like, oh, yeah, we were just saying, I love you. I love you too, you know.

Starting point is 00:04:59 But that was the instance, I think, where it started to kind of feel real that the timing issues with Troy Franklin and Bo Nix might be an actual problem for the Broncos. We had seen and heard about some stuff throughout the course of training camp. But that renewed confidence from Troy Franklin, it seems to be a real thing. And yes, it's just the offseason. And yes, they haven't even put the pads on. It's not even training camp yet. But you can tell that a guy is different based on the way that he's practicing.

Starting point is 00:05:28 Sean Payton had made mention multiple times that Troy, when he was asked one time about Marvin Mims and he kind of just out of left field said, I think Troy Franklin could be a player like that here in 2025, meaning that he could be one of those guys who really figures it out for this team. And then he mentioned later on in the offseason program that Troy was out there. They're making explosive plays in practice that people who, you know, cover the team and get to go to practice, they weren't seeing because he was making these plays at practices that they weren't allowed to attend. So Sean Payton doing his best to kind of drive the hype train a little bit for Troy Franklin. And you can't help but think that based all the way back to his comments in January to Kay Adams when he said that I think the wide receiver position is, you know, better than people realize or it's better than people think.

Starting point is 00:06:20 because remember Kay Adams came to Sean Payton and said, I think your number one need is a veteran wide receiver. And Sean said, basically it's not, right? And he did say he kind of went along with her and said, yeah, it's in that needs bucket. But at the same time, I think that wide receiver position is better than what people are saying.

Starting point is 00:06:41 And we're kind of starting to get glimpses here and there of why he maybe said that. the Broncos are buying into their evaluation process for these young wide receivers. They are not giving up on a guy like Troy Franklin, just like they didn't give up on Marvin Mims, even though the majority of his rookie year was a disappointment, I think, and largely due to the coaching staff. And maybe the Marvin Mims situation really opened their eyes to the issues that they had with Troy Franklin, right? Because with Marvin Mims, the issue wasn't just, it wasn't necessarily that he wasn't out

Starting point is 00:07:16 there making plays, the primary issue almost felt like it was the coaching staff not getting him properly involved in the game plan. So you have a new opportunity to sort of write your wrongs, but with a different player. And you can fix what you, just what you saw last year with Marvin, you take his strengths, you highlight what he does well, you incorporate that into the offense and you make it consistent. Can you do that with Troy Franklin? Because trying to chuck the ball 30, 40 yards downfield and expecting guy to cash in on every single opportunity. That's not always going to be realistic, right? And Franklin has so much more that he can offer as a player.

Starting point is 00:07:55 The Broncos tried desperately to exploit his skills as a deep ball receiver and also in the short, quick passing game where they would get him the ball out on quick wide receiver screens because Sean Payton also said during the off season, and again, I will reiterate this, that Sean has been driving the hype train. he said that they believe that Franklin has untapped potential in the after the catch department. So we're talking about a guy that has maybe the best vertical speed right over there with, you know, Marvin Mims of anyone on the offense and certainly has the size advantage being six two. And so you talk about a guy like that that has after the catch ability,

Starting point is 00:08:34 he can win deep downfield with his vertical speed, and you can get him the ball quickly. There's the makings of a player that, okay, maybe the Broncos weren't just pumping fluff when they said they had a second round grade on this guy. So it's important to temper expectations a little bit because Troy Franklin was obviously a fourth rounder last year. But again, this is somebody the Broncos traded up for. This is somebody that they allowed to take his lumps. And Troy mentioned in that piece by Eric DeLala on Denver Broncos.com that his touchdown catch against the bills was truly a launching off point for this renewed confidence that he has, which is really exciting if you're a Denver Broncos fan because you obviously want to see Troy do exceptionally well.

Starting point is 00:09:18 You obviously want to see him go out there and making plays. How high on the depth chart can he ascend? And maybe what's obviously more important than that, how many targets will the Broncos be willing to give him? Will he be one of those featured guys? Because we obviously still have, you know, Cortland Sutton, Marvin Mims, Evan Ingram, Devon Velae had a great offseason program before a mysterious injury kept him. out of mandatory mini camp, which he's expected to be ready for the start of training camp. So there's a lot of mouths to feed, but it feels like Franklin is poised to really maximize

Starting point is 00:09:52 the opportunities that he's going to be getting here in 2025, which is very, very exciting. If you're a Denver Broncos fan, you want to see that offense improve from what it was last year, which was already into the top 10, even with as many struggles as the Broncos had, they were 10th in the NFL in points scored. and yes, the defense did contribute a little bit to that, but certainly you saw the offense figuring things out, and they got into some high-scoring battles when they needed to as well. So this offense has the potential for a major uptick in 2025.

Starting point is 00:10:23 And really, you look at the entirety of this off-season, and you can't help but draw some parallels to what we saw from the Denver Broncos in what has become an absolutely legendary hall of players back in 2014. is this an even better haul, the Broncos hall in 2025, before we ever even see these guys take the field, is this a better haul in terms of offseason players added and the impact these guys are going to bring to the field? I'm going to tell you why I think maybe that is the case on today's episode of the show.

Starting point is 00:10:56 And we're also going to talk about, man, the contract situations for Jada Barron and R.J. Harvey starting to get to that point where you're kind of getting a little antsy about the team figuring that out. We've got plenty more to discuss coming up on today's episode, Locked on Broncos. Today's episode of Lockdown Broncos is brought to you by Game Time. There's nothing like the NBA playoffs, the intensity, the buzzer beaters, fans losing their minds, right? It's the kind of atmosphere that you have to experience live. And this year's matchups have delivered in a big way, especially in the NBA finals. And if you want in, game time makes it fast and

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Starting point is 00:12:32 L-O-C-E-D-O-N-N-F-L-L-L-L-L-L-F-L. for $20 off. Download the game time app today. Last minute tickets, lowest price guaranteed. The 2025 offseason for the Denver Broncos just might have been better than the 2014 offseason, the vaunted off season that brought in a number of key players that contributed to the Super Bowl 50 victory for the Denver Broncos. I'm going to tell you why the 2025 off season has been better for this team in Denver. But Broncos country, thanks so much for making us part of your day. We appreciate you every single day, especially those of you out there who are everyday listeners of the show. It means the world to us that you support the show.

Starting point is 00:13:16 And let us know your thoughts, especially if you're watching on YouTube. You can jump in the comments section. You can always reach out to Cody and I on Twitter. Your thoughts on this off season for the Broncos in 2025 being better than 2014. Now, we have the benefit of hindsight knowing what that 2014 group was able to accomplish ultimately winning Super Bowl 50. those additions were legendary. I mean, when you go back to that 2014 offseason, the Broncos brought in,

Starting point is 00:13:45 Akeb T.Aid, DeMarcus, Ware, T.J. Ward, they drafted Bradley Robey. And then late in the free agency period, they shocked everybody by bringing in Emmanuel Sanders. And they finished that deal while he was on his visit with the Kansas City Chiefs, which makes it even sweeter. But you think back to that group and how much every single one of those guys meant to the Broncos Super Bowl run and more. I think that when you look at those guys,

Starting point is 00:14:13 they're part of the Denver Broncos legacy, John Elway's legacy as an executive. I mean, there's so much about that 2014 offseason class that you could really dive into and think, you know, what if it had gone a different direction? Like, what if the Broncos had re-signed Dominique Rogers-Krimardi instead of bringing in Akeb to leave, right? What if they had brought,

Starting point is 00:14:37 back Eric Decker instead of signing Emmanuel Sanders. And, you know, I don't think that necessarily would have meant, well, they would have for sure lost Super Bowl 50 if they didn't have those guys. But it makes it seem kind of, okay, like fate intervened a little bit in those ways. And what about in 2025, right? Because there were options for the Broncos to get it wrong in the areas that they had needs so far this offseason, right? We've had the additions of Talanoa, Hufanga, and Dre Greenlaw, Greenlaw.

Starting point is 00:15:07 from the San Francisco 49ers to fill the Broncos needs at safety and linebacker. I'm not saying that's exactly the same in every situation as, you know, Demarchus Ware and T.J. Ward coming in back in the 2014 off season, but those two guys more so than just their on-field presence, they brought that toughness to the Denver defense. They brought experience in big games, at least in the case of Demarcus Ware, right? you brought some experience in playoff games.

Starting point is 00:15:36 And really just those two guys, Drey Greenlaw and Talanoa Hufanga, they're going to be not just culture changers on that Denver Broncos defense, but they're going to be tone setters. They're going to be guys who everybody looks to kind of follow their energy, to match their intensity, their desire to win. Because keep in mind,

Starting point is 00:15:58 this is one of the youngest teams in the NFL. These guys are still learning how to win. They're still learning how to win. They're still learning how to do it at the highest level in the NFL. Now you've got a couple of guys who are on their second, third contracts in the league, and they've already been to the Super Bowl. They've been to big time playoff games. They've seen the best of everybody in the NFL, and they've been there.

Starting point is 00:16:22 And what's the best thing? The best thing in leadership that you can always do is to get around people who have been where you're going. There's a Chinese proverb that says, you know, if you want to know, the road to get somewhere, ask somebody who's walking on the way back, right? And I know I'm probably butchering that, but it's a similar thing with guys like Tala Noah Hufanga and Dre Greenlaw. Those guys have been where the Broncos are trying to go, especially defensively. They've been part of some really good units there in San Francisco. So those are two guys, just like T.J. Ward, just like DeMarcus Ware, that these young players on the Denver defense are going to be looking

Starting point is 00:16:58 to follow those guys' examples and really just take this. defense to the next level. It was the third best scoring defense in the NFL last season. And now here you are with a chance to be the number one defense in the league and what that can mean for your team on a week to week basis to have that kind of consistency. And it's just, it's a huge opportunity for this group in Denver to go make some crazy stuff happen. I think when you talk about the rest of the additions made on the Broncos roster this offseason. The Evan Ingram signing is hard to sort of quantify when you talk about that 2014 offseason for Denver in terms of is he more like the Emmanuel Sanders pickup or there's

Starting point is 00:17:42 more parallels, I think, with J.K. Dobbins coming to Denver late in the process and sort of stealing him from a division rival. There's maybe more parallels there. But I do think those two moves are kind of in the realm of underrated. You know, when you talk about that 24, 13 free agent class that the Broncos upgrade from Dominique Rogers, Cromartie to Akeb to Lebe. I think you can kind of relate that in a way to the Broncos upgrade from Adam Troutman to Evan Ingram on offense. It may be a bit of a stretch to compare the two, right?

Starting point is 00:18:17 But I think with Akeeb to Lebe and Evan Ingram, you're sort of getting on opposite sides of the ball. You're getting potential game changers who brought with them injury risk, who brought with them plenty of boom or bust potential. and players that you figure, okay, you need a guy like this to win a championship in the NFL. What you already have is nice, but in order to get to the next level, you need somebody who can fill in the blank. For Akeeb to leave, it was take the ball away at a high rate and make teams pay for throwing

Starting point is 00:18:48 his direction. For Evan Ingram on the other side of the ball, it's going to be you're going to make teams pay for trying to double team him or focusing too much on him because then you can allocate attention to other guys in your offensive game plan. So you talk about the draft as well. Back in 2014, the Broncos brought in Bradley Robey in the first round, a bit of a surprise pick considering they had brought in a keep to leave and free agency and you felt like they could maybe go a different direction early in the 2014 draft.

Starting point is 00:19:16 But just like back then, the Broncos, they use a first round pick on Jade Barron to upgrade an already really good cornerback position. And now you've got a absolutely loaded secondary. and probably the best secondary on paper in the NFL without even kind of looking around the league. I mean, an enviable embarrassment of riches in your secondary going into the 2025 season. So you add through the draft like that. You add underrated players, you know, late in the free agency process, like a JK Dobbins, similar to how the Broncos kind of came out of left field with the Emmanuel Sanders move.

Starting point is 00:19:51 There's lots of parallels there. But unlike in 2014, remember in 2014? the Broncos were on borrowed time. And they were certainly looking for, okay, we've got maybe one, two, at most years left with Peyton Manning. And then it's going to be on to a new era of Denver Broncos football. Again, this Denver Broncos team is like on the rise, right? Bow Nix is entering his second year.

Starting point is 00:20:18 They're building something special. And so with that in mind, that's why I think this one is even better because you're not just going for a short window of time. that you know the sand timer, it's running out quickly and you need to go make these desperation moves in order to go all in for this short window of time. Windows in the NFL still exists for teams with young quarterbacks, but with the Broncos and Bo Nicks, it's got much more longevity, doesn't it? And it feels different than it did back in 2014 when you were thinking, all right, every move the Broncos make is going to have

Starting point is 00:20:54 an impact on whether or not they're able to get anything done in this era of time. And for this version of the Denver Broncos, it's much more along the lines of that, that philosophy that John Elway actually had back then, which was to win from now on. You really feel that more with this iteration of the Broncos than that particular one. But how soon can this one contend for a championship? It's going to be fun to watch. And you expect these young players to be part of the equation, Jada Barron and R.J. Harvey, are caught in the midst of contract negotiations.

Starting point is 00:21:27 Of course, we're not privy to how things are going behind the scenes, but should Broncos country be worried at all about these guys not having their deal signed? I'm going to tell you why you shouldn't worry about it yet, but maybe pay attention a little bit to it at this point in the offseason. We're going to talk about that coming up next on this episode, Locked on Broncos. It's the middle of June and Denver Broncos's first round pick, Jada Barron, has yet to sign his rookie contract. same is true for second round pick, R.J. Harvey.

Starting point is 00:22:01 These guys are not alone in their situations, but certainly situations that bear monitoring as we get deeper into the offseason. And Broncos country, I don't think this is anything to worry about. This is, it's becoming a more popular scenario around the NFL these days. And you certainly see some really awful situations like with the Cincinnati Bengals and their first round pick, Shamar Stewart, who I can't believe they're bungling that situation the way that they are. And the way that he's approaching that situation by leaving minicamp entirely, calling out the front office, calling out the ownership, doing a lot of things that are kind of burning some bridges

Starting point is 00:22:42 there in my opinion. But Jaday Barron, we know he showed up to the entire offseason program. He got his insurance policy. He was there for mandatory mini camp. There's no contract friction as far as any of us knows. And there are a couple of draft picks in the first round remaining unsigned, including Shamar Stewart and a couple of guys from later in the first round. You expect this kind of stuff to get done quickly because, well,

Starting point is 00:23:09 the NFL and the collective bargaining agreement with the NFLPA, they have preset prices for every rookie, every draft pick. It's roughly for a pick slot, basically. So every 28th overall pick like Jad A. Barron was is going to get paid the same total money on their contract under this collective bargaining agreement. That doesn't change. What can change is the language within the contract, stipulations for bonuses or guaranteed money and total guaranteed money in general. What we saw that's maybe causing a little bit of friction here with a handful of players is the top two picks of the first round this year. Carson Schwessinger of the Cleveland Browns and then Jaden Higgins of the Houston Texans,

Starting point is 00:23:55 they signed fully guaranteed contracts. And that is, it's not unprecedented, but it does kind of throw a wrench into everybody else's plans because now agents are saying, well, if those guys got fully guaranteed contracts, there's no reason why my guy shouldn't get a fully guaranteed contract, right? And so there may be some haggling over that, especially with players like Maxwell Hirsten and I believe Jihad Campbell of the Philadelphia Eagles are two that remain unsigned at the back half of the first round. It could simply be a matter of guaranteed money and they want their entire contracts

Starting point is 00:24:32 guaranteed. I don't know that that's the case with Jada Baron. We can only speculate at this point, but it seems likely that that's one of the reasons why R.J. Harvey and pretty much the entire second round has not yet signed because that that's the case that the two second round picks at this point that I'm recording this episode two second round picks have signed it's the top two picks and the guys that got guaranteed contract so with jade baron and rj harvey showing up to all the offseason program showing up to mandatory minicamp i don't think it's anything to worry about but obviously now we're getting

Starting point is 00:25:08 to the point in the off season where all right you know everybody's taking their vacations they're going to come back to work here in a couple of weeks at least the guys in the front office, right? They're going to go do all their throwing sessions and, you know, team bonding stuff that they're going to be doing. How much are they going to be paying attention to these contract situations? Like, will this prevent RJ Harvey from going to the throwing sessions with Bo Nix? I highly doubt it.

Starting point is 00:25:34 So it's just they've got their insurance policies. They're, you can't even say they're holding out at this point because they weren't. They weren't holding out. They were at mandatory mini camp without their contracts signed. And I think this could be an interesting thing to monitor going forward. I know we're talking about the Broncos right now, but how interesting would it be to see a team like Cincinnati

Starting point is 00:25:56 where things have gotten super ugly with Shamar Stewart? How interesting would it be to see them maybe even trade him before he gets the opportunity to ever play for the team? I mean, dating back to when that guy was drafted, he was asked, remember on the stage, like, why are you upset right now? Why are you angry? It just feels like things got off to a horrible,

Starting point is 00:26:15 start for him. So I wonder, I mean, I don't think he's going to sit out this season, but at the same time, that's one of his couple of options right now. You can sit out this year and reenter next year's draft, or maybe you could ask the Bengals to trade you, or you could, you know, find a compromise, find common ground, which is obviously the most likely scenario at this point. And it will be fascinating to find out what is the sticking point with Jada Barron's deal in particular, because he's the other than Shemar Stewart, whose situation is out of control, he is the highest remaining unsigned first round pick. And so I'll be fascinated to find out what are the details of that contract? How much more guaranteed money is he getting than maybe last

Starting point is 00:26:59 year's 20th overall pick or even some picks around him in this year's draft? So those are the types of things that you pay attention to and you can kind of read the tea leaves or follow the breadcrums after a guy has signed his rookie contract and see, oh, yeah, that might have been one of the sticking points there. But at this point in time, there's no reason to expect anything other than Jada Baron and R.J. Harvey being there and full participants at Denver Broncos training camp, which is still about a month away, Broncos country. And of course, you know that your boys, Cody and Sarah will have you covered every step of

Starting point is 00:27:35 the way this off season. and we're expecting at some point, you know, maybe before training camp, maybe during training camp. We're expecting some news about contract extensions based on the fact that George Payton said earlier this offseason that there would be contract extension talks after the draft or that at least we could expect them to resume after the draft. I'll be fascinated to find out the situations with Cortland Sutton, Zach Allen, Nick Benito, John Franklin Myers, a lot of guys who are part of the core of this roster right now, are they going to be seen and viewed by this front office as core pieces going forward? We may do an episode about that coming up. We may do an episode about some other roster battles coming up, but once again, we can't appreciate you enough for tuning in and making us part of your day. If you haven't already done so, again, hit subscribe

Starting point is 00:28:28 where every listen to podcasts as well as on YouTube. And you can also find some short form content over there on both YouTube and TikTok. So if you got a TikTok account, go follow Lockdown Broncos over there for some short form content as well. Broncos country, we appreciate you so much. We'll see you on the next one.

Locked On Broncos - Daily Podcast On The Denver Broncos - Denver Broncos WR Troy Franklin's HUGE Confidence Boost | Best Offseason Since 2014

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