Locked On Broncos - Daily Podcast On The Denver Broncos - OTAs: Denver Broncos Jahdae Barron and Patrick Surtain II's FIRST LOOK | Defensive Storylines

Episode Date: May 27, 2025

The Denver Broncos take the field today for the start of OTAs and Jahdae Barron and Patrick Surtain II will have their first look together for the Broncos defense. How will Sean Payton deploy Surtain, Barron, Riley Moss, and Ja'Quan McMillian? Plus, Alex Singleton returns from an ACL injury and we'll get our first look at the linebacker competition and how the Broncos might manage their safety depth. Cody Roark is a credentialed beat reporter for Mile High Sports and covers the Broncos daily in person. Sayre Bedinger is the site expert for Predominantly Orange. Both bring Broncos Country the most in-depth and objective coverage of the Denver Broncos. WANT MORE DAILY DENVER BRONCOS CONTENT?For all of the latest Denver Broncos news today -- Follow & Subscribe on all Podcast platforms…🎧 https://link.chtbl.com/LOBroncos?sid=YouTube Locked On NFL League-Wide: Every Team, Fantasy, Draft & More🎧 https://linktr.ee/LockedOnNFL Follow on Twitter: @CodyRoarkNFL and @SayreBedingerFollow the show on Twitter: @LockedOnBroncos Support Us By Supporting Our Sponsors!FanDuelRight now, new customers can get TWO HUNDRED DOLLARS in BONUS BETS when your first FIVE DOLLAR BET WINS! Download the app or head to FANDUEL.COM to get started. Bet with FanDuel—Official Partner of the NBA. Monarch MoneyTake control of your finances with Monarch Money. Use code LOCKEDONNFL at monarchmoney.com for 50% off your first year. FANDUEL DISCLAIMER: 21+ in select states. First online real money wager only. Bonus issued as nonwithdrawable free bets that expires in 14 days. Restrictions apply. See terms at sportsbook.fanduel.com. Gambling Problem? Call 1-800-GAMBLER or visit FanDuel.com/RG (CO, IA, MD, MI, NJ, PA, IL, VA, WV), 1-800-NEXT-STEP or text NEXTSTEP to 53342 (AZ), 1-888-789-7777 or visit ccpg.org/chat (CT), 1-800-9-WITH-IT (IN), 1-800-522-4700 (WY, KS) or visit ksgamblinghelp.com (KS), 1-877-770-STOP (LA), 1-877-8-HOPENY or text HOPENY (467369) (NY), TN REDLINE 1-800-889-9789 (TN) Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

As the Denver Broncos take the field today for OTAs, we'll get our first look at cornerback Jada Baron with Patrick Sartan, Riley Moss, and Jekwon MacMill, but we'll also tell you why the Broncos plan to play all of these guys this upcoming season on the defensive back end on today's episode, Lockdown Broncos. You are Locked on Broncos, your daily Denver Broncos podcast, part of the Locked on Podcast Network, your team every day. What's up, Broncos country? Welcome into another episode of Lockdown Broncos.

your daily Denver Broncos podcast, part of the Lockdown Podcast Network where you notice your team every day for all your Broncos news, content coverage analysis, some more that you can't get anywhere else every single day all year long. Lockdown Broncos is the place to be so special shout out to all the everydayers out there in Broncos country. Thanks for tuning in making us your first listen. However, you choose to do something. If you're not getting everyday, be coming by hitting that subscribe to that follow button. I promise you're never going to miss out on what's going on with your favorite team. I'm Cody Roark, Broncos reporter, for a mile high, Boots on the Ground Daily in Dove Valley.

And I'm Sarah Bredinger's site expert at predominantly orange.com. And here's what you're going to get on today's episode. Soot, A's begins today. And obviously, as we've highlighted the Broncos' offensive side of the ball on yesterday's episode, today's focus is going to be on the defensive storylines, three of them that we have our eyes on. We're going to get our first look at rookie cornerback, Jada Baron, alongside Patrick Sertan, second, Riley Moss, J-Quam-McMillan, and this Broncos defense. Plus, we'll also see the return of Alex Singleton after the A.C.

C.L injury that sidelined him for a majority of last season. And who steps up with Drake Greenlaw's injury kind of sidlining him until Treney Camp, which names will emerge there. Plus, we'll take a look at the Broncos loaded safety depth here. What are some of the storylines here? And will we see PJ lock step into a different role this upcoming season after being upended by Talanoa Hufanga as a started? They're going to get all that on today's episode.

Lockdown Broncos brought to you by friends over there at Fanddule. And right now new customers can get $200 in bonus bets. when your first $5 in bed wins. Sarah, look, Broncos football is here. We're going to see the players on the field. Obviously, beginning today in Dove Valley for the start of OTAs. Then you'll have OTAs next week. And then the week after that, it's mandatory minicamp where we get every single day

of practice that they have there through the 10th, 11th, and 12th of June. But our first look here, we look at storylines defensively. We get to see Jaude Bayer, Barron, up close and personal with Patrick Sartagnan, 2nd, Riley Moss, J. Quam, Mac, Mac, Millen. We've got to see him a rookie. mini camp. But now we're going to see him mixing with the veteran guys. Yeah, I can't wait to hear what the Broncos are doing. I know you can't report on formations or things like that, but even just to know maybe if it's even possible to know that those

three guys are on the field at the same time, meaning Moss, Sartan, and Barron would be exciting, right? And I think that, Cody, what's interesting to me as we, as we lead off the show with Jaade Barron discussion, does it feel at all to you like he's getting a bit underrated in terms of, man, everybody's focus is on RJ Harvey, Pat Bryan, the offensive guys that are coming in. Because, and understandable, right? We want to know, like, how the offense is going to improve. But it's almost like a little bit of a Bradley Robey sort of situation here with Jaudei Barron. Because when the Broncos drafted Robey, it was almost like, oh, great, who cares? We got Akeeb to leave and Chris Harris Jr.

Like, we don't need to necessarily worry about this guy. but he became obviously a huge asset to that team winning the Super Bowl. So Jade Barron to me is kind of falling in a similar bucket here. It's like I'm not saying fans don't care, but what I am saying is I think that he's kind of fallen into the, he's drifted into the sort of like, all right, secondary concern sort of realm. Nobody seems concerned about Jada Barron.

Nobody seems to be saying, this dude's going to go out and get five picks as a rookie. like the hype just I feel like this is an opportunity to build a little something. Well, it's nice too because as we said, this is, it was a luxury pick. You know, the Broncos adding to an already good secondary. Maybe, maybe Wade Phillips and the Broncos, they, uh, they cooked a little bit when they thought about adding Bradley Robley into the mix there alongside the no flies on. Maybe they saw where the NFL was heading, you know, years ahead there.

Man, that was, that was great. But the Broncos have a chance to have a really good secondary. And I think that cornerback room is there. Now, obviously, while we are not going to be able to report. Oh, Jaday Barron was working with the first team defense. We're not allowed to say those things, especially at this juncture of OTAs. We'll have to be very careful with how we mix a match week. But I will say this, though.

I think we are able to say, like, you know, hey, like the Broncos rotated in a bunch of guys because they love to get guys reps in the secondary. We saw that last year during OTAs as well, really opposite of PS2, where they were rotating guys like DeMari Mathis, Riley Moss in. So we're seeing a lot of that action. I imagine it's going to be the same exact approach here. as the Broncos go forward. But I agree with you.

You know, everyone's, you know, excited about the offense. You know, they should also be excited about the defense and this barren pick, which I feel like a large portion of people are. But I agree that the most talked about players have been Pat Bryant, R.J. Harvey. And even Caleb Lone's have been getting a lot of conversation on the social media and the TikTok sphere. Where, you know, Broncos country, we also post clips to TikTok if you're there as well, locked on Broncos. Make sure you find that.

So let's talk about really kind of this story. I know about our first look here with Jaude, with PS2. I imagine we're going to see a lot of these guys rotating in. But I think one of the narratives that we have seen so far here about the cornerback position this off season after the NFL draft, everybody just seems to be convinced that the Broncos taking Jaude Bayer means that they're going to upend either Riley Moss or Jayquan Macmillan, whereas Sean Payton has told us that's not the case.

And look, I think people just got to pay attention to that. Like when we spoke to Sean right after they drafted him, he said, you know, in today's game, like you have to move guys. around. And he said, now with this pick, we can move Pat around. We can move Riley around. We can move. He said, Jay Mack around. And we can move Jada around as well. So to this, I think people are saying like, all right, who's on the spot here? I don't think it is that contrary to what a lot of people think. I think that Denver's going to deploy these four guys. This is their top four corner room that they have in terms of their top four depth. They're going to deploy these guys

in different looks all throughout the season if they stay healthy. Right. And offenses are doing that, aren't they? I mean, offenses move guys all over the place. They move guys all over the formation to try to get defenses to react. So I guess the logic is like, let's start doing that on the defensive side of the ball and forcing offenses to react to that because you're not just going to be able to throw Ladd-McConkie into the slot and it's going to be automatically the best possible matchup for you. Now we have opportunities to disguise coverage. We have opportunities to disguise what we're doing with certain guys on defense. And I know that the NFL has been trending towards the quote unquote positionless defense for a couple of years now, Cody, but I feel like

the Broncos are now in a really great position to actually be able to adapt to that with guys like Jaudei Barron coming into the mix, players developing like Riley Moss, Telenoa, Hufanga, kind of bringing that, hey, I can play in the box, I can play deep sort of mentality. And we'll talk about him more later as well. But just the versatility of so many different guys gives this defense the opportunity to say, we're going to give you a lot of different looks and you're not going to know what's coming. I think that we're going to see tons of personnel groupings. But man, when you talk about the best three out there, best four out there, I don't know that any team is better than the Denver Broncos right now with adding Jada Baron to the mix. I think Riley

Moss is getting criminally underrated right now. I feel like even J-Quan McMillan, maybe especially because of the addition of Barron is getting underrated. So it's just an embarrassment of riches at one of the most important positions in the league. And you know over the course of an NFL season, you're going to need these guys. It's not like, oh, the Broncos should just trade this guy away or they should bench this guy. You're going to need all these guys, especially playing in the division that you are with as much talent at the receiver position as now the chiefs and the Chargers have for sure. the Raiders with Brock Bowers, Jacoby Myers, and a couple of other guys that they've added there.

So it's crucial for the Broncos to have this personnel. And they're the only team in the division that kind of zigged when everyone else zagged, right? Everybody else adding offensive weapons, adding offensive weapons. The Broncos are the only team in the division that's loaded up at corner. And that's abundantly clear. When you look at all the other teams, like Chiefs traded away their best guy last year. Chargers lost their top two guys this offseason. The Raiders lost their best corner this offseason.

So the Broncos are zinging while everyone else is zagging. I think it'll benefit them in the long run. And you need that too because look, I think in certain situations, right? And we'll obviously dive deeper in this when we talk about the safeties as well because they play a factor in this. But, hey, third and long passing situation late in the game. All right, now you have, all right, we're going to put our best cover guys out there. We're going to protect the sticks. We got the guys that play press man to man.

You know, we can move pat inside. We could play Jada outside. we could play jade inside jac mack outside jac mc inside same thing with riley moss he can play like when the broncos go dime if they want to have two corners in cover in the slots they can mix a match demari matthes was playing that dime corner spot for the broncos late last season so you know not even to write him off but ideally we're focused right now on the top four guys in that room Denver likes that they believe that's going to be the counter and combine that with the pass rush that led the NFL in sacks last year at 63 where they feel like that room got even better this bomb season. And now you add Drey Greenlaunt to the mix-at linebacker where they really believe that's going to help take away that middle of the field opportunities. Teams tried to exploit late last season. This has all the makings. If everything goes right, the Broncos are going to have a smothering defense that's going to choke the life at a lot of opposing offenses this upcoming season. And they're going to frustrate teams. And if the offense for Denver can click,

Denver might have the perfect storm on their hands with this group of guys right here. Broncos, country, want to know your thoughts here on our potential first look at Jaude Barron with PS2 in the cornerback room, your thoughts in the cornerback room and the rotation, the different personnel looks that the Broncos could deploy this upcoming season, make sure you let's know here on today's episode of the show. But we're not done yet, Broncos Country. That was one storyline we have our eye on the second one, Alex Singleton and his return. While Drake Greenlaw is going to be on the sideline here for OTAs,

we're going to see Alex Seaton and a lengthy conversation about the Broncos linebacker competition that's coming up throughout this summer. You're going to get that much more here on today's episode of the show. Today's episode of lockdown Broncos is brought to you by Fanduel. The NBA playoffs were down to the final four and every single night has been delivering. Highlight worthy performances, major momentum shifts like we saw in that Pacers Knicks game a couple nights ago. 20 point lead disappeared. Whether it's a game winning shot or a breakout player, there's never been a better time to get in on the action.

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And Cody, with teams like the Timberwolves and the Thunder and then the Knicks and the Pacers, I mean, there's so many different players that you can look at the live player prop bets, especially mid-game as the action is unfolding. Like, that's one of the most fun things to do. with Fan Duels to say, hey, I'm feeling something with Chet Holmgren tonight or my guy, Anthony Edwards. You know I love me some Anthony Edwards. So, I mean, what would it look like? Like, $200 in bonus bets for the excitement?

Like if your first $5 bet hits, you get $200 in bonus bets at FanDuel, can't beat that. Well, Brockhouse Country, if you're new to FanDuel, it's the perfect time to sign up. Head to FanDuel.com and place your first $5 bet. And if it wins, you'll win $200 in bonus bets. Make every moment more with Fan Dual, the official sports. betting partner of the NBA. The last time we saw Alex Singleton on the field, the dude was playing with a torn ACL against the Tampa Buccaneers.

Hopefully now he's going to be back and better than ever as he returns for Broncos OTAs. I know he's excited. We've heard a number of interviews from him, but who the heck's going to be playing next to him at OTAs? And who's going to be rotating in? How are the Broncos going to handle this competition? Well, we've told you before.

We want to see Drew Sanders really step it up, Broncos country. somebody else might come in and surprise here at OTAs. We're going to talk all about that on today's episode of the show. I want to say thank you, though, first of all, to all you every dayers out there. Everyone who subscribes to the show, we appreciate you so much. If you haven't done that already, go ahead, hit follow wherever you listen to podcast, hit subscribe on YouTube. We appreciate your Broncos country for doing that.

Take a couple of seconds to join the community here. But Cody, let's talk about the linebacker position. I don't want to, we don't want to skip over the Alex Singleton headline because of the competition that is at that spot. Alex is going to be returning to the practice field. It'll be interesting to see if he's on a pitch count, what the deal is there. But we got to kind of go back a little bit as well. Dre Greenlaw with that pulled quad, he's not going to be practicing right now. He won't be out there until training camp.

That provides kind of a unique opportunity at a position where, okay, you kind of wanted to see how things would unfold anyway without Dre out there. now you get that chance with Singleton coming back to the field and a number of young guys competing behind it. Yeah, and I think the idea this obviously is looked, Broncos wanted to upgrade inside linebacker, you know, with the big splash guy. Drey Greenlaw was that, right?

But they also went into it understanding. Hey, this is also a little bit of a risk. You know, the medical's checked out. Drey Greenlaw was able to pass the physical. Everything was fine. But, you know, this is a guy who has an injury history. So even if he's there, okay, if he's there, best case scenario, our defense is going to thrive because this is a great player here.

but it also gives us the opportunity to continue to invest in the development of some of our players. Now with Alex Singleton coming off the ACL injury, I mean, Sarah, you mentioned it like week three. He does it like early on in the first quarter, plays through it. And then all of a sudden, you know, we're getting ready for, you know, the practice week because the Broncos, they were staying at the Greenbrier, I think, in West Virginia. And then all of a sudden we get the news that he's out for the year for an ACL. We're like, wait a minute, he just played. He looked fine. He was walking.

What? What did this happen? Did this happen at practice? Tough guy. Obviously tough as nails here. But with that said, you know, with Drey Greenlaw being out right now, you're going to see, I think Alex Singleton probably be the first linebacker on the field. But I'm curious how this maybe alters the start of this linebacker competition,

because when Justin Sternad re-signed in free agency, the Broncos told him, you're going to come in and you're going to compete to start this upcoming season. For Drew Sanders, we heard it from George Payton at the NFL Combine that, hey, we really like Drew. He's going to stay at inside linebacker. We believe he can be a good starter for us in the league. He's going to be added into that mix as well. But how does that work if Drake Greenlaw is not on the field?

Like, do the Broncos alter their looks or their rotation simply because the fact that you already know one spot that's already locked up as a starter is Drake Greenlaw. When he comes back, he'll be ready for the start of training camp. So how do you mix and match your personnel? Do you, I mean, the mic and the wheel lineback positions have different responsibilities, even though they play in a lot of the similar gaps. and they have a lot of similar responsibilities. To me, I'm wondering how that's going to work. Like, is Alex Singleton going to work as the mic? And then Justin Sternad's going to work as the will,

and you're going to rotate Drew Sanders in as the will or vice versa. I don't know how that's going to work. But to me, I'm very curious to see how it's all going to play out because really it's between Singleton, Sternad, and Drew Sanders, but also part of me has to wonder, like, where does Lavelle Bailey, the undrafted guy from last year? Where does he factor the mix? Where's Jordan Turner, Carine Reed, J.B. Brown,

some other undrafted guys. how do these guys factor in the mix? Is there a chance that one of these guys can maybe throw their name into the hat? I'm curious to see if that can be a possibility here. I wonder if it's going to have to end up being something like those guys are going to have to just absolutely explode in the preseason, right? Because at this point in time, I think there is a bit of the pecking order that's determined by draft status, free agent status, you know, the cost to keep a player. Like Alex Singleton, for example, counts around $7 million against this year's cap. So you're kind of thinking, okay, we're not going to just let that money go to waste.

So if we're investing in him, like he's going to play. And so they could end up making a tough decision later down the road. But I don't think you and me see that happening because of the Dre Greenlaw injury, right? I don't think you can really afford even with Singleton coming off of an injury. You can't really afford to be thinking like that. And so he's a captain too, which is the hard part. Yeah, he's a team captain and somebody that I think is really well liked in the locker room. he seems bought into whatever the Broncos are going to be asking him to do.

But I think at this point in the off season, there is a bit of a hierarchy based on draft status and kind of where the team envisions your future a little bit. Like training camp, maybe later in training camp and the preseason is I think where undrafted guys can kind of start to be like, all right, this guy is he could get into the mix, like legitimately. He could start getting some first team reps. At this point, I think you really want to see guys like Drew Sanders. And even Justin Sernod, can he repeat what he did last year?

Can he build off that? Because remember, he was bench a time or two, even amidst having some solid production. So Drew Sanders, to me, is that guy that if you're the Broncos, you're the coaching staff, you're the scouting department, George Payton. You drafted the guy pretty high, 67th overall. You want to see that pick work out. So you've got to give him the reps to prove that he can do it. That's where, like right now at OTAs, this is where I think he needs to.

make that sort of push for a starting job. And I would say here's, here's my main thought on how we can evaluate OTAs, right? Because I think everyone's going to ask, oh, what are the edge rushers? What does the defensive line? The O lines look like? There's no contact.

So we really can't evaluate, I'd say fairly, those groups. However, I do think we can evaluate linebacker, safety, corner, receiver, running back, and tight end, and obviously quarterback play. Those are the ones that are easy to evaluate during OTAs. But for the linebacker position specifically,

here at OTAs, I think the one thing that we can see here is those guys getting those muscle memory reps, right? For Alex Singleton, his first time being back on the football field since week three against the Tampa Bay Buccaneers doing football stuff, reading a defense, reacting. So I imagine, like, we're going to keep an eye on it. There might be a little bit of like that mental curve, like just trying to get back there, like shaking off some of that rust of not doing football-related stuff for, you know, it's not quite a year yet, but you're approaching that. It's close in the next couple of months here. So how is that going to, transition into the field.

How is it going to look? Drew Sanders, you know, now that he's solely focused at learning one position, what does that muscle memory look like for him in terms of being able to read his keys, drop back into a specific coverage. Look, Denver's got a new inside linebacker coach this season. So I'm very curious to see what that adjustment is like learning from a new position coach versus, you know, you had Greg Mniewski last year, the last couple of years. So you get learned to your coaching style ability, but also how do these new pieces up front

or the new pieces in the secondary? How does that change the way that Vance Joseph calls the defense? These are all going to impact almost every position on the field, but these are questions that we won't have answers to, really until I'd say probably like three or four weeks into the regular season. And even then, it might be a stretch because, hey, it is a learner curve. But can the Broncos avoid that slow start? To me, defensively, the linebacker competition is probably going to be the most extensive thing we have

on while on the offensive side. We know it's going to be the running back position. So two of these key positions are going to be involved in the trenches or in the contact, realm of things. That's what we're going to have our eyes on. But there's also another position that I think deserves a little bit of conversation and talking points here. And it is a room that is loaded with depth. Up next year on lockdown Broncos, we're going to be discussing the Broncos safety room and the different personnel opportunities they can mix and match at this position here in 2025. You're going to get that much more on today's episode of the show. The fourth quarter action

is here. And on today's episode, Lockdown Broncos, we're going to dive deep into the safety room and why the depth of that position is loaded. But before we get to that, I just want to say thank you. Once again, to everyone in, and thank you for tuning in, making us your first listen. However, you choose to do so, don't miss out on what's going on with your favorite Broncos news, content coverage and where we get you covered every single day on boots on the ground daily in Dove Valley.

Sarah has you covered daily at predominantly orange.com and here on the podcast. This is the place to be. We appreciate you so much for being a part of it here, Broncos Country. All right. So with that said, let's talk about the safety room here. Sarah, this is one of the more. intriguing positions on the Broncos roster because I feel like last year it was a question. I don't think it's as much of a question anymore as it has been the last handful of years here.

But there are some storylines we have to keep our eye on. Like with Dre Green Lodge, you know, being one of the key additions at inside linebacker, the Broncos went out and they added Talanoa Hufongas, one of the key additions at the safety position. Two areas, Sean Payton said at the Super Bowl that the Broncos needed to get better at, well, they went out and they did that. Tell him no, who Fonga's price tag, combined with what Brandon Jones has gotten his price tag in free agency and his emergence, that kind of upends PJ Locke as a starter here.

But can there be a role for PJ on this defense, even if he's not starting? I think there can be because you're going to see so many different defensive backs out there anyway. Now, when it comes to the best five or six, how often does PJ factor into that? I don't know. But when it comes to matching him up,

utilizing him as a blitzer, which we've seen him be effective at in the past, I feel like there is an opportunity out there. I don't know how often it's going to be. That's where I think we're going to see the selflessness of these defensive backs really come into play this year is how much do these guys really care about, I mean, no, the care, they want to play. They want to start.

They want to be out there every play. I know we get that. But how much is it going to really be an issue if they're rotating guys in as opposed to getting them as much playing time as possible? And I think because we're going to see the top five guys, out there the majority of the time, in my opinion, Cody, PS2, Jada Baron, Riley Moss, Tallano, Hufanga, Brandon Jones.

Those guys are going to probably get the lion's share of snaps as long as they're healthy. And then you got to factor in J. Jaquan Macmillan, is he your six best defensive back right now? And we saw the Broncos maybe late last season, we want to get J.L. Skinner a bit more involved as well. So where does that leave PJ Locke? I feel like that's going to,

he's already a proven special teams guy, which you don't necessarily want to go back to that at this point after what he's kind of done the last two seasons as a starter. So that to me is going to be the intangible factor that we've got to watch here as opposed to, hey, how is Vance Joseph deploying these guys? What is Jim Leonard getting these guys in the past, you know, as he's the defensive past game coordinator? How are they involving these guys? What are they doing in terms of packages? Like you said, we won't know that until we get these guys on the field in the regular season.

But, man, it's going to require some selflessness from these guys. Hopefully they're taking notes from the OKC Thunder a little bit here in the playoffs because not everybody's going to get to play starter minutes. Not everybody's going to get to be the star guy every single snap. Well, and my question, the dilemma, I think, at the safety position you have, is like, how do you obviously, on paper you have a really good starting group of guys there, obviously with Hufanga and Brandon Jones. But as we've seen, Talo Hufanga has been a guy that's battled some injuries over the last

couple of years. Brandon Jones has, you know, had some soft tissue injuries that popped up. But look, obviously, you know, he missed all of training camp pretty much and played in that first precinct game against Seattle. But then, you know, he got banged up from time to time. And he even left, I think it was the Cleveland Browns game on Monday night football with an injury that held them out. So factoring in the injury history here, the Broncos have to make the smart investment here to say, okay, we need someone with proven starting experience to be able to step up here at this position. PJ fits that bill. You want to see a little bit more of JL Skinner, who the Broncos view very highly.

He's a core four special teams ace. Okay, you're factoring him into the equation there. Can he compete for maybe that dime linebacker spot? Can he compete maybe for that big nickel role? I think he and PJ Locke will probably do a lot of, you know, play a lot back and forth in terms of competition there. But we also are forgetting about some other guys here. Look, the Broncos, Devin Key last year proved to be a pretty solid player for the Broncos.

Look, he had to step in and he had to start a couple of games. He really had one bad game, and that was the Baltimore game. entire Broncos defense, pretty much for the most part, had a really bad game. But Devin Key actually proved to be a pretty young, impressive player. Not only that, his value is a core four special teams guy. Okay, you have that there. Delary and Turner Yale is making his return after being on the PUP list all of last year with the ACL injury. He's going to get a chance to compete here.

He's fully healthy. He's going to have no limitations coming into OTAs or even training camp. So that's a good opportunity for him. The Broncos like him is a special teams player. But then you add a veteran like Sam Franklin Jr. in the offseason who doesn't have a lot of snaps overall on the defensive side of the ball, but as a core four special teams guy, at this point, are we looking at it as like Sam Franklin Jr. is a guy that probably isn't going to factor into your defensive rotation, but because

of his special teams, because of his price tag, could that maybe be something that upends a guy like a PG-Lock if the Broncos want to save money? I don't think that's going to be their approach, but it's definitely an element of the storyline, I think, that we have to talk about. Yeah, and it certainly could be a situation to where we're talking about, hey, the Broncos want to do right by these guys. So they brought in all these other players because they are going to try to maybe trade them to better situations around the league. Like I think that a lot of times you look at players in their,

okay, this is their cap hit. This is the dead cap. If you cut a guy, injuries happen in the NFL. Injuries always happen. So number one, you don't just cut guys who have a decent contract. for your team because you might need them at some point here, right? And the Broncos may get to the end of training camp, end of the preseason, and think to themselves, hey, you know, we had some injury scares during the preseason or

whatever or during training camp. We got to keep this guy now. So you protect yourself in that way. But then also, if you go into the year fully healthy, everybody's healthy, everybody's ready to play, everybody's looking good and your depth is looking good. You might say, all right, for example, a PJ Locke, there's a situation. that happened out in New York where Darren Mugi is the GM and their safeties, you know, they suffered some injuries in the preseason and PJ could go out there and play.

Let's do a, let's do a trade with those guys, get a late round pick. PJ goes there. He can start in a contract year. He could potentially hit free agency, make some money. I mean, I think the Broncos will be looking into those situations for a number of players in this defensive backfield, Cody. And I don't think that it's a foregone conclusion to say, hey, PJ's out of here. Jayquan Macmillan's out of here. I don't think that's, I don't think that's their mentality at all.

I think it's more so a situation of if we're fully healthy, if other teams are suffering injuries, if we have an opportunity to benefit as a team, if young guys are stepping up, like, it's a lot of boxes that have to be checked because you're not just going to just deplete your depth for no reason. Even if players aren't exactly happy about their role, we have no idea what's going to happen eight weeks into the regular season. Talanoa Hufanga, knock on wood, goes down with an injury. All of a sudden, you're kicking yourself because you cut PJ Locke to save $3 million on the salary cap this year.

That's going to be a blip on the radar next year. When the cap increases, you have no more dead cap to deal with. It's just not smart business. It's what do I like to say all the time? Raster malpractice. So the Broncos have to tread carefully with that, but also doing right by these players, which I think they will. I will say I don't think that the Broncos front office has ever given the vibe that they would operate like that in a sense.

Like they would be like, oh yeah, we're just going to, you know, we have really good depth here. We're just going to make this decision. I think the one instance we saw that and certainly there was a vision and a belief behind it was with Tim Patrick. The Bronco was releasing Tim Patrick last year, kind of along the similar lines of thinking like Sean Payton was, hey, we like our young depth. But at times last year, we also saw like, oh, man, it would have been nice to have Tim Patrick. couple of these situations here to kind of take the pressure off of Cortland Sutton have to be the one guy to produce because he's seeing all this attention and you need a security blanket option there for Bo Nixon. As we saw, they had a really good relationship in the

preseason, Bo and obviously Tim at that point. I don't think that they would make that mistake here at the safety position because I do think that they value that a lot. I think that's more of a premium position in their eyes versus like a wide receiver. So when you have a depth chart, a wide receiver, you got young guys, maybe you can afford to do that. But it's safety. I don't think you can make that mistake. I don't think that Denver will. And then you have a couple of other guys too on the back end, like Kedron Smith.

And you have other guys in the mix as well. Tanner McAllister, developmental guys at the Broncos could initially store on the practice squad. Kedron Smith made the 53 last year because he had such an impressive preseason and Denver didn't want anyone to take him. But now at this point, when you have the luxury of depth as you do, you might not get that opportunity to do the same exact thing. So you may have to risk like, all right,

our safety room is loaded right now. Let's try to get this guy back onto the practice squad. That looks a little bit like the plan here for the Broncos as well. So we'll see. I mean, right now they have a lot of depth. There's a load of possibilities that they have when it comes to construct in the back end of this roster at the safety position, what the rotations personnel-wise look defensively,

how it combines with the cornerback room. There are so many pieces that are kind of like symbiotic with it. Like, oh, in this situation, we could do this. We can pair these guys up in this package. We can pair these guys up in this package. I'm curious to see what the Broncos decided, especially when they face teams, they're like heavy run teams.

Like, for example, you look at the Philadelphia Eagles, Demers are going to have to play them this year. With Saquan Barkley, I imagine they're probably going to try to load the box against him because they believe they got the guys that can play man-to-man coverage. How does that change how the Broncos' defensive personnel looks on a game-to-game basis?

That is the question. We won't know until the regular season comes around, though. But Broncos Country, that will wrap up today's episode show. Thank you so much for tuning in, making us your first list. Make sure you share your thoughts with us, either on social media at Codywork NFL at Sarah Bedinger at lockdown Broncos are here on YouTube wherever you get your podcast your thoughts on the three storylines we have our eyes on today as the Broncos take the field for the first day of OTAs with that said Broncos country

will keep you covered all throughout the week as to what's going on with OTAs what's happening in Dub Valley you're going to get all that and much more all week long here on the locked on Broncos podcast