Locked On Broncos - Daily Podcast On The Denver Broncos - PROGRESS: Denver Broncos 2025 NFL Rookie Draft Class UNDERRATED IMPACT

Starting point is 00:00:00 The Denver Broncos rookie class at 2025, they're having a bigger impact than most people would imagine. We'll break it all down here on today's episode of the show. You are Locked on Broncos, your daily Denver Broncos podcast, part of the Locked on Podcast Network, your team every day. What's happening in Broncos country? Welcome into another episode, Lockdown Broncos, your daily Denver Broncos podcast, part of the Locked on podcast network. Now the number one sports podcast network in the country. And that's all thanks to all you, every dayers out there in Broncos country. Thanks for tuning in and making us your first listen.

Starting point is 00:00:38 However, you choose to do so. I'm Cody Roar, Credential Broncos Reporter from my high sports.com where you can check out my daily written work over there. Join alongside, as always, by Sir Bedinger, site expert over there, predominantly orange. com. He's the longstanding voice here in Broncos country. Over 10 plus years in the game here. And we got a lot to talk about here on today's episode of the show.

Starting point is 00:00:59 Broncos country, the by week. Look, there's always plenty to talk about, even though the Broncos are not on the field, they're not preparing for an opponent. We're looking at the Broncos rookie class in 2025, a little bit of a mid-season report card at this point here for this unit. We'll take a look at Jaude Baron and why his role is becoming very underrated and important here for the Broncos defense. Plus, we'll take a look at RJ Harvey and Pat Bryant and why their underrated roles are having a bigger impact, and that could explode a little bit more in the second half of the season. We'll talk about a couple of special teams gems here in Jeremy Crosha on Q Robinson.

Starting point is 00:01:32 who've had an impact so far here for this Broncos team. You're going to get all that on today's episode of the show brought to you by our friends over there at Fan. Dual and right now new customers can bet just $5. And if your bet wins, you'll get $300 in bonus bets to use all across the app. Sarah, my friend, let's talk about this rookie class because coming into the NFL draft initially, I think you and I were very much on board with BPA, best player available.

Starting point is 00:01:59 We certainly had our preferences. We were talking Colston Loveland. tight end potentially. We're talking about a Marion Hapton running back for the, you know, the Broncos in this mix. Now he's with the Chargers. Ultimately, Denver lands on Jada Barron. And at first it was a little bit of a controversial pick.

Starting point is 00:02:16 But now I think as we look through the first half of the season, Sarah, I think that Jade's role is very, very underrated. I think it's important here for this Broncos defense. And he's emerging is kind of this tight end eraser for Vance Joseph's unit. I like that too, because wasn't the discussion, hey, where can the Broncos get a linebacker that can cover tight ends, right? And while everyone's thinking, it's got to be a linebacker, the Broncos are like, maybe Jaadet Barron can do this. And I like the idea. I do. I think that he's excelled in it. And we're seeing him grow in that role, growing in

Starting point is 00:02:47 confidence, getting to do what he does best, had that pick six that was wiped off the board by kind of a, you know, bad penalty called on Riley Moss there. But neither here nor there at this point. It feels like Zaudet is gaining more and more trust week after week. And of course, there is the caveat that Pat Sartan hasn't played. But the last three games, Cody, he's went from playing, you know, 15, 16, 17, maybe even fewer snaps in the games to playing 34 snaps against Houston, 20 against Las Vegas, and 35 against the Kansas City Chiefs. So we're seeing a huge uptick in the overall snap count for Jadae Barron here as of late.

Starting point is 00:03:25 He had the interception earlier in the season. Great play. Definitely feel like he is carving out his role for now. It doesn't feel like he's going to always be the tight end eraser. But maybe this can be something that prompts the Broncos to maybe give this role to a corner down the line, even after Jaaday maybe switches his role in the future. Yeah. And I don't know if he's going to do that.

Starting point is 00:03:49 But certainly during this three-game stretch, we've seen him alternate some reps inside the slot in the dime package. We've seen him alternate reps on the outside. He was covering his former teammate Xavier Worthy on one play downfield where Patrick Mahomes overthrew him. It's just one of those motions early on in the game where you're trying to test out the cushion and see how fast is this guy.

Starting point is 00:04:08 And of course, Jarday knows how fast Xavier is, but it's different when you haven't gone against these guys in quite some time. I like what he's done too. And even coming up as a guy in coverage now, and also in run support. The thing with Jardé that I like is we've seen him line up against guys like Jake Ferguson.

Starting point is 00:04:24 You know, obviously who was off to a historic pace when the Broncos faced one of the NFL's top offenses back in week eight. Didn't have a single catch in that game against Jada. Jade had obviously the interception that we talked about. You know, we get some reps against Brock Bowers. Brock doesn't really have a big game, doesn't go off against Denver's defense, the way that he did against the Jacksonville, Jaguars the week prior. And then this week against Travis Kelsey, you know, in coverage lined up against him six times, according to our friends over there, NFL Next Gen.

Starting point is 00:04:50 Stats only allowed two catches for 14 yards on three targets. went in direct alignment on Kelsey and also one of those mentions that you had there, a pick six while covering Kelsey that was wiped off the board, unfortunately. He's kind of this weapon right now. And look, I think he's playing a role that we saw him play where he had the most success at college. You know, I think there are a lot of Broncos fans that want to see him on the outside. And I think there's times where that's certainly going to be warranted. But I think he's kind of the Swiss Army knife here on the inside playing that hybrid slot role in the dime.

Starting point is 00:05:21 when we've seen him at times in the nickel personnel this year, where he's playing linebacker next to Alex Singleton, when they're pulling Sternada out for just one of those different looks. I like how he's being used right now. And the Broncos didn't necessarily draft him to be this day one starter. They don't need to. And of course, with J-Quan-McMillan playing well and probably going to play himself into a contract extension here in Denver,

Starting point is 00:05:44 the more DBs you got, I think, in today's game, the better. And I think with Pastor Tan being out, we've seen that over the last handful of weeks, the Broncos are in a better position right now than they were when Riley Moss went down with an injury last year and Denver was scraping trying to figure out who the heck could play corner. And that's been arguably the hardest thing to wrap your brain around if you're a fan of this team and you're watching guys like Travion Henderson score three touchdowns in the game for the Patriots or you're seeing Emeka, Gbuka make all these plays with the Buccaneers.

Starting point is 00:06:14 I know he didn't even fall to the 20th pick, but still somehow he's one that got away for Broncos country. But look, that's the most difficult aspect of this to reason with right now. I think for the fan base is you've got a corner who's playing a key role on the defense if you're watching closely, but he's playing less than 30% of the snaps. And your offense has struggled to find consistency and continuity. And now you've got the J.K. Dobbins injury, which has created some confusion at the running back position. At least, you know, you brought up a guy who hadn't played all year in Jaliel McLaughlin, right? And you haven't seen RJ Harbans. Harvey play a big role. I think those guys can do well going forward, but all of, not all of,

Starting point is 00:06:53 but many in Broncos country are kind of wondering, hey, why would you take a corner here in the first round when you clearly had so many other pressing needs? Well, I think we're kind of seeing the reason why, aren't we? It's the fact that you have to defend against all of these teams and go up against, all right, your own offense, let's say, against the Raiders, for example, you're unable to score more than 10 points in a game. Your offense just can't figure it out. So you have to have guys on defense who can prevent the other team from getting it. You can't allow more than nine in a game where you can only score 10.

Starting point is 00:07:27 So it's a team that wins the Super Bowl. And you're not going to be mad about having depth in January. You're not going to be mad about Jadae growing in this role in January. Right now it's tough to see the forest through the trees. But I think what we're seeing in recent weeks is that we, kind of bringing the majority of the fan base around on this pick. Well, and the reality to it, yes, I think a lot of people were shocked by the pick, but I think it's just a great example as to why you let things play out a little bit

Starting point is 00:07:56 versus, you know, writing definitives and absolutes following the draft. You know, Sean Payton says it, George Payton says it. He's like, everyone's always writing about grades and doing the grades. Who won the draft? He's like, well, we won't know for another three years how things have gone. I would say for this rookie class specifically, they're off to a good story. start, right? I don't think we can hand out necessarily a grade, but I think we can talk about the good, the bad, and everything in between when it comes to them. I like the Jadae pick now in hindsight.

Starting point is 00:08:24 Certainly, I was one of those guys in my final mock. I had a mecca, Egbuka. You know, going to Denver, I felt like, man, he would have added something great to the offense. And maybe he would have, man, he's having a terrific season there for Tampa Bay. But you know what? Denver, they were going into the draft not needing. I mean, you're not going to draft the starter more likely. What was it? The biggest argument was, okay, you're probably going to draft. the starter. Like if you draft a running back, that guy would probably be your starter if you drafted him round one. Denver didn't draft the running back in round one. And so we saw how that all eventually played out. So Denver was in a good spot with having those positions solidified

Starting point is 00:08:59 early on. But, you know, I think for Jada Baron, one thing he can continue to do is just gain those confidence, reps, I think just being on the field. Look, he's playing special teams as well, filling in and just playing that role. And look, so much when he was taking, it created this, oh no jquan macmillan's out the door like this means something about riley moss whereas the broncos are like no it doesn't like we want very good depth we want guys who can play and in that room man it's just a competitive and tight bond that these guys have and it's making the broncos defense better for it and once again you have a guy go down due to an injury well now you have some insurance policies in place that'll help you avoid maybe the disaster that Denver faced in 2024 down the stretch here but broncos

Starting point is 00:09:40 country let's know your thoughts here on jade baron what you've seen from me remember the first half of the season here for this Broncos team. But coming up next, we're going to talk about R.J. Harvey, Pat Bryant, why these guys are thriving and under the radar roles, but why they're going to have more on their plate in the second half of the season here on today's episode, Locked on Broncos. Today's show is brought to you by friends over there at Peloton. Look, folks, it's time to break through the busy time of the year with a brand new Peloton cross-training, tread plus that's powered by Peloton IQ.

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Starting point is 00:12:29 We're going to talk to you today about RJ Harvey and Pat Bryant, what we've seen from them so far and what we can maybe expect here going forward. but Broncos country want to quickly say thank you so much to every single one of you. Every day is making the locked on podcast network, the number one podcast network in the country. It's so awesome to get to be part of this with you. If you haven't done so already, hit subscribe wherever you listen to podcasts as well as on YouTube. Cody, let's talk about RJ Harvey and Pat Bryant because of course, these two guys were unknown to a lot of Broncos country at the time of the draft, right? I mean, some deep dive fans of the NFL draft knew about RJ Harvey, but very few people, if anybody was talking about Pat Bryant, who was a third round selection, look, these are the skill players the Broncos brought in.

Starting point is 00:13:21 The most notable outside of J.K. Dobbins at running back or receiver this off season felt like they got off to a slower start. But, well, maybe not in RJ Harvey's case. We'll talk about that, but for sure for Pat Bryant. But these two guys look like they're going to be key to this team winning the AFC West now going forward. And look, you want young guys to have an impact early on. And I think we said it before the season to begin. Like, hey, Broncos country, don't be surprised if these rookies are brought along slowly. I think some of the rookies have been.

Starting point is 00:13:52 But I think in this case of R.J. Harvey, we talked about Jada Barron. But I think with Pat Bryant, really these guys haven't been brought along slowly. They've kind of been inserted into the lineup. They've had key rules. really since day one. Pat Bryant, I would say it was probably more featured as a blocking option for the Broncos for, I'd say through the first, what, seven, eight weeks of the season. And as of late, we've seen them starting to get more involved in the past catching game. And that's because the Broncos certainly needed somebody to step up when Marvin Mims was banged up with the concussion, missed some time. But also with the attention to Cortland Sutton is seeing, the attention that Troy Franklin is seeing on key passing downs with how defenses are trying to play them, you need other guys to step up.

Starting point is 00:14:32 And once again, I think that Pat Bryant, let's start off with him. I think Pat has shown that he can be a clutch rookie here for this Broncos team. And for Bo Nix, a great example would be against the Houston Texans third down. It was third and 11. He catches a pass across the middle of the field to keep the drive live to move the chains for first down late in that fourth quarter. And then you have another play here. Obviously, he has a couple of big catches against the Kansas City Chiefs. You know, he goes down, it goes through concussion protocol.

Starting point is 00:15:00 They evaluate him, figured out, hey, he, He didn't have a concussion. He was good to come back in and play, caught a couple more passes, including one pass where he got five or six yards on that game-winning drive that Bo Nicks set up for the Broncos offense against Kansas City. His impact is just continuing to rise here, not only from the blocking department, but I think because of his willingness to do the dirty work, you're seeing Sean Payton, I think, reward him more with on-filled snaps and touches.

Starting point is 00:15:27 And ultimately, that may come at the expense of Marvin Mims overall snaps offensively here going forward, but for a rookie, this is a promising development. It definitely is. And you mentioned the snap counts increasing here for him lately, which I want to speak to for just a moment because early in the season, obviously the rookies, they're kind of getting acclimated, right? But it was really against Cincinnati that we kind of saw that first sort of breakthrough in terms of Pat Bryant.

Starting point is 00:15:54 He's going to be playing a little bit more. Even the broadcast crew was talking about him, right? He went from playing four snaps in week one, 14, 13 after that. 27 against the Bengals. And since that point, he has been over 30 snaps in every single game. So I love it. The factor from the coaching staff is obviously there. And how about the targets too, right?

Starting point is 00:16:15 The first six games of the season, he had just six total targets. Last handful of weeks, we can start with Kansas City. He had six targets alone in that game to the week prior, three, four, four. So in the last five games, we've seen 19 of his 25 targets this season. and the uptick in yards and catches, the great touchdown against Dallas. I think what we're seeing is the evolution of his role kind of before our very eyes. He's the guy who said, right, if you don't block, you don't get the rock. You know, so that's his mentality to playing the wide receiver position.

Starting point is 00:16:50 And that benefits it because that's part of the reason the Broncos drafted him in the first place, right? It's so important for the quick passing game to have receivers who are not just willing blockers, but understand how to take angles. I still remember Troy Aikman and Joe Buck talking about that, which to me indicates that in their production meetings, that was something that the coaching staff is tipping them off about. It's saying, hey, watch 13, watch the way that he blocks, watch the way that he takes angles.

Starting point is 00:17:17 You don't just randomly bring that up as an announcer for a rookie who has barely played if the coaching staff doesn't love that about a guy. So what you know about Pat Bryant is the coaches love him. and I think we're seeing his role evolve in a tremendous way here. Now that we've gotten to the buy, I think he's going to absolutely see a huge uptick in overall targets and snaps in the second half of the season, if you will. And I think we've seen that level of confidence from him kind of jump up, right?

Starting point is 00:17:45 Which I think is important because rookies, at times, if you're buried on the debt chart, not saying that Pat is, and look, Sean Payton has said he doesn't believe in the depth chart. He doesn't believe in X, Y, or Z believes on, hey, we're going to move our guys around, and put them in different spots. There's a vision here, clearly for Pat. And I think as you've seen the increase in snaps, the increase in targets, you've certainly seen an increase in confidence.

Starting point is 00:18:08 You've seen an increase in big plays. I said it before in training camp, like watching Pat, compared to all the other receivers, I feel like he's the best polished route runner in terms of being able to make breaks. Remember the biggest gripe was all he runs a 4-640. Sarah, has that even mattered? Have we seen any instance this season? We're like, wow, I can't believe, you know, the guy who runs a 4-6 is even on the field. No, Pat Bryant making plays, knows how to attack routes, good head movement. I think he's

Starting point is 00:18:33 been such a valuable asset here early on for this Broncos offense. And I think in the second half, we're going to see an uptick in those opportunities for him going forward. He's going to be important for the Broncos offense to take that next step alongside Troy Franklin, Cortland Sutton. Maybe a little Jordan Humphrey's going to get in the mix a little bit more here. And hopefully we see a little bit more Marvin Mims at wide receiver here going forward. I know that's something that we talked about a little bit on the Bronco squad. I'll show yesterday with Nick Ferguson, Anil O'Hourne, myself and Sarah, if you missed that, make sure you go check it out.

Starting point is 00:19:03 But these are important things to highlight here. And look, we haven't had chance to talk about R.J. Harvey yet. And Broncos country coming up next, we're going to highlight R.J. Harvey and why he may be in a position to explode in the second half. Plus, we'll talk about two other special teams gems for the Broncos from this rookie class. On today's episode, Lockdown Broncos. Today's Lockdown Broncos is brought to you by friends over there at Fandul. The NBA is back.

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Starting point is 00:20:50 next weekend against the Washington commanders. RJ Harvey Harvey is one of those guys here that early on, Like from the run game standpoint, we've seen some flashes. You mentioned Pat Bryan against Cincinnati, RJ Harvey against Cincinnati, had over 100 all-purpose yards, had 14 touches, had a couple of, you know, catches, had a touchdown obviously there. I think that was the game. He had a hat trick, if I'm not mistaken. So one of those things I think we look at here for this team going forward,

Starting point is 00:21:17 Sarah, how does RJ Harvey take over that role in the run game for J.K. Dobbins? Look, I think when we look at the run totals, his yards per carry early on, That hasn't been where you wanted to be, but he hasn't prominently been featured as much. Only 11 carries against Kansas City. And I'd say the most important thing about what we saw from him is in that late fourth quarter against KC, we saw him get the necessary inside chunk yards to give the Broncos offense good field position, to move the chains a couple of times. I think that there will be an emphasis from the coaching staff in the biweek preparation,

Starting point is 00:21:51 going into Washington to say, hey, our run game needs to continue to take off. And now that JK is out for the year, RJ is going to be the guy behind that. I've loved what I've seen from the rookie, especially out of the backfield. And look, Broncos country, you know, we all wanted a mecca egg buck. I know a lot of people did. He's tied right now with a mecha egg buca for receiving touchdowns in the NFL 12 weeks into the NFL season. So, Sarah, your thoughts here on RJ Harvey. And then we're going to talk about a couple of special teams, gems.

Starting point is 00:22:18 Yeah, I'm really excited about RJ Harvey for the second half of the season. And we say second half, we understand the Bronco. I've already played 11 games. We're talking about post-bye. So if anybody's wondering, why are they talking about half a season when it's not half? That's what we're saying there. But RJ Harvey as a running back, he got his most work really in that Cincinnati game that you mentioned. And then against the Kansas City Chiefs, we saw 11 carries 30 yards.

Starting point is 00:22:44 I don't really much care about the numbers there, Cody, because like you mentioned, there were chain movers. I'm kind of frustrated pro football reference doesn't show how many of those runs were first downs from that game. I'm trying to find it on his game log. But if somebody in the comments wants to look that up and figure it out, I'd be interested to know because that's a key element of this is the fact that, man, he was moving the chains, he was grinding out tough yards on the inside. He was reading the holes in the gaps well. And what we've seen from him as an all-purpose player this season is really, really important, right? When you talk about 89 total touches, 439 yards from

Starting point is 00:23:22 scrimmage and six total touchdowns. Like that is really great production from what, the 60th overall pick in the draft and somebody who's played a rather minimal role up to this point. I mean, 89 touches in 11 games. We're not even talking about 10 touches a game at this point. So the fact that he's maximizing that with six total touchdowns right now, he's evolving into that quote unquote joker that Sean Peyton talks about. The wings are getting put on week after week.

Starting point is 00:23:49 And I think that we're seeing that evolution from him as well. So it's always about patience when it comes to rookies. Not everybody's going to be Justin Jefferson or Adrian Peterson or all these different guys. Patrick, not even Patrick Mahomes. He's sad as rookie year, right? So these guys that have instant impact who are just superstars from the get go, that's not a realistic bar to set. These guys grow and growth isn't always linear.

Starting point is 00:24:15 I think RJ Harvey's going to have a huge impact here as we come out of the buy. But you mentioned special teams guys. And the Broncos made the only punter selection in this year's draft. Jeremy Croshaw, I know he had a little bit of the yips against the Raiders there for a moment. But on the whole this season, he's been outstanding, one of the best punters in the NFL. And I would even say, too, I thought he bounced back from those yips against the Raiders. I thought he had a terrific game against Kansas City. He had a few high booming ones, including really in that fourth quarter, the Broncos were backed up pretty far.

Starting point is 00:24:49 you know, toward near their own red zone at that point there. And he just boomed one barely. Like it barely got it got it. It was almost blocked in a sense, but he boomed it. And I just remember watching it sail. It's spinning perfectly just like how you would think in a movie in a sense. And then it goes and it lands boom, right barely next to the sideline and bounces out and pins the chiefs inside the 20. You love to see that.

Starting point is 00:25:11 And then what was it? I think a couple of weeks ago. I can't remember which game it was. I think it was against Houston, if I'm not mistaken. didn't he have like a 67-yard punt or something like that as well? He has been everything, I think, that we had hoped to see, minus some hiccups there too. We don't expect perfection.

Starting point is 00:25:29 I think the Raiders game was definitely a setback for him, and we were just like, okay, this was really rough. Darren Rizzi said it was a ground win or something that, you know, led to him struggling there. We had seen the struggles in the preseason, but I'd say collectively throughout this regular season, He's been so consistent. He's been so good.

Starting point is 00:25:48 And on top of that, he's also doing his job as the holder here for Will Lutz on that department there in terms of field goal PAT. I've been very impressed with him. And also Q Robinson getting more run as of late on special teams, but also getting his first sack this past week against Patrick Mahomes and the Chiefs. He's continually flashed with the effort. And just I know that he hasn't been active for every single game this season. But when he has been out there, he's provided kind of exactly. exactly what you had hoped dating back to the draft. And I know you and I had multiple conversations in the offseason,

Starting point is 00:26:22 like what is his role going to look like? And you and I both felt like, man, if Q Robinson is active on a weekly basis, he's an asset because he does play special teams. And he brings that juice off the edge to get into this Broncos rotation off the edge. I don't care if Jonah Ellis is active or not. For him to get onto the field at all is impressive. And so that speaks volumes.

Starting point is 00:26:46 to what this team believes about him. Another quick note about Jeremy Croshaw, too, leads the NFL with 23 punts inside the 20 this season. So a huge advantage for the Broncos when you talk about the field position game and some of their other struggles as an offense. You can bury the other team deep. Man, that's super helpful to have a punter who can help you do that.

Starting point is 00:27:06 But then the coverage aspect of it is equally important when you're talking about kick and punk coverage and Q Robinson is making his presence felt there. Yeah, and he and Dondre Tillman, that felt like, this past week on kickoff. Both guys shined. You know, look, it was also a bounce back game from Denver Special Teams unit against KC. You wanted to see that. And when you're young guys, that's the most important thing.

Starting point is 00:27:26 Because, right, if you're going to have a draft and you're going to have all these young guys on your roster where you already have most your starters on offense, you have most your starters on defense. Those guys have to have an impact. Those guys have to shine as rookies on one phase of the game. And that is where special teams comes up. That's where I've seen Q Robinson do really well. We've seen other guys like Devin Key, though Devin's. not a rookie, but your younger guys on this roster are playing big time roles for you. To me, I think that's going to be the key.

Starting point is 00:27:53 And I'm excited to see how this team continues to grow going forward here. But with that, San Broncos country, thank you so much for rocking with us here on today's episode. Locked on Broncos, Sarah and I tomorrow, we don't have a crossover because Denver doesn't play an opponent this week. So we're going to take a look at the biggest surprises from the Broncos first half of the season. We're going to talk about surprise players, the biggest surprise moments and the surprising developments of this young season. We'll go through all that and more on tomorrow's episode of the show.

Locked On Broncos - Daily Podcast On The Denver Broncos - PROGRESS: Denver Broncos 2025 NFL Rookie Draft Class UNDERRATED IMPACT

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