The Broncos couldn\u2019t pass up the crystal.<\/p>\n
Denver on Thursday night selected Texas cornerback Jahdae Barron at No. 20 overall, adding a playmaking defender to an already strong secondary and bypassing offensive skill options in the process.<\/p>\n
Head coach Sean Payton previewed the potential line of thinking last week during a pre-draft news conference when outlining the decision-making process between need and value.<\/p>\n
\u201cLet\u2019s not pass on the crystal for a blender just because we need a blender,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Denver took his advice to heart.<\/p>\n
Barron was almost universally considered one of the best players in the class and Denver, tied for weeks to tight ends, running backs and wide receivers, passed on many options at those positions to take Barron.<\/p>\n
The 2024 Jim Thorpe Award winner as the nation\u2019s top defensive back, Barron joins a secondary anchored by reigning NFL defensive player of the year Pat Surtain II, third-year man Riley Moss and high-quality nickel Ja\u2019Quan McMillian.<\/p>\n
\u201cI bring a lot of versatility to the defense,\u201d Barron said. \u201cI\u2019m going to play my role, master a position and learn from the vets. I can\u2019t wait to learn from Pat Surtain. I can\u2019t wait to learn from Coach Joseph. It\u2019s going to be amazing. It\u2019s literally going to be amazing. I\u2019m going to embrace the opportunity and I\u2019m going to live up to the opportunity.\u201d<\/p>\n
Barron said he can play outside or in the slot and also said he\u2019d jump at the chance to play safety. He\u2019s got several Texas teammates on the 2025 Denver defense already in safeties P.J. Locke and Brandon Jones and defensive lineman Malcolm Roach.<\/p>\n
The Broncos, rumored by several national reporters in recent days to be considering a trade up, instead stayed true to what Payton and GM George Paton said last week and throughout the spring. The draft lined up in such a way that they thought a similar caliber player would be available at No. 20 as around the top 10.<\/p>\n
All the same, they watched as running back Ashton Jeanty went No. 6 to Las Vegas and tight ends Colston Loveland and Tyler Warren went No. 10 to Chicago and No. 14 to Indianapolis, respectively.<\/p>\n
Those were the offensive skill position players that could have made sense for Denver to explore trading up for. Instead, they were comfortable letting a draft believed to be thick in the middle come to them.<\/p>\n
Barron was ranked No. 10 overall by NFL Network\u2019s Daniel Jeremiah and ranged from No. 8 (ESPN\u2019s Jeff Legwold) to No. 30 (The Athletic\u2019s Dane Brugler) among several sets of prospect rankings.<\/p>\n
CB Jahdae Barron<\/p>\n
Round\/pick: 1st\/No. 20<\/p>\n
Age:\u00a023 years<\/p>\n
Height\/weight:\u00a05-foot-11\/194 pounds<\/p>\n
College:\u00a0Texas<\/p>\n
Hometown:\u00a0Austin, Texas<\/p>\n
Notable:\u00a0Barron didn\u2019t quite have the pre-draft buzz of cornerbacks like Travis Hunter or Michigan\u2019s Will Johnson, but was one of the more productive DBs in the country last year at Texas, with Pro Football Focus pinpointing Barron allowing just a 54% catch rate in 2024. The All-American has tremendous ball skills, with five picks and 11 pass deflections in 2024, and ready-made NFL speed with a 4.39-second 40-yard-dash. He played a majority of his snaps in 2024 at outside corner, but has some experience at slot, a versatile pick for the Broncos\u2019 secondary.<\/p>\n
Originally Published: April 24, 2025 at 8:26 PM MDT<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Broncos couldn\u2019t pass up the crystal. Denver on Thursday night selected Texas cornerback Jahdae Barron at No.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":920,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[564,231,258,7,1331,1006,929,926,6,15,9],"class_list":{"0":"post-919","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nfl-draft","8":"tag-colorado","9":"tag-denver","10":"tag-denver-broncos","11":"tag-football","12":"tag-front-range","13":"tag-jahdae-barron","14":"tag-latest-headlines","15":"tag-more-broncos-news","16":"tag-nfl","17":"tag-nfl-draft","18":"tag-sports"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/919","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=919"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/919\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/920"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=919"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=919"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=919"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}