The teeth will flash, first, before the rest of Jonah Coleman’s blue-collar frame strolls into Denver’s facility in the weeks to come. The grills, specifically. They are not a hobby; they are a personality. They have been there since , when the rest of Coleman’s face twisted into an uncertain smile.
There was no glitz to his profile then, though, entering a rebuilding program with exactly one total win in its last two seasons. Coleman was wedged behind two seniors, too, in D.J. Williams and Michael Wiley. So then-Wildcats RBs coach Scottie Graham offered a word of advice stuck.
“Coach Graham told me the only way I’m going to get on the field,” Coleman recalled Saturday, “is if I pick up blitzes.”
It’s become a staple of the 22-year-old running back’s game ever since, through two years growing into all-around stardom at Arizona and two years following head coach Jedd Fisch to Washington. NFL.com gave 28 true running backs a draftable grade in this class. Coleman ranked third, according to data collected by The Denver Post, . In a late-September loss to Ohio State in 2025, Coleman picked up eventual star linebacker Sonny Styles on a blitz — and sent the eventual No. 7 pick falling from heaven to earth.
Jonah Coleman meeting Sonny Styles in pass pro
— Drew Beatty (@IronCityFilm)
That rep, and dozens of others like it, formed the foundation for the Broncos’ interest in the stocky Coleman — their chosen running back among a long list available on Day 3 of the NFL Draft.
“Now I get to go protect Bo Nix, and I take pride in that,” Coleman said on a conference call Saturday afternoon, shortly after the Broncos drafted him at pick No. 108 in the fourth round. “And I may not have, like, all the exciting plays, all that. But I do the dirty work.
“I do the things that not a lot of people pay attention to.”
They’ll be paying attention in Denver, where the Broncos’ backfield fell into utter flux last year after veteran J.K. Dobbins’ season-ending Lisfranc injury in Week 10. Denver was left, after a regular-season stretch run and a berth in the AFC Championship Game, with a mishmash of running backs with noteable holes in their skill sets.
Dynamic 2025 second-round rookie RJ Harvey excelled in the receiving game and was the heaviest back on the roster — but averaged just 2.8 yards a carry on runs outside the tackles in 2025 (according to Pro Football Focus), trying to bounce out one too many carries. RB3 Tyler Badie excelled in pass protection — but had four drops in 31 targets and offered little in the ground game. Change-of-pace vet Jaleel McLaughlin was the Broncos’ most productive per-touch back — but has never been trusted for third-down work in his three seasons in Denver.
Enter Coleman, a grinder who lacks top-of-the-line athleticism but can fill in every possible gap in the Broncos’ current backfield.
“I can ultimately add to that culture that they have, and be that thumper runner that they have,” Coleman told reporters Saturday. “And just being able to come in, and being with guys like RJ Harvey and J.K. Dobbins and stuff like that, you ultimately have a three-headed monster in the run game.”
A day after Denver’s season ended with 79 total rushing yards and a 10-7 loss in a blizzard to New England, head coach Sean Payton stepped into offensive-line coach Zach Strief’s office with a directive to improve the Broncos’ run-game consistency. For months thereafter, the Broncos stood pat with their backfield. They re-signed the productive but injury-riddled Dobbins. They expressed faith in Harvey as an eventual three-down weapon. They brought back Badie and McLaughlin on one-year, minimum deals.
Payton hinted at league meetings, though, that running back would still be “a focus” in Denver’s draft plans. Quietly, the Broncos evaluated a number of running-back options in free agency — even after re-upping with Dobbins. One name they were interested in, as multiple sources have told The Denver Post: former Commanders RB Chris Rodriguez Jr., a 220-pound back who profiled well in short-yardage work.
Coleman also weighs exactly 220 pounds, . Denver has needed a heavier back who can handle some between-the-tackles and short-yardage work to preserve Dobbins’ body and keep Harvey fresh; Coleman could step into immediate red-zone snaps for the Broncos, running for a combined 25 touchdowns across his last two seasons at Washington.
Denver, though, spent the most time with Coleman pre-draft evaluating his abilities as a third-down back, where he can provide an immediate all-around upgrade from Badie. Two months ago, Coleman told The Post that he’d “really just talked about pass protection” in a pre-draft interview with Broncos staff, and they drilled him in situational work in anticipating his assignments for blitz pickups.
The Washington product played all four of his collegiate seasons for Fisch, a one-time Broncos assistant who’s part of the coaching trees of Mike Shanahan and Sean McVay. Coleman told The Post in February, too, that Washington and Denver “run the same schemes,” and he felt confident, from an initial meeting, that he could catch on to Payton and Davis Webb’s offense quickly.
“We just hit it off right off the bat,” Coleman said Saturday, recalling that initial combine meeting. “As soon as I walked in, I felt the energy, and really the love, from the start. And went in there, and we just talked some ball, and just crushed it.
“And when I went up there on a visit,” Coleman continued, noting a pre-draft top-30 visit in Denver, “all I kept hearing was they were really impressed with my interview at the combine.”
Coleman’s durability, despite his size, is a definite concern: he’s averaged less than 4 yards per carry in the final four games of both his 2024 and 2025 seasons. An ankle injury hampered his production down the stretch in his senior year in particular, as he finished with a middling 758 rushing yards on 4.9 yards per carry last winter.
The running back, for his part, pointed to his declining production in 2025 as an injury-related coaching decision.
“Coach Fisch knew that I was a Sunday player,” Coleman said, “and ultimately, it was about my future. So, just being smart there.”
Coleman, though, has been Washington’s far-and-away bell-cow back in 2024 and 2025. That won’t be his role in Denver, where he’ll likely provide instant third-down work — Badie played 18% of the Broncos’ total snaps last season — and take some occasional early-down bruising off Dobbins and Harvey.
The Washington back won’t gleam as bright as the grills, perhaps, in rookie-year grunt work in Denver. But in due time, too, the Coleman-Harvey duo could shine as the Broncos’ backfield of the future.
“Right after the visit,” Coleman said, “I knew I was going to be a Denver Bronco. And it was always God’s plan.
“It worked out how it was supposed to.”
