By the time Jahdae Barron flew back home to Texas last summer, he knew the plan. Before workouts, he’d FaceTime his trainer, Bernard Blake, and rattle off specific concepts he wanted to drill. Eventually, they worked his technique on so many seam routes and over routes that Blake lost count.
They covered everything in Barron’s first NFL offseason. But in particular, Blake recounted in October that the recent Broncos first-round draftee wanted to polish his technique at inside cornerback — where Denver ended up sticking him in a training camp competition.
“I think he saw,” Blake said last fall, “that they saw him in that exact light.”
The way the Broncos see Barron in his second NFL offseason, now, has greater ramifications than his own individual future. Despite a shaky rookie year, the 2024 Texas All-American carries too much natural talent in both his limbs and his mind to stay off the field. And Barron’s development through OTAs, minicamp and later training camp will shape one of the organization’s key short-term questions: should the Broncos pay CB2 Riley Moss or nickel Ja’Quan McMillian?
Both are entering contract years, with 2023 third-round pick Moss on the final year of his rookie deal and former undrafted grinder McMillian playing 2026 on a one-year tender. Denver, of course, already has former Defensive Player of the Year Pat Surtain II on a long-term deal that’s set to see its cap hit increase each year through 2029. And with Barron waiting in the wings, the Broncos are approaching an unmistakable reality in their cornerback room come training camp.
“At some point, they’re gonna be like, ‘Look, we can’t pay three of ‘em,'” one NFL agent told The Denver Post.
This is not an actual issue. More of a decision. The Broncos drafted Barron in the first round in 2025 because he was the best player left on their board — a “luxury” pick, as former defensive-passing game coordinator Jim Leonhard told The Post earlier this spring. At every turn, through a rookie season in which Barron played just 30% of Denver’s regular-season defensive snaps, the Broncos have justified that pick by pointing to the importance of depth at cornerback.
“When you’re looking at today’s NFL with the DBs and corners especially, they’re tough to find in the offseason without, like, large compensation,” head coach Sean Payton said in early May, asked on future plans for the cornerback room. “So, all of that will kinda work its way — sort itself out.”
It’s a great problem to have, as Broncos general manager George Paton said at this year’s NFL Combine. A “champagne problem,” as an agent told The Denver Post. And Barron gives Denver considerable negotiating leverage to offer team-friendly deals to McMillian and Moss, with the threat that the rising second-year cornerback could simply take one of their starting jobs in training camp, thereby decreasing their market heading into next year’s free agency.
“They’ll use their champagne problem of depth,” the agent told The Post, anticipating the Broncos’ potential negotiating strategy, “to scare everybody involved.”
Paton said at February’s combine that the Broncos still believe Barron can play both inside and outside. And after McMillian had a fringe All-Pro-level season at nickel last year, it’d make sense for Denver’s staff to see if Barron can compete through the offseason and training camp with Moss for the Broncos’ CB2 job opposite Surtain. A source with direct knowledge of the Broncos’ thinking told The Post earlier this spring that Payton, indeed, will likely “push” for Barron to compete with Moss there.
That move would make sense, too, in terms of league valuation. The market for nickel cornerbacks, while steadily increasing with inflation, isn’t close to the demand for proven outside cornerbacks. In 2025, the Bears made Kyler Gordon . Given his production, McMillian could reasonably angle for $15 to $17 million annually from Denver — but may not have much leverage with the open market. Multiple league sources who spoke to The Post pointed out that nickel cornerbacks only carry high value for teams that use them often in their schemes.
“If you’re a Cover 2 team thatap just playing a lot of three linebackers, two outside corners, two safeties, and you only bring in the nickel very rarely, then that guy’s not very valuable,” one agent told The Post.
By contrast, league demand for proven outside corners is skyrocketing. In early March, the Rams traded for Chiefs All-Pro cornerback Trent McDuffie and promptly blew the ceiling off the market with a four-year extension worth $31 million annually. A rising tide will lift all boats, and the Titans handed 27-year-old former Saints corner Alontae Taylor — who produced similarly to Moss in 2025 — a three-year deal at an average base value of $19.3 million.
| Name | Age | Height | Weight | 2025 Games | Tackles | Interceptions | Passes Defensed | Penalties | QB Rating Against |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Riley Moss | 26 | 6-0 | 193 | 17 | 80 | 1 | 19 | 12 | 88.2 |
| Alontae Taylor | 27 | 6-0 | 199 | 17 | 83 | 2 | 11 | 4 | 98.2 |
If the Broncos think Barron can beat out Moss in camp, they could look to trade Moss in August for draft value (similar to rookie receiver Pat Bryant pushing Devaughn Vele in last year’s training camp) or simply roll into the year with him as a high-end backup. If Moss were to start again in 2026 and put together a strong year opposite Surtain, though, he could angle for much more on the open market in 2027 than the Broncos would be willing to pay him (similar to John Franklin-Myers’ departure this offseason).
Of course, both paths turn in the Broncos’ short-term favor, as they’ve set themselves up with a litany of options at one of the NFL’s most important positions heading into a year with Super Bowl expectations. Reasonably, they could also elect to simply not pay or move either McMillian or Moss and simply let the string play out in case of injury — which materialized last year, as the Broncos quickly stabilized when Surtain was hurt for three games midseason.
“When you lose a guy like Pat, and you draft to your strengths, that’s one of the reasons you do that,” Payton said last winter.
Drafting to strengths also creates surplus, though. And if the Broncos simply sit on their stash, it could cost them soon enough.
