![\"Colorado](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/DCC-L-CUFB-IOWASTATE-05.jpg\")
Colorado defensive coordinator Robert Livingston looks on in the second half of an NCAA college football game against Iowa State, Saturday, Oct. 11, 2025, in Boulder, Colo. (AP Photo\/David Zalubowski)<\/p>\nIn February, they ran into each other in the House that Prime Built, two ships that could\u2019ve just passed in the Colorado night.<\/p>\n
A couple weeks before the Buffaloes began spring practices, ex-Colorado defensive coordinator\u00a0 Robert Livingston ventured south to interview as the Broncos\u2019 defensive passing-game coordinator. He was particularly \u201cexcited,\u201d as Colorado offensive coordinator Brennan Marion recalled to The Denver Post, about the prospect of coaching Denver\u2019s 2025 first-round cornerback Jahdae Barron. A day later, Livingston was back in the Buffs\u2019 building in Boulder.<\/p>\n
There, walking in around noon, was Barron \u2014 there to catch up with Marion, who was the receivers coach at Texas in 2022 while Barron was a junior cornerback.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe synergy of them two just meeting at the same time \u2014 being right there, right after (Livingston) was at the interview the day before \u2014 sometimes, God just syncs things up that way,\u201d Marion said.<\/p>\n
Barron talked ball with Marion and cousin Naeten Mitchell, a safety who recently transferred to Colorado. He ventured into the Buffs\u2019 secondary room, too, to break down tape. And eventually, as Marion recounted, he and Livingston wandered off to go watch film together.<\/p>\n
Barron stayed until 8 p.m.<\/p>\n
\u201cI haven\u2019t met a person yet who doesn\u2019t like Jahdae,\u201d Marion said. \u201cI mean, he\u2019s kinda like a quarterback from that standpoint, where \u2014 he has that infectious personality.<\/p>\n
\u201cSo him and Rob hit it off pretty easy, pretty quick.\u201d<\/p>\n
Colorado defensive coordinator Robert Livingston looks on in the second half of an NCAA college football game against Iowa State, Saturday, Oct. 11, 2025, in Boulder, Colo. (AP Photo\/David Zalubowski)<\/p>\n
Shortly thereafter,\u00a0the Broncos officially hired Livingston to replace the departed Jim Leonhard.<\/a> It marked a\u00a0professional reunion with Denver DC Vance Joseph, who Livingston worked with in Cincinnati in 2014 and 2015. It also marked a new figure in Barron\u2019s development. And the development of their relationship will shape one of the most important questions awaiting the Broncos in 2026 and beyond: how can Denver extract first-round value from its 2025 first-round pick?<\/p>\n Finding a fit in a crowded secondary room<\/p>\n None of the dozens of Barron\u2019s friends and family watching the NFL Draft last year, as his old high school coach Jason Cecil said, expected the Broncos to be the team to call in the first round. Denver \u2014 a team with established starters at every cornerback spot \u2014 simply felt he was the best player available, and took him \u201cout of a place of luxury,\u201d as Leonhard recounted to The Post.<\/p>\n Barron, according to data reviewed by The Denver Post, played the fewest percentage of his team\u2019s regular-season defensive snaps (30%) of any first-round defensive rookie in 2025, when active. He played just 17 snaps combined in two playoff games.<\/p>\n \u201cHe was obviously upset,\u201d Marion said of Barron, \u201cfrom the standpoint that, he wanted to have a better year.\u201d<\/p>\n Leonhard\u2019s greatest challenge with Barron in his first NFL season, as the ex-Broncos coach told The Post last summer, was getting the rookie to actually turn his brain off. To understand his assignment at nickel \u2014 sometimes fitting a run gap, sometimes checking a tight end, sometimes fluid until a play developed \u2014 and stay within that. Read. React. Don\u2019t cheat and try to apply learned collegiate tendencies to the NFL game.<\/p>\n At times, Barron looked like the instinctive ballhawk he was advertised to be; at times, he also looked like a 2001 iMac desktop trying to process five billion lines of code before triggering a decision.<\/p>\n Denver\u2019s staff anticipated this, yo-yoing Barron between nickel and outside assignments from the start of his rookie camp.<\/p>\n \u201cThe vision was, he\u2019s going to come in and challenge,\u201d Leonhard, now the Bills\u2019 defensive coordinator, told The Post this week. \u201cBut it wasn\u2019t this, like \u2014 \u2018There is a glaring hole in our secondary that he has to fill.\u2019 We just thought he complemented the room great, and we were going to be able to create ways where he can impact games as he\u2019s growing into what his eventual every-down-player role is going to be in that system, and the NFL.\u201d<\/p>\n Entering Year Two, though, the Broncos need to solidify where Barron\u2019s strengths fit best, both for his own development and for the future of their secondary. CB2 Riley Moss is entering the last year of his contract. So is Ja\u2019Quan McMillian. Barron may well have a better shot at competing with Moss at outside cornerback in camp, but the organization has expressed a mixed view of his abilities there.<\/p>\n Head coach Sean Payton said multiple times last season that the Broncos view Barron as a nickel \u201cwith outside flex.\u201d Lynch, meanwhile, pounded the table to Denver brass in the pre-draft process in 2025 that Barron could play outside corner in the NFL. Leonhard said this week, too, that he felt Barron proved in 2025 he could \u201cbe an every-down player on the outside.\u201d But both Lynch and Leonhard are gone.<\/p>\n Enter Livingston, now, who has a decade-long track record back in Cincinnati of developing young secondary talent in veteran-laden rooms \u2014 as the Bengals had a habit of drafting a cornerback \u201cevery other year,\u201d former Cincinnati defensive coordinator Paul Guenther recalled.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m sure he can teach (Jahdae) how to play the position a little more instinctually,\u201d Marion said. \u201cThe thought process of, \u2018OK, they\u2019re in 13-personnel, it\u2019s 3rd-and-3, this is what plays are coming.\u2019 Or, \u2018They\u2019re in 11-personnel, 3rd-and-8, this is what plays are coming.\u2019<\/p>\n \u201cAnd they\u2019ll be able to play a little bit faster, with the knowledge that Rob has.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cI just know the kid that he is \u2013 the faith-based kid that he is, how hungry he is to prove and take care of his mom and all of this stuff that he has to do and he\u2019s responsible for \u2014 I know he\u2019s going to get it done,\u201d Marion told The Post last week. \u201cThe hard part is knowing, will he be able to get it done there, because of the talent in the room?\u201d<\/p>\n Pat Surtain II is, well, Pat Surtain II. McMillian had a career year at nickel. Moss tied for the most-penalized cornerback in the league in 2025 (12) but also led the league in passes defensed (19). Barron vacillated between playing deep in situational dime packages, fitting run gaps as a veritable off-ball linebacker in big-nickel packages, covering tight ends man-to-man, and even started a game at safety.<\/p>\n During one conversation last year, Leonhard reminded Barron that Surtain, who came out of Alabama at the No. 9 overall pick in 2021, actually didn\u2019t start in Week 1 of his 2021 rookie year. And Leonhard would confirm to Barron, from the staff\u2019s side, that there was no frustration with his development.<\/p>\n But there was frustration, of course, from Barron\u2019s own standpoint, a player who Leonhard said has \u201cextremely high standards of himself.\u201d<\/p>\n In a Week 11 win over the Chiefs, the rookie cornerback turned in his best game of the year: four tackles, a pick-six that was called back, and a few reps of excellent coverage on Kansas City legend Travis Kelce. A few days later, Barron posted an Instagram story poking fun at Kelce\u2019s even-more-legendary fiancee<\/a>: \u201cTell swift (sic) put me on a song RIGHT NOW.\u201d His confidence was soaring. Temporarily.<\/p>\n Two weeks later, Barron called Marion one late night after a sloppy Broncos overtime win over the Commanders.<\/p>\n \u201cOne week he\u2019s riding high and thinks like, \u2018Man, I\u2019m killing it,’\u201d Marion said. \u201cAnd the next week, he\u2019s like, \u2018Damn, Coach \u2014 I messed up on this situation, I messed up here, I was supposed to be on this guy.’\u201d<\/p>\n A film review of that Barron performance showed no real glaring errors, in his 24 snaps against Washington.\u00a0He was a step too slow on a couple routes covering tight end Zach Ertz. He took a poor angle on a first-down scramble by Commanders quarterback Marcus Mariota. He communicated well on multiple other snaps, and nearly jumped a route for a would-be game-sealing pick<\/a> in overtime. But Barron played more than 40% of Denver\u2019s snaps in just one more game (Week 17 against Kansas City) the rest of the season.<\/p>\n \u201cIn no way was it a punishment thing \u2014 like, \u2018He wasn\u2019t doing what we asked him to do,’\u201d Leonhard said, asked about Barron\u2019s declining snaps down the stretch. \u201cJust plays out sometimes, when you\u2019re not a starter, that way.\u201d<\/p>\n Barron, the 2024 Thorpe Award winner as the best defensive back in collegiate football, is not cursing circumstance. He is of the mentality, as Marion described, to shape his own results.<\/p>\n \u201cFrom a parent situation, you want your kid to be on a great team sometimes, just to see what greatness looks like,\u201d Marion said. \u201cAnd they can match that, and then it takes their game to a whole new level. So, I think that\u2019s what that did for him, right? Seeing, like, \u2018I can\u2019t make a mistake. These guys aren\u2019t making any. I can\u2019t slip up. I have to be on point at all times.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cHe took that as a challenge. He didn\u2019t take that as a crutch, or crippling his development. He\u2019s taking that as like, \u2018Alright, I\u2019m gonna prove it.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n Barron, Marion said, respects Joseph, who\u2019s repeatedly gushed about Barron to The Post<\/a>. By proxy, Marion added, Barron will respect Livingston, who worked with Joseph in coaching Cincinnati\u2019s defensive backs in 2014 and 2015. Many of Joseph\u2019s current defensive principles \u2014 disguising blitzers indistinguishably from players dropping back into coverage<\/a> \u2014 are similar to what Cincinnati did a decade ago, under defensive coordinator Guenther. And the \u201croots\u201d of Livingston\u2019s defenses for the last two seasons at Colorado, Guenther told The Post, are the same.<\/p>\n Upon arriving to Colorado, Livingston organized a turnaround from one of the worst defenses in the FBS in 2023 to a top-45 unit in 2024. Colorado slumped back to 112th in the country in opponent points-per-game in a 3-9 season in 2025. But he leaves the building with high marks from head coach Deion Sanders, one of the best corners in the history of the NFL.<\/p>\n \u201cI feel like, he knows, inside, what he\u2019s done with this program,\u201d Sanders said. \u201cSometimes, we get caught up in numbers, and statistics, and not understanding personnel and knowledge and what he brought to this program. He brought a lot.\u201d A track record of molding young talent<\/p>\n In February, Barron met former Bengals cornerback Darqueze Dennard for the second time at the annual Thorpe Award banquet in Oklahoma City. They\u2019d first chatted a year before, when Barron took the stage himself to accept the trophy. The circumstances, this time around, were rather different.<\/p>\n Dennard offered a shred of advice.<\/p>\n \u201cI told him, he\u2019s just gotta trust them,\u201d Dennard said, speaking on Denver\u2019s staff. \u201cThey\u2019re mad scientists, what they\u2019re doing.\u00a0Just put the work in, and all the rest of the stuff gon\u2019 play out how it\u2019s supposed to.\u201d<\/p>\n He would know. 11 years before Barron, there was Dennard, who was drafted late in 2014\u2019s first round by Cincinnati after a Thorpe Award-winning senior season at Michigan State. Guenther and Joseph shifted Dennard from outside corner to nickel to eventually supplant aging veteran Leon Hall. It was not easily received.<\/p>\n Livingston, as Dennard recounted, was a constant support,\u00a0then in his first year as a staffer after spending a couple years in Cincinnati\u2019s scouting department.<\/p>\n \u201cHe saw more into me than I did, at the time,\u201d Dennard said. \u201cI just kinda wanted to be on my island, X-out this player, and be done with it for the day. Where, he wanted me to come in and actually be able to impact football games.\u201d<\/p>\n Livingston has a track record of molding young talent trying to prove themselves, as Dennard pointed out. The Bengals took Houston cornerback William Jackson III, who played four years in Cincinnati, in the fourth round of 2016\u2019s draft. Livingston also keyed in on future All-Pro safety Jessie Bates III in 2018, as former Bengals head coach Marvin Lewis recalled. \u201cLike, I don\u2019t know how much he can help a 10-year vet,\u201d Early said. \u201cBut a young one that he\u2019s able to get his hands on and that hasn\u2019t quite had that breakout year yet \u2014 I think you\u2019ll see a tremendous difference in whoever the previous guy was, and how Doug is able to bring those guys along.\u201d<\/p>\n Those development-focused hires, then, will set up a fascinating positional battle between three younger cornerbacks vying for two starting spots \u2014 and long-term futures in Denver. The 25-year-old McMillian is playing this season on a one-year, $5.8 million tender, and is currently set to hit unrestricted free agency in 2027<\/a>. The 26-year-old Moss is on the final year of his rookie deal.<\/p>\n The Broncos got plenty of glimpses last season of Barron in big-nickel units, and saw him play heavier snaps outside midseason when Surtain was sidelined with a pec injury<\/a>. And the rising second-year corner has a chance,\u00a0this spring and summer, to make it easy for Denver to decide whether to pay McMillian or Moss long-term.<\/p>\n \u201cThere is learning in the NFL, but nothing\u2019s going to be new this year that he (doesn\u2019t) already know,\u201d Leonhard said. \u201cBut he did prove last year, he can be an every-down player on the outside, just as much as he can play on the inside and be a nickel and dime.\u201d<\/p>\n At this year\u2019s Thorpe ceremony, too, Barron and Dennard \u2014 men of faith \u2014 bonded over Proverbs 27:17, talking about Barron\u2019s future.<\/p>\n \u201cAs iron sharpens iron, so one person sharpens another.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cGet better with your sword, get better with your crown,\u201d Dennard said. \u201cAnd that was his mindset.\u201d<\/p>\n![\"Kansas](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/AP25320807906158.jpg\")
Kansas City Chiefs tight end Travis Kelce runs after catching a pass as Denver Broncos cornerback Jahdae Barron (23) defends during the first half an NFL football game Sunday, Nov. 16, 2025, in Denver. (AP Photo\/Jack Dempsey)
\nAn up-and-down rookie year
\nThe 24-year-old Barron\u2019s motivation has never been in doubt, and comes from one primary source. In the fifth grade, he helped his mother, Techonia Davis, chuck Austin-American Statesman bundles out of a Chevy Trailblazer on her paper route. Slightly older, he and his siblings manned the nacho station and barbecue pits with their mother at a local baseball-field concession stand. In the eighth grade, he told Davis he\u2019d retire her one day, and he meant it.<\/p>\n
\n![\"Colorado](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/TDP-L-SPFBCCU-1028-11.jpg\")
Colorado defensive coordinator Robert Livingston, center, confers with safety RJ Johnson, left, and defensive end Arden Walker in the second half of a game against Cincinnati Saturday, Oct. 26, 2024, in Boulder, Colo. AP Photo\/David Zalubowski)\n<\/p>\n
\nThere\u2019s a pattern to Denver\u2019s approach, in retooling their defensive staff. The Broncos also brought on former USC secondary coach Doug Belk in a defensive-backs role, a one-time rising collegiate name who served as Houston\u2019s primary defensive coordinator from 2021 to 2023. Belk\u2019s strength as a position coach, as former Houston defensive-line coach Brian Early told The Post, falls in developing technique.<\/p>\n