Denver Broncos: Mark Barron’s role with the team in 2020

What will Mark Barron’s role be with the Denver Broncos in 2020?

The Denver Broncos made official a move that has been anticipated now for a few days, signing linebacker/safety Mark Barron to a one-year contract.

John Elway is just about making a habit at this point of adding Nick Saban’s Alabama players, signing Kareem Jackson last offseason, and then using his first-round pick in the 2020 NFL Draft on wide receiver Jerry Jeudy.

Barron is still on a very short list of Saban’s Crimson Tide athletes to make their way to the Denver Broncos, but these players are bucking a trend, to be certain.

Barron and Jackson, interestingly enough, were teammates at Alabama for two seasons but they were starters together in 2009, and that was really when Barron got himself on the NFL radar with seven interceptions and 76 total tackles.

The seventh overall pick in the 2012 NFL Draft, Barron has had his ups and downs as an NFL player.

The Buccaneers, who drafted him in 2012, traded him to the St. Louis Rams in 2014, just Barron’s third season in the NFL.

He spent the next four-plus years with the Rams’ organization, moving with them to Los Angeles and playing in all but six games in that timeframe.

As a free agent in 2019, Barron signed a pretty decent contract with the Pittsburgh Steelers, getting two years and $12 million.

The Denver Broncos are getting Barron on a modest one-year deal, and hopefully he can provide some depth and stability at the linebacker position in the wake of Justin Strnad’s recent wrist injury.

Strnad had apparently worked his way into the nickel defense, a fascinating development the Broncos kept pretty well under wraps throughout training camp. The top three linebackers on the team have been Todd Davis, Alexander Johnson, and Josey Jewell, but it looks like the Broncos were planning on Strnad coming onto the field in place of Davis in the nickel defense.

That will obviously not be happening anymore, and Barron will presumably fill that role.

Although he’s a former first-round pick and a converted safety at the linebacker position, Barron has struggled at the NFL level in coverage and is not a cure-all for the Broncos in that regard.

He’s going to need a crash course in learning Vic Fangio’s defense, which is what he will get, but in the meantime he’s going to have to prove he can cover backs and tight ends better than Josey Jewell.

The “if not more” piece of Mike Klis’ tweet here is every indicator you need of the Broncos’ plans for Barron in the 2020 season.

He’s going to play.

A lot.

This is not the most exciting prospect for those who have been unimpressed with Barron’s work to this point in his career, but it’s worth noting that despite his struggles, ineptitude, shortcomings — whatever you want to call it — despite it all he played over 700 snaps on the Steelers’ defense in 2019 and they were a top-five scoring defense with more turnovers forced than anyone in the NFL.

Is that to say Barron was directly responsible? No, but it’s possible for a defense to be a fine sum of its parts with Barron in the lineup on the majority of snaps, and not only is it possible, but it’s also proven.

When the Broncos go into their nickel defense, it should be expected that Barron will be out there. Hopefully, he can get his communication with Alexander Johnson and the rest of the players around him on point sooner rather than later.