Denver Broncos 2021 draft: Analyzing instant impact for every pick

5 (164). Jamar Johnson, S, Indiana

The Denver Broncos got a tremendous steal with Jamar Johnson in the fifth round out of Indiana.

This kid didn’t even play 500 snaps of defense at Indiana, but when he did play, he was outstanding. He had seven interceptions in under 50 passes thrown into his coverage. That means this guy was picking off a pass every six or seven times a ball was thrown his way.

In 2020, his tackling was poor, to put it kindly. Johnson didn’t take the best angles and at times looked like he was really protecting himself from contact.

Interestingly enough, it seemed like that only really happened when he was coming up to make tackles from the deep free safety spot. When Johnson was lined up as a nickel or blitzer, he was aggressive and physical.

The Denver Broncos will work to extract that from him more consistently as soon as possible.

Because of his ball skills and savvy in coverage, it would not shock me one bit if Johnson is immediately thrown into the rotation at safety, dime linebacker, or in the nickel in certain packages.

Vic Fangio has enough veterans to throw out onto the field but Johnson has the kind of reactive quickness when the ball is in the air to be an asset at creating turnovers in his rookie season similar to what we saw from Justin Simmons in his rookie season.

Imagining what we saw from Johnson this past year in tandem with Justin Simmons in Vic Fangio’s two-high shell safety looks with the talent at corner in front of them is really exciting.