Jonah Coleman 2026 Season Preview — what we know, and what nobody does | Muffed

Sean Payton spent a fourth-round pick and an entire June complimenting Jonah Coleman, and the market moved him to pick one fifty-three on the compliments alone. That's the trade you're being offered: praise now, evidence later.

The record: Denver took him one-oh-eight overall out of Washington, per the team site, where he ran for fifteen touchdowns last season per the club's draft coverage. The Payton quote of the spring — he's "all football," per SI's Broncos coverage in June — came attached to minicamp reports of strong team-period runs and a red-zone catch, and the beat consensus flagged his passing-game value all spring.

[[SITUATION]]

The situation: this backfield already has two paid claims on it. J.K. Dobbins re-signed after a season that was verified-good and verified-short — seven hundred seventy-two rushing yards in ten games — and RJ Harvey caught forty-seven passes and scored twelve total touchdowns as a rookie. The offense also changed hands in January: Davis Webb was promoted to coordinator after the title-game loss, per ESPN, with Payton saying he'll hand over most of the play-calling, per the Denver Gazette in February. Three backs, new play-caller, one ball.

[pause] What we know that the buzz doesn't: June praise for fourth-round backs is the cheapest currency in football, and it predicts nothing at a standard we'd cite — we checked. The price has already moved on words. The results haven't started. We'll grade those in October.

Watch: preseason third-down snaps — if Coleman is the two-minute back over Harvey, that's a real job — and Dobbins' early-season workload pattern, because ten-game seasons tend to get managed. [[CLOSE]] He's one of your guys? This show covers your whole roster — every player, every week, all season.