Cody Barton leaves Broncos, heads to Titans
Mar 10, 2025, 3:31 PM | Updated: 3:43 pm
Cody Barton wasn’t in the Denver Broncos’ plans at inside linebacker. But the Tennessee Titans felt just fine making him the core of their defensive efforts.
The Titans agreed with Barton on a 3-year, $21-million contract Monday. NFL Network’s Ian Rapoport first reported the news.
Barton was the AFC Defensive Player of the Week following the Broncos’ Week 7 win at New Orleans after he notched 8 tackles, a sack and a scoop-and-score fourth-quarter touchdown to finish off what would be a 33-10 win.
But perhaps most importantly, he ended up being the Broncos’ “green dot” player, relaying the defensive playcalls from Week 4 onward after Alex Singleton tore his anterior cruciate ligament in a Week 3 win at Tampa Bay.
The “green dot” refers to the helmet sticker worn by a player with a radio receiver in his helmet to receive the calls.
A product of Utah, Barton joined the Broncos as a free-agent signee last year and beat out Jonas Griffith for a starting job in training camp.
Denver brought in Barton to improve its work in coverage, but he actually became one of the team’s most dependable tacklers. In fact, Barton ranked second in the league among 84 inside linebackers (minimum 300 snaps) with a rate of just one missed tackle every 20.5 opportunities, per data compiled from Pro Football Focus.
That sort of reliability helped stabilize the defense, especially after Singleton was lost for the season and Justin Strnad had to step in and start for most of the rest of the season. But the core of the defense wore down as the season progressed and struggled against the run in December and January, with the issues particularly evident in games against Indianapolis, the Los Angeles Chargers and the Buffalo Bills.
That already led to the Broncos bringing in Talanoa Hufanga from San Francisco to upgrade the safety corps. The team also has reported interest in free-agent linebacker Dre Greenlaw, also recently of the 49ers.
And with that, Barton chose to move on — with a substantial raise coming his way.
