Adding that presence opposite Brandon Jones should hopefully go a long way toward fixing the all-too-frequent coverage busts the Broncos experienced at the safety position down the stretch of the 2024 season.

Yet, even with Hufanga providing such a valuable impact for the 49ers defense, and so many other beloved players leaving San Francisco, it's the departure of Dre Greenlaw that has the fanbase feeling brokenhearted, according to Barrows.

"If there's one guy that 49ers fans are gnashing their teeth about [losing], it's Greenlaw," Barrows reported to Dave Logan and Ryan Edwards. "He's been [in San Francisco] since 2019 and he plays with such ferocity and fire. You feel it. It's palpable. I'm sure that's what the Broncos signed him for. . . That was something the coaches would always accept because he was also kinda firing up the team. And the 49ers didn't play very well last year on defense without him. That's something they cited over and over again for their subpar play -- not having him in the lineup."

Broncos Country has grown to love those defensive sparkplugs before, with that role most recently embodied by Kareem Jackson and T.J. Ward. It also seems like the defense could use the added nastiness and physicality after they were completely dominated in that department by the Buffalo Bills in the two's playoff matchup.

The biggest conversation point surrounding the two massive defensive swings is the injury history of both Hufanga and Greenlaw, which allowed the Broncos to sign them at their discounted rate. Yet, despite some of the worries surrounding their health, Barrows thinks the 'injury prone' label placed on the two is unfair.

"I don't think so," Barrows retorted when asked about whether or not the two deserved that designation. "With Hufanga, it was an ACL, in 2023, and he hurt his wrist last year. That was the second injury he had, and that was a freak accident. I think there's more concern about Greenlaw. He's an older player. One of the odd things that happened in that Super Bowl. . . He had been with an Achilles injury late in the season that year, sort of a tendonitis or soreness in that area, but it was in the other Achilles, not the one that tore necessarily. Sometimes, when someone tears their right Achilles, they have a greater propensity for tearing their left, just because that's a weakness in their body. Does that happen all the time? No. And I think he recovered very well from the Achilles, as that game against the Rams showed."

If Barrows is right, and Greenlaw and Hufanga are merely the victims of some poor luck that should hopefully regress toward the mean, the Broncos likely just executed one of the greatest free-agent heists we've seen in recent years.

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The Surface Seems So Far Tour

with Mammoth WVH and Nonpoint