Broncos secondary coach Jim Leonhard leaving for Bills DC job, source says

Parker Gabriel, The Denver Post on Jan 31, 2026

Published in Football

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DENVER — The Denver Broncos are losing yet another coach to a coordinator posting in Buffalo.

Denver secondary coach Jim Leonhard is leaving to be the Bills’ defensive coordinator under new head coach Joe Brady, a source confirmed to The Denver Post Saturday morning.

Leonhard has spent the past two seasons coaching Denver’s defensive backs and the group has been among the best in football.

Leonhard, 43, is considered widely as an up-and-coming coach in the NFL.

In fact, Broncos head coach Sean Payton said he tried to hire Leonhard in 2023 for his first coaching staff, but the former University of Wisconsin defensive coordinator and interim head coach instead decided to take a year off after he didn’t get the permanent posting at UW, his alma mater.

In a training-camp conversation with The Post, Leonhard said he didn’t have any kind of “master plan” for his career, and didn’t ultimately care about his title or play-calling duties — although he felt certainly capable.

“I have full belief that I can do all that stuff, and if it’s right, it’ll come,” Leonhard said. “So, comfortable in the situation I am.”

The Wisconsin native believes that there’s a “certain way” running a staff should be done in the NFL. Players who can be coached hard and coaches who can be collaborative, as Leonhard explained, is important. But Leonhard also said he’s “strongly against” the idea of creating excessive adversity on players as a coaching staff, and will now get the chance to implement the full scope of his philosophy with the Bills.

“Sometimes, you like to make people uncomfortable just because,” Leonhard told The Post. “This is a stressful enough game. I think the more you can eliminate getting people on edge ‘just because,’ if there’s no reason behind it … there’s adversity, and then this league is up and down, right? You win a game, you’re going to the Super Bowl. You lose a game, the building’s burning down. So you don’t really need to create it at this level. And some people like to.

“So, I try to avoid that as much as possible,” Leonhard continued, “just because I think you can keep the main thing the main thing.”

Leonhard is plenty familiar with Buffalo. He spent the first three years of his decade-long playing career there from 2005-07 and then returned in 2013.

Leonhard joins senior offensive assistant Pete Carmichael, who became Brady’s offensive coordinator on Friday, in his departure from Denver.

Payton now has seen five coaches leave his staff by firing or by choice. In addition to the two departures, Payton fired offensive coordinator Joe Lombardi, receivers coach Keary Colbert and cornerbacks coach Addison Lynch. Leonhard and Lynch worked together, so Lynch could be in line to follow with Leonhard.

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