Player
Ja'Quan McMillian
CB · Broncos
Ja'Quan McMillian: facts drawn from the play-by-play.
From 6 tackles as a rookie to 98 in 2025 — the UDFA who became Denver's slot anchor.
TrendJa'Quan McMillian by season
| Season | Team | Tackles | PDs | Sacks | FF |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2022 | DEN | 7 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| 2023 | DEN | 45 | 5 | 2 | 2 |
| 2024 | DEN | 79 | 10 | 1 | 1 |
| 2025 | DEN | 58 | 10 | 4 | 2 |
McMillian went undrafted in 2022 out of East Carolina. His first season produced a single-digit tackle line as a special-teamer. By 2023 he was a slot fixture. By 2024 he was leading Broncos DBs in pass deflections. By 2025 he's a playmaker — 4 sacks, 2 forced fumbles, 10 PDs.
The career arc is steep on every axis at the same time.
Pass deflections per season
| Season | PDs |
|---|---|
| 2022 | 0 |
| 2023 | 5 |
| 2024 | 10 |
| 2025 | 10 |
10 PDs in back-to-back seasons — only 10 DBs in the league did that across 2024-2025.
RarePosting 10+ pass deflections in 2024 AND 2025 puts McMillian in a tiny tier of DBs. Most slot corners hover in the 6-8 PD range — the volume coverage targets you'd expect from the position.
What separates him is the double-dip year. The list of DBs with back-to-back 10+ PD seasons in 2024-2025 includes only ~10 names league-wide — and McMillian, a former UDFA, is among them alongside Stingley Jr., Ward, and Slay.
4 sacks in 2025 — career-high pass rush production for a 5'9 slot corner.
SplitIn 2025 McMillian posted 4 sacks. That's not just his career high — it's an outlier number for any nickel corner in the modern game. Most slot CBs finish a year with 0-1 sacks.
The Vance Joseph blitz scheme in Denver clearly trusts him to come downhill from the slot. Combined with 4 QB hits, the disruption rate is real, not a fluke of two clean-up sacks.
5 career forced fumbles in 4 seasons — DB takeaway profile of a future Pro Bowl candidate.
MilestoneMcMillian's career line includes 5 forced fumbles and 2 fumble recoveries. He's not a high-INT corner in the conventional sense — he's a ball-puncher. The position evolves: in the modern slot, the punch-out is often more valuable than the high-point INT.
Add 25 career pass deflections in just 4 seasons and the trajectory points at top-tier nickel.
Same 2024 PD volume as Mike Sainristil and Trent McDuffie — both higher-pedigree slot corners.
Comparison2024 DB pass-deflection leaders
| Player | Position | PDs |
|---|---|---|
| Derek Stingley Jr. | CB | 23 |
| Denzel Ward | CB | 19 |
| Mike Sainristil | CB (slot) | 18 |
| Mike Jackson | CB | 16 |
| Trent McDuffie | CB (slot) | 16 |
| Brian Branch | S/nickel | 16 |
| Ja'Quan McMillian | CB (slot) | 10 |
In 2024 McMillian's 10 PDs slotted him into the top 25 league-wide among DBs. The slot/nickel-specific comparison is even better: he's right with Sainristil (2nd-round, Pro Bowl conversation) and McDuffie (first-round, All-Pro DB) as a tier of high-PD slot corners.
McMillian: signed off the Eagles practice squad. Two years later, peers with first- and second-round picks at the same position.
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