Denver Post Broncos writer Parker Gabriel posts his Broncos Mailbag periodically during the offseason. Click here to submit a question.
Minicamp was short but did anyone stand out to you out there?
— Victor Perez, Commerce City
Hey Victor, thanks for the question and for getting us going this week. Minicamp was indeed short — two days instead of three and then Sean Payton cut the guys loose a day early. One caveat here: OTAs and minicamp aren’t ideal for evaluating several positions because there’s no live hitting. There’s 11-on-11 work and all that, but it’s not the real thing. So usually this time of year I gravitate toward skill position players.
A couple that come to mind:
• Running back Jaleel McLaughlin looked a little bit bigger and stronger than he did as a rookie. He’s still small — nothing’s going to change that — but he showed explosiveness and burst and looked comfortable.
• Every time reporters were allowed to watch practice — a rookie minicamp day, three OTA days and two mandatory minicamp days — rookie receiver Devaughn Vele did good things. He’s a smooth operator for being new and he’s got a big catch radius. He’ll be a guy who has a chance to make noise in training camp.
• Riley Moss and P.J. Locke both had good summers. Moss will have to earn the starting spot at corner opposite Pat Surtain II but he’s going to get every chance to do so. With Locke, it’s not so much about his play in offseason workouts. You can just tell what the two-year contract and trust from management meant to him. He might have smiled the entire way through the offseason program and he looked locked in, too.
It would have been great to get a longer look at rookie RB Audric Estime before the knee injury. When he walks past us normal sized humans, you wonder how unpleasant it must be to tackle him. He and many others will be interesting to watch come the start of training camp in late July.
In your opinion, which players might be on the bubble for making the Broncos opening day 53-man roster?
— Ed Helinski, Auburn, N.Y.
Yo Ed, good question. Probably a lot. You never quite know who’s really right on the bubble until later in training camp, but I’ll put it like this: Sean Payton mentioned several times over the offseason program that he thinks there’s going to be heavy competition at a bunch of positions during camp.
Part of the translation there: Not very many jobs are locked up. Not many guys are safe just because they’re veterans. Obviously, you can find a bunch. But there could be some surprises, too.
Payton’s historically liked having veteran teams. He’s talking so far this summer like a coach who’s excited about the prospect of being younger. When push comes to shove and you’re picking 53 plus a 16-man practice squad roster, though, will that actually come through? Only time will tell.
Just as a starting point, obviously Jarrett Stidham and Zach Wilson are competing for probably one spot. There are more interior offensive linemen than roster spots available. Special teams work could have a lot to say about who makes it at inside linebacker and after the top four outside ’backers. Same at receiver. And all of that is to say nothing of the hottest camp race of them all between punters Riley Dixon and Trenton Gill. OK, that might be overstating it by a touch. But that could be a real battle, too.
In the way-too-early look into the future, what undrafted rookie do you think will land a spot on the team? I always have a soft spot for local guys and I’m hoping Alec Mock finds a role on the squad. He’s a tackling machine.
— Mike, Denver
Great question, Mike. Obviously we’ve got a long way to go on that front. Last year, remember, four undrafted guys made the roster but only McLaughlin had much of an impact. TE Nate Adkins played sparingly (but could have a stepped-up role in Year 2), OLB Thomas Incoom was mostly a healthy scratch and OT Alex Palczewski spent the year on injured reserve.
Even if four don’t make it this year, odds are at least one will. Maybe it’ll be a guy Denver gave a sizable guarantee to after the draft like running back Blake Watson or tackle Frank Crum. Really, though, that guaranteed money makes those players nearly sure bets for the practice squad more than anything.
One to keep an eye on: Inside linebacker Levelle Bailey out of Fresno State. It’s just a wide open group after Alex Singleton. Drew Sanders will be rehabbing an Achilles tear into October at the earliest and could play on the edge in the future anyway. Jonas Griffith hasn’t played since October 2022 due to foot and knee injuries, Cody Barton was a bargain free agency signing and Justin Strnad is a quality special teams player but played zero defensive snaps in 2023. Opportunity knocks.
Parker, I saw that you dabbled in a few other beats during the offseason. How were they different from the Broncos’ one?
— Mike, Denver
Yeah, good question Mike. It’s interesting getting to pitch in on other beats, especially because it mostly tends to happen during the postseason for the Nuggets and Avalanche. Obviously, access is one of the biggest differences. On a gameday in the NBA, Michael Malone is talking before and after the game. The locker room is open before and after games. It’s a lot different than the NFL just on that front alone.
Then there’s just different rhythms to those sports where games are played much more frequently and mostly at night. You feel like a real NBA beat writer when you start pouring coffee at 6 p.m.
Day-to-day, there are also fewer reporters around those teams than on the Broncos beat, but that difference isn’t quite as pronounced when you’re talking about a Nuggets Game 7 or Avs Game 6. It’s a circus.
Mostly, the goal is just to be helpful and not get in the way.
What’s the plan if Greg Dulcich doesn’t come back 100%? Our depth at tight end doesn’t seem all that great.
— F.P., Fort Collins
At this point, F.P., it’s safer to assume Dulcich will miss more time. It’s just the reality of spending the better part of two seasons hung up by hamstring and foot injuries.
If the talented tight end gets all the way through camp healthy, there will be natural questions about if he’ll hold up in game action. He’s got a lot of hurdles to clear and a lot of boxes to check.
At this point, the plan seems to be to count on Lucas Krull taking a big step forward as a down-the-field receiving threat and for Adam Trautman to be serviceable all around. Obviously it wouldn’t hurt for Adkins to make a jump in his second season or undrafted Thomas Yassmin to surprise.
Those are the only options on the roster at this point. A quick glance of the remaining free agents doesn’t show much production or even very many guys who played a lot of snaps last year. One note that I only even bother bringing up because it’s kind of wild: 39-year-old Jimmy Graham, who obviously has a lot of history with Payton, is maybe or maybe not retired and is training to be part of a team to row 1,000 kilometers across the Arctic Ocean. That’s one way to jump into a post-football life.
Hi Parker, I am just wondering what is the plan with Zach Wilson. We all know that Sean Payton did not pick Bo Nix to be a backup. With all the comments coming out of OTAs it seems that Wilson is not impressing anybody — yet. Is Payton hoping to get Wilson up and going in hopes of trading for a couple of draft picks later? Or does he really expect Wilson to be a backup if he starts to pick up the offense? If he does not impress at all will they cut him and hope to pick him up for the practice squad? I know lots of questions surrounding a guy like Wilson, but he was not picked No. 2 for his cooking skills.
— Del, Lamar
Hey Del, this is a great question and one that gets batted around quite a bit. Regardless of whether Bo Nix wins the job right away or not — I tend to think he will, but Jarrett Stidham’s done a nice job through the offseason program — he’s obviously going to be on the roster. If there were a time to keep three quarterbacks, this could be it for Payton, but he doesn’t usually. And there’s a roster rule change that flew a bit under the radar this spring, too, that has an impact. A practice squad quarterback can now be elevated on gameday as many times as the team wants rather than the max of three for other positions. It’s just another reason for most teams to decide against keeping three quarterbacks on the 53-man roster.
Money could play a role in the race for the second roster spot, but it’s not so overwhelming that it has to be the deciding factor. Wilson’s salary is guaranteed and Denver is on the hook for $2.55 million. That’s also what he counts against the cap whether he makes the roster or not.
And yeah, he goes into camp trailing behind Nix and Stidham to my eye, but he’s also clearly got the most natural throwing ability. Not predicting it’ll happen, but if the offense starts to click for him, he could make up ground in a hurry.
From the start, though, the move to trade for Wilson was interesting because most figured Denver would still take a quarterback later that week in the draft — obviously they did — and it’s the final year of Wilson’s contract. So if he plays well or shows promise in training camp, is he trade bait by the end of August? Or the trade deadline? Or does it perhaps set up to find a mutually beneficial deal beyond 2024 at the end of the season?
Those may not even end up being questions if he’s just a $2.55 million roll of the dice that turns up snake eyes.
One other possibility: Sometimes position battles come down to who a team thinks it can sneak onto the practice squad. Maybe Denver will hit the end of the preseason and think it can get one of them through waivers. The rule change might squeeze active roster spots for quarterbacks around the league even further. Maybe that will play to the Broncos’ benefit in a different way.
Why don’t the Broncos give Zach Wilson No. 3 so fans can continue to wear their Wilson No. 3 jerseys?
— Dave, Golden
Hey Dave, that would have been pretty funny. Not sure what the NFL rules are on that in terms of jersey sales. But the real reason is because kicker Wil Lutz claimed No. 3 after Russell Wilson was released and before Zach Wilson arrived via trade. At some point this year, it’ll be No. 3 for the Broncos trying to win a game in the waning moments. Maybe Week 2 against Pittsburgh. Wouldn’t that be something?
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