PHOENIX — It’s preposterous to think about.
In the 2009 draft, the Broncos and coach Josh McDaniels so badly wanted to select Wake Forest cornerback Alphonso Smith they paid a heavy price to get him. The Broncos made a deal with the Seattle Seahawks. The Broncos got the Seahawks’ No. 37 overall pick in the second round in exchange for one of the Broncos’ first-round picks in the following year’s draft.
That 2010 first-round pick turned out to be No. 14 overall. The Seahawks took Earl Thomas III, who is only the best safety in the NFL. Ouch!
Smith, meanwhile, played his last game two years ago. The Broncos traded him after his rookie season to Detroit, where he played 2 1/2 seasons. Double-ouch!
To be fair, and to be clear, these are swaps of numbers, not players. The Broncos’ traded No. 37 one year for No. 14 next year. The players came later.
Still, it was too much to give up for Smith, a nice guy who didn’t work out. Thomas was unaware of the transaction that brought him to Seattle when I asked him about it Wednesday during the Seahawks’ Super Bowl press conference outside their Arizona Grand hotel. But he expressed his dislike for the Broncos, anyway, if for a different reason.
“Let me tell you something about the Broncos,” Thomas said. “I had just got through benching — this is at the NFL combine, I think I’m 20 years old – and a (Broncos) guy brought me out back. He caught me off guard. He had this personnel sheet and he’s asking me, ‘What is this? What type of personnel?’ I can’t tell him anything. Because I had never learned it. So he was judging me. I’m glad I’m here in Seattle because I don’t think I would have liked it (in Denver.)”
It’s not unusual for scouts, coaches or personnel executives to ask prospective rookies to diagram plays or defenses on the board during the draft process. But perhaps in this case the Broncos could have used a different tact.
“(It was) using numbers and stuff and I didn’t understand it at the time,” Thomas said. “That’s fueling my fire. That’s another chip on my shoulder.”
Perhaps Thomas can redirect his sore feelings from the Broncos to McDaniels, who is now offensive coordinator of the New England Patriots — the Seahawks’ Super Bowl opponent Sunday.
