The art of roster building is not always flashy.
It doesn’t always come with a Jaylen Waddle-sized splash or the exhilaration of taking Bo Nix at No. 12 overall in the 2024 draft.
Sometimes, itap meat and potatoes.
Sometimes, itap patience — or something like it.
Sometimes itap waiting 61 picks, trading back four more and then taking a player at what was arguably your deepest position the past two years.
Thatap where the Broncos found themselves Friday night when they used their first pick of the draft at No. 66 on Texas A&M defensive tackle Tyler Onyedim.
Everybody else in the NFL made a selection in the first 56 picks. Denver waited 10 more.
Of course, the Broncos’ big offseason fireworks came more than five weeks ago when they traded their first and third-round picks for Waddle, the explosive wide receiver.
That, combined with their late selections in each round, put them among the teams with the least overall capital in the league.
They committed to waiting it out for No. 62 to roll around. General manager George Paton said last week that Denver had six players it was targeting for its first selection.
That alone took patience.
The Broncos watched all of Thursday night and then saw players at other positions of need come ripping off the board in the middle of the second round. Between picks 43 and 59 alone, four inside linebackers and three tight ends heard their names called.
Then the two picks preceding Denver: Inside linebacker Anthony Hill Jr. to Tennessee, which traded up, and tight end Max Klare to the Los Angeles Rams.
The Broncos were aware the Rams loved Klare, a source told The Post on Friday, so they either did not like him enough to jump in front of L.A. or thought the Rams would look elsewhere.
At that point, Paton and head coach Sean Payton decided to move back, trading No. 62 to Buffalo for Nos. 66 and 182.
In Onyedim, they leaned into a roster belief they often espouse.
“You are always looking for big guys on the offensive and defensive lines,” Paton said last month at the NFL owners meetings in Arizona.
Onyedim is that.
At 6-4 and 292 pounds, Onyedim played four years at Iowa State and then in 2025 for the Aggies. In Denver, he joins All-Pro Zach Allen, veteran D.J. Jones and a room that also features Malcolm Roach, Eyioma Uwazurike, Jordan Jackson and 2025 third-round pick Sai’Vion Jones.
Roach and Uwazurike each are expected to help fill the gap left by John Franklin-Myers, Denver’s lone high-profile free agency departure, but Sai’Vion Jones and Onyedim are the kinds of pieces the Broncos are betting play key roles at some point in the future.
“We typically like to draft high-trait players,” Paton said earlier this month. “Maybe they lack a little bit of polish and itap going to take some development. We’ve done a great job with the coaches in developing these types of players. … Sure, we’d like somebody to come in and start right away, but thatap not always realistic no matter where they’re picked. Itap just hard.
“With the way our team is built now, itap going to be hard to come in and start Day 1.”
That is true of Onyedim, too. His versatility — he called himself “a true d-lineman” capable of playing every spot — is a virtue and in the Broncos’ mind maximizes the chance he’ll find a home somewhere along the front at some point, whether itap in 2026 or beyond.
One source said the club believes Onyedim can play, “across the board.”
They have two players like that, now, that they’ve picked in the third round each of the past two years. They moved up for Jones and back for Onyedim. Each has versatility and traits the Broncos like. Either could be a key for Vance Joseph and defensive line coach Jamar Cain as soon as this fall or either could be insurance while veteran players chew up almost all of the snaps in Denver’s regular rotation.
Either way, the Broncos set themselves up for a draft weekend like this. They may well find flashier help at tight end, running back or linebacker with their now seven slated selections on Saturday. There are starters to be found every year — though clearly at a lower hit rate — in rounds four through seven. Particularly so at the positions that Denver still needs to fortify.
Regardless of what happens over the course of Saturday, Payton, Paton and the players in Denver’s locker room believe the roster is already in a place where it can compete for a Super Bowl.
They made their big splash earlier in the spring. The brass knew it’d be tough to find a player on Day 2 who would step right in and start.
That, Paton said, is particularly true on the defensive line.
“Just going into it, we feel pretty good,” he said a month ago. “We have Sai’Vion and we have our four guys coming back. Our starters and then Eni really came on. Then Sai’vion and Jordan Jackson.”
In the NFL, though, the reality is there is almost no such thing as too much depth on the line of scrimmage.
