This one pick is why the Broncos can win two more playoff games.

The 62nd overall selection is khaki pants and plain white t-shirt. There is nothing sexy about waiting until the second day to make a pick. But no player taken at 30th overall would have made receiver Jaylen Waddle’s impact.

So, patience has context. Another luxury pick, however, will be difficult to accept.

Following the best-player-available path is usually correct, but variables become more nuanced during Super Bowl windows. So when the Broncos chose cornerback Jahdae Barron at one of the deepest positions last April, it was immediately questioned.

Barron has the potential to turn into a solid starter, but he wasn’t ready to take away snaps from Riley Moss and Ja’Quan McMillian. And when the Broncos offense needed a boost in the AFC Championship Game, the decision to take Baron, and trade back for R.J. Harvey was hard to stomach with running back TreVeyon Henderson standing on the Patriots’ sideline as a better option.

Here’s the deal. Paton has nailed the second round.

“Our process works,” Paton said.

He drafted Javonte Williams (35th), Nik Bonitto (64th), Marvin Mims Jr. (63) and Harvey (60). Williams started 29 games, Bonitto has finished top nine in Defensive Player of the Year voting twice, Mims is the league’s best returner and Harvey, while struggling as a between-the-tackles runner, led all rookies with 12 touchdowns.

Paton, with expertly defined parameters by coach Sean Payton, needs to pull it off again. He said Thursday that the Broncos are focused on six players in the 45 to 75 range.

It will be hard to find a starter, a testament to Denver’s retooled roster over the past three seasons. But the Broncos need to land a contributor, the type of player who can make a difference in a big game. Or two.

If Texas Tech linebacker Jacob Rodriguez is on the board, the Broncos should turn in the card without hesitation. He could learn under Alex Singleton this season, while also playing snaps in the passing game.

If Notre Dame running back Jadarian Price is available, the Broncos should blow out their hamstrings running to the podium. He provides speed, power, and special teams acumen. And he could spell Dobbins — and even replace him next season — as Harvey remains a weapon in the passing game.

If defensive tackle Caleb Banks falls, the Broncos can provide a soft landing spot. And squinting is not required to see Eli Stowers as a Jimmy Graham flex tight end. The problem is that it would not likely be next season.

The Broncos can reach and win the Super Bowl. With the 62nd pick, they require a player who delivers sooner, not later.

Cut to Chase: The Rockies are the only team in major league history that can deliver an undefeated homestand and go on the road with no momentum. They avoided the bagel trip on Thursday because of Chase Dollander. His average fastball was 99.4 miles per hour with improved command. Time to stop the silliness with the opener and start him.

Nugget logic: It is hard to understand Nuggets fans. They believe this team can win a championship, but feel like a second-round exit is acceptable because of the injuries. They are healthy now. And if someone told you before the season that the reason the Nuggets would lose in the postseason was Peyton Watson’s hamstring, laughter would follow. The Nuggets have enough depth. One of the biggest questions is whether coach David Adelman can get this team to the next step.

Mack the Knife: Nathan MacKinnon has been a wagon all season. The same thinking that will prevent Nikola Jokic from winning MVP will also lead to MacKinnon landing his second Hart Trophy. He is the best player on the best team. Period. End of vote.

Johnny B. Great: The only reason DU landed goalie Johnny Hicks last summer is that Tennessee State, where he originally committed, failed to fund its program. All Hicks did for the Pios was go 16-0-1 and set an NCAA single-season save percentage record at .957. He is diminutive and dominant. “I have always been a small goalie. It doesn’t bother me,” Hicks said.

Sean Keeler: For me, Breece Hall was “it,” but the Jets said at the combine that he’ll get tagged. We know what Harvey can do in space as a receiver, or outside the hash marks, so you’d prefer somebody who can do well what the former UCF star doesn’t. Right now, that’s running against a stacked box and grinding between the tackles. averaging 4.94 yards per tote when everybody knew what was coming. That’s a good hammer to have, especially when Harvey averaged 3.17 against crowded boxes. The obvious answer would be to back a Walton-Penner Brink’s truck into Kenneth Walker III’s driveway. But the trick with tailbacks is getting value on the dollar — and ex-Carolina back Rico Dowdle (4.34 yards per carry vs. stacked boxes) might give you Walker-esque power without a Super Bowl MVP’s price tag.

Renck: Don’t overthink it. The answer is clobbering the Broncos over the head, like, say, the Jacksonville Jaguars did last winter. Etienne boasts 206 yards on 40 carries in two games against Denver. He was the best player on the field in London in 2022, part of a career that includes three seasons eclipsing 1,000 yards rushing and 1,400 in all-purpose yards. And don’t give me the lacking pass protection nonsense. He ranked sixth in blocking efficiency in 2025. His versatility and durability — he has missed six games in four years; Dobbins missed nine last season — make him a fit.

Keeler: Etienne didn’t allow a sack as a pass protector last year. When you don’t want personnel to give away your intent before the snap, a 1,000-yard rusher who can block like a third-down specialist is a ridiculous weapon in a pinch. Here’s the problem: Would the Broncos be willing to get into a bidding war for Etienne’s services? Our old friend Javonte Williams just landed a three-year, $24-million extension from Dallas, for an AAV of $8 million per season. Over the last two years, Etienne has a higher percentage of offensive snaps than Williams (54%), a higher rush-yards-per-game average (52) and a higher rate of rush touchdowns per game (0.28). Do you see the law firm of Payton & Paton forking over $8.5-9 million per year of cap space for a 1A/1B/timeshare back? Because I don’t.

Renck: Sign Breece Hall.That’s where all my emails go. One problem: there will be no Hall pass out of New York. He has an interest in Denver because of his connections to the coaching staff. But all indications are that the Jets will franchise tag Hall. That means he is not an option. And Walker, frankly, is not a three-down back, making his price prohibitive. That leaves Etienne, Tyler Allgeier and Rico Dowdle, another capable pass protector. The Super Bowl window demands a shrewd decision at this position. Give me Etienne, and if not him, Dowdle. And for good measure, draft Indiana’s Roman Hemby in the mid rounds.

Keeler: No love for Kenneth Gainwell, who averaged a Dobbins-esque 4.91 yards per carry against a stacked box for the Steelers last season, and 3.51 per tote vs. stacked boxes with Philly in 2023? I’d take Walker if price were no object, and Etienne works for largely the same reasons. We’re both in the Dowdle camp as a mid-priced option. And I’m absolutely with you when it comes to tossing a rookie in the mix, too. If Nebraska’s Emmett Johnson or Washington’s Jonah Coleman are somehow still on the board early in Day 3, you’d be nuts not to give them at least a sniff.

At one point, as he admitted in early April 2025, Sean Payton accidentally drank out of George Paton’s water bottle while crushing draft tape in the Broncos’ facility in Dove Valley.

Denver’s staff is still a couple of months away from that level of war-room intimacy, a few weeks after the sting of a season-ending loss in the AFC Championship Game. But draft season will officially arrive with the NFL Combine in Indianapolis the week of Feb. 23, where Broncos staffers will get an official evaluation on a 2026 rookie class that has the potential — with the right moves — to help pry open Denver’s Super Bowl window.

This group of draftees will evolve drastically over the next two months, with combine measurements and performance serving as a major launchpad for players’ stock. For now, the Broncos’ needs are set in stone: skill talent, linebacker, and depth. With that in mind, Denver Post beat reporters Parker Gabriel and Luca Evans took an educated spin through Pro Football Focus’s mock-draft simulator to look at the early crop of prospects Denver could target with their seven picks (and two likely additional compensatory picks) in April’s draft.

Here’s how The Post’s initial mock draft shook out. The parameters: no trades, and a couple more discussed fits for Denver at each draft slot.

Round 1, pick No. 30: S Emmanuel McNeil-Warren, Toledo

Oops.

Is the secondary perhaps the smallest area of need on Denver’s current roster? Yes. Would drafting to the secondary in the first round incite a riot from ����apountry, after the Broncos blindsided everyone with Texas cornerback Jahdae Barron in 2025? Possibly. But hear this out.

In this PFF simulation, a host of talented interior-defensive-line fits — Florida’s Caleb Banks, Ohio State’s Kayden McDonald, Texas Tech’s Lee Hunter — went a few picks before Denver’s No. 30 slot. The Rams took Oregon TE Kenyon Sadiq at No. 29, removing one early obvious pass-catching option. That left a potential reach at a receiver or a linebacker, which didn’t feel quite right. Payton organizations haven’t taken a WR in the first round since the Saints picked Brandin Cooks in 2014.

There’s a good Day 1 safety crop available, and McNeil-Warren could be a great value at this spot for Denver. He has great size at 6-foot-2, closes quickly on receivers and was a monster in coverage at Toledo last season: just six catches allowed in 15 targets, according to PFF. Quietly, the Broncos would save themselves $7.4 million in cap room by cutting starting safety Brandon Jones — who suffered an eventual season-ending torn pec in December — and could lose key reserve P.J. Locke to free agency. This is incredibly unsexy, but it makes sense.

Other options considered: WR Omar Cooper Jr., Indiana; WR Chris Bell, Louisville. Cooper Jr. was a stud in 2025 for the national champion Hoosiers, but mainly played slot receiver; the Broncos probably wouldn’t fire on a WR in the first round if they didn’t deem him versatile. The 6-foot-2 Bell fits the Payton mold, but he suffered a torn ACL at the end of the 2025 season.

Round 2, pick No. 62: TE Max Klare, Ohio State

Will Denver move on from Evan Engram and save $3.8 million in cap room? Regardless, this is an incredibly deep TE class, and the Broncos would do well to find quarterback Bo Nix a true matchup threat who can stay on the field in a variety of packages. Since Payton arrived in 2023, Denver’s been consistently split between tight ends that Payton trusts as blockers (Adam Trautman, Nate Adkins) and tight ends he trusts as receivers (Engram, Lucas Krull). The 6-foot-5 Klare could be trusted as both.

Klare racked up 43 catches for 448 yards for a Buckeyes offense that primarily relied on its wide receivers in 2025, and handled run-blocking duties well. He could reasonably play next to Engram in two-tight-end sets if the Broncos hold onto the veteran, or serve as the primary threat if Denver cuts bait.

Other options considered: ILB Jacob Rodriguez, Texas Tech; RB Jadarian Price, Notre Dame. Price is a highly interesting option as a complement to RJ Harvey, more of a traditional between-the-tackles power back who has less value in third-down situations. Rodriguez is one of the best early fits for Denver in this class, but is currently projected to go around the third round. Gabriel and Evans hoped Rodriguez would fall to Denver’s next pick. Regretfully, he was snapped up by Chicago. This was The Post’s biggest mock-draft oops.

Round 3, pick No. 94: RB Kaytron Allen, Penn State

How about a different complement to Harvey? Allen has produced for four straight seasons in a powerhouse program, and popped as a senior: 1,303 rushing yards and 15 touchdowns on 6.2 yards per carry. paints the picture of a running back with good vision who has good ball security and good contact balance — all traits that Payton and Paton value in an RB, and all traits that’d mix well with Harvey’s explosiveness in space.

Other options considered: DL Skyler Gill-Howard, Texas Tech; begging the artificial-intelligence Chicago Bears to trade the rights to Rodriguez. Gill-Howard has major upside as an interior pass-rusher, which could be tantalizing for Denver with the likely free-agent departure of John Franklin-Myers. Gill-Howard, however, stands just 6-foot-1 and is raw on big-time college stats.

Round 4, pick No. 108: G Billy Schrauth, Notre Dame

PFF’s simulator graded this pick as an “F.” But offensive line likely needs to be an area of priority for these Broncos, with tackles Garett Bolles and Mike McGlinchey both on the wrong side of 30 and left guard Ben Powers an obvious cut candidate. The 6-foot-4, 305-pound Schrauth allowed just two pressures in 436 snaps last season at left guard for the Fighting Irish, according to Pro Football Focus, and could be undervalued in the draft after a midseason MCL sprain ended his year. If he tests well at the combine and shows the ability to move and get out in outside-zone schemes, this would look like a good pick.

Other options considered: T Brian Parker II, Duke; T Austin Barber, Florida. Denver could use a potential future starting tackle in this draft. Parker might’ve been the option here after two great seasons at Duke, but he appears to be switching to center as a draft prospect. The 6-foot-6 Barber had an excellent senior season at Florida.

Round 4, pick No. 130: WR Eric McAlister, TCU

This is essentially a thought experiment: what if Denver just drafted Pat Bryant two years in a row? McAlister has the ideal Payton size for a receiver (6-foot-3), just led the Big 12 in receiving with 1,190 yards, and was a big-time blocker at TCU. McAlister , and any Broncos interest here would come down to a determination if his profile is clean.

Other options considered: Nobody

Round 5, pick No. 168: TE Tanner Koziol, Houston

Yes, this is a two-tight-end draft. The Broncos already have a potential pass-catching red-zone weapon in tight end Caleb Lohner, drafted in the seventh round in 2025. But Lohner spent the entire season on the practice squad, and the 6-foot-7 Koziol would be an incredibly good value at this spot. According to PFF, Koziol , and has big-time production at both Ball State and Houston. He’d be a goal-line target for Denver from Day 1.

Other options considered: LB Harold Perkins Jr., LSU; LB Bryce Boettcher, Oregon. Perkins is a natural talent, but will face positional concerns in the NFL as a sort of undersized, hybrid linebacker. The Broncos also have plenty of Ducks ties, and Boettcher is a classic hard-hitter in the Alex Singleton mold.

Round 7, pick No. 246: QB Cole Payton, North Dakota State

Round 7, pick No. 251: OLB Mason Reiger, Wisconsin

Round 7, pick No. 256: CB Collin Wright, Stanford

This is assuming, of course, that the Broncos land those No. 251 and No. 256 comp picks for the 2025 free-agent departures of running back Javonte Williams and punter Riley Dixon. This was throw-dart-at-the-wall time, and Payton is a highly intriguing dart: a 6-foot-3 lefty quarterback who was used in situational packages throughout his North Dakota State tenure. He could be a Taysom Hill-type in the NFL.

“We go back to the start of the race,” Payton said at his end-of-season press conference. “Every 32 teams have to go back and go meet their parents, eat their oranges and get ready to start again.”

“I’d say we’ll be opportunistically aggressive,” Penner said Wednesday.

Before free agency hits in March and the NFL Draft rolls around in April, the organization has plenty of in-house decisions to make with expiring contracts and coaching moves.

Here’s The Denver Post’s complete guide to a key offseason for these Broncos.

Who are the Broncos’ unrestricted free agents?

The Broncos have 11 players whose contracts have expired and are set to hit free agency. Here’s a rundown with age, stats, and intel on their chances of landing back in Denver or elsewhere.

DL John Franklin-Myers (29)

2025 stats: 16 games, 7.5 sacks, 15 QB hits, 25 tackles

���ܳٱ��Ǵǰ�:��Denver has yet to approach Franklin-Myers on an extension, and doesn’t seem likely to start now. Franklin-Myers has anticipated since August that he’ll hit free agency and should be a top defensive-line option on the market. According to a source, Franklin-Myers’ camp is looking at the Miami Dolphins’ 2025 extension for Zach Sieler — three years, $64 million for a highly-productive 29-year-old defensive tackle — as a salary floor. The Broncos have already committed big money to their defensive line. Franklin-Myers is all but gone.

LB Alex Singleton (32)

2025 stats: 16 games, 135 tackles, one sack, three tackles for loss

���ܳٱ��Ǵǰ�:��The NFL can be a cruel world. Singleton earned the Broncos’ 2025 Ed Block Courage Award — the team’s easiest decision of the season — after returning from a torn ACL in 2024 and then returning midseason from testicular cancer surgery. The veteran linebacker had arguably the best year of his career in 2025 and is still a downhill force in the run game and the play-caller of Denver’s defense. The Broncos, though, have yet to pay Singleton and could elect to bring in younger talent this offseason. This could depend if Vance Joseph is back as the defensive coordinator in 2026.

TE Adam Trautman (28)

2025 stats: 17 games, 20 catches, 195 yards, one TD

���ܳٱ��Ǵǰ�:��One of Payton’s favorites here. Trautman has pretty much put up the same stats for six years since beginning his career with Payton in New Orleans in 2020. He wants to be back in Denver and fills a key and trusted role in Payton’s system as a blocker.

S P.J. Locke (28)

2025 stats: 16 games, 16 tackles, 3 passes defended

���ܳٱ��Ǵǰ�:��After serving as a backup most of the year, veteran Locke stepped back into a starting role and was invaluable once safety Brandon Jones went down in December. Across five starts at safety across the regular season and playoffs, he allowed just five catches in 17 targets as the nearest defender in coverage, according to Next Gen Stats. There’s no easy path to a starting job with Talanoa Hufanga and Jones returning, and Locke’s likely to hit the open market.

LB Justin Strnad (29)

2025 stats: 16 games, 58 tackles, 4.5 sacks, eight QB hits

���ܳٱ��Ǵǰ�:��Strnad established himself as possibly the best linebacker on the Broncos’ roster in filling in for both Dre Greenlaw and Alex Singleton across the 2025 season. After two years in spot-starter duty, he’s now fully committed to looking for a starting job somewhere, as he told The Post this week. Will that be in Denver, though? The Broncos will have to clear a path for him to keep him.

RB J.K. Dobbins (27)

2025 stats: 10 games, 772 rushing yards, 5.0 yards per carry, four total touchdowns

���ܳٱ��Ǵǰ�:��The Broncos’ most important skill piece of 2025 nearly made it back in three months from a Lisfranc injury in November. The issue: the running back has played just 47 of a possible 101 regular-season games in his six-year career. Dobbins was an invaluable piece of the team’s locker room, and the Broncos could look to bring him back as a veteran presence despite injury concerns. He went into last year’s offseason trying to bide his time until a team needed him in training camp, and he seems poised for the same position this offseason.

FB Michael Burton (33)

2025 stats: N/A (hamstring injury)

���ܳٱ��Ǵǰ�:��Payton’s trusty fullback signed back in 2025 but didn’t play a single game with a hamstring injury. Payton loyalists always have a place, but there’s no real reason for Denver to bring back Burton.

TE Marcedes Lewis (41)

2025 stats: 5 games, no catches, no yards

���ܳٱ��Ǵǰ�:��The Big Dog first has to decide if he’ll even continue playing in 2026. The Broncos brought in Lewis for his blocking and locker-room presence in 2025, but Lewis won’t be any kind of priority this offseason.

WR Lil’Jordan Humphrey (27)

2025 stats: 7 games, 9 catches, 101 yards, one touchdown

���ܳٱ��Ǵǰ�:��Humphrey signed back with Denver off the Giants’ practice squad midseason, and became an important receiver as Pat Bryant and Troy Franklin got banged up down the stretch. Payton loves Humphrey’s abilities as a blocker. His status will depend on whether another team shows enough interest to pull Humphrey away.

C Sam Mustipher (29)

2025 stats: 1 game

���ܳٱ��Ǵǰ�:��The Broncos brought in Mustipher late in the year after starter Luke Wattenberg went down, and Mustipher played some important late-season snaps. Again, not an immediate priority.

QB Sam Ehlinger (27)

2025 stats: N/A

���ܳٱ��Ǵǰ�:��Ehlinger became an important piece of a tight-knit Broncos QB room in 2025, and predictably never saw action behind Nix and Jarrett Stidham. He’ll likely try to follow quarterbacks coach Davis Webb wherever he goes.

Who are the Broncos’ restricted free agents?

CB Ja’Quan McMillian (25), OL Alex Palczewski (26), RB Jaleel McLaughlin (25), TE Nate Adkins (26), TE Lucas Krull (27), DL Matt Henningsen (26) 

The Broncos have an interesting group of restricted free agents. Remember, with restricted free agents, the team has three tender options — original draft round, second or first — that come with set salaries and give the team the right of first refusal to match any deal another team offers. If Denver doesn’t match, then the signing team must give the draft pick that aligns with the tender.

A first-round tender is a rarely used tool — more on that with McMillian below — though Payton’s Saints did use one with Taysom Hill in 2020 before signing him to a two-year extension in April of that year. Of Denver’s restricted free agents group, only Henningsen (2022 sixth round) was actually drafted, so the original-round tender is mostly out of the equation, too.

Every player in the group has had a role at some point in his career in Denver. So, interesting choices ahead and certainly some extension candidates in the group ranging from modest to blockbuster.

Who are the Broncos’ exclusive-rights free agents?

S Devon Key (27), OLB Dondrea Tillman (27), DL Jordan Jackson (27), RB Tyler Badie (25)

The exclusive rights group should be pretty straightforward. The team has the right to tender these players a one-year, league-minimum contract, which keeps them from negotiating with any other team. Key is a first-team All-Pro special teamer, Tillman is a regular in the OLB rotation, Badie was Denver’s third-down back and Jackson didn’t play a ton but only because of Denver’s terrific defensive line depth. They are all easy tender decisions. That doesn’t guarantee Badie will make the 2026 roster, but an initial tender makes sense.

Who are in-house candidates for contract extensions and restructures or potential cap casualties?

CB Ja’Quan McMillian

McMillian is a restricted free agent, so the Broncos could plop a prime tender on him — he’d be a guarantee for either the first or second-round tender and a bargain at either salary number, both of which will be below $8 million — but say the Broncos put a second-round tender on him. Another team might be willing to give up that pick to sign McMillian long-term. In that case, that other team is doing the Broncos’ negotiating for them and they’d have to match to keep McMillian.

Or, the sides could work out a long-term extension. McMillian, an undrafted free agent in 2022, has played his way to being among the best slot men in the game.

General manager George Paton wouldn’t say what Denver’s exact plan with McMillian is this offseason, but on Tuesday raved about his growth.

Really, the only complicating factor with McMillian has nothing to do with him. Denver drafted Jahdae Barron in the first round in April and also has depth outside behind Pat Surtain II in Riley Moss and Kris Abrams-Draine.

Moss is entering the final year of his rookie contract this fall, while Abrams-Draine has two years left on his.

One thing is certain: Defensive coordinator Vance Joseph considers McMillian an indispensable part of Denver’s defensive success over the past two years.

Veteran OL pair

Right tackle Mike McGlinchey and left guard Ben Powers were among the first free agents signed after Payton was hired in 2023. Both are still playing at a high level. They also currently account for the highest and third-highest 2026 cap numbers on the roster, respectively, and neither has guaranteed money left on his deal. That makes them prime candidates to have their contracts touched in some way, whether it be an extension, reworking or cut.

The Broncos have restructured both deals in the past, ahead of the 2024 season, when they swallowed $53 million of Russell Wilson’s dead money, and weren’t bit by it because both have remained high-quality players.

McGlinchey played maybe the best football of his career. Powers missed two months with a torn bicep but returned down the stretch.

What����ap interesting is that Alex Palczewski could factor in with either. He was McGlinchey’s backup, but then jumped into the lineup when Powers got hurt and played well.

McGlinchey carries a $23.78 million cap number for 2026 and Powers is at $18.16 million.

Powers is a more likely cut candidate than McGlinchey in part because he’d save $8.38 million against the cap and incur $9.78 million in dead cap, a more balanced proposition than McGlinchey ($8.45 million saved, $15.33 million dead).

Both, though, have been considered key pieces to one of Denver’s best units.

Either could be a candidate for a short extension or perhaps a deal where some guarantees are installed in exchange for cap flexibility.

S Brandon Jones

The safety has been a steal since arriving on a three-year, $20 million deal ahead of the 2024 season. His 2025 was cut short by a pectoral injury that required surgery and now he heads into the final year of his contract with a $9.2 million cap hit and no guaranteed money.

Jones will be 28 when training camp starts and should have a lot of good football in front of him. An extension makes sense this offseason if the Broncos think they can fit it into their longer-range planning.

Expiring rookie contracts

A couple of key ones here in Moss ($3.85 million cap hit) and wide receiver Marvin Mims Jr. ($6.01 million). They’re each relatively modest cap numbers and Denver may well let both play out the 2026 season — or revisit on the bye week next year, as the club just did with Wattenberg in November. Still, they’re interesting players generally speaking and also contractually.

Underwhelming free agent signings

It would be going too far to call either tight end Evan Engram or inside linebacker Dre Greenlaw a bust, but neither veteran 2025 free agent signing had a big year in his first with the Broncos.

Engram had 40 catches and played just 42% of snaps. He’d never been under 67% play time in eight previous NFL seasons. Greenlaw dealt with multiple injuries from April through December, collected 43 tackles in eight games and acknowledged after the season that the transition to Denver from San Francisco was “tough.”

Each could well be back next year. Cutting Greenlaw would save $6.02 million on the cap and incur $4.33 million dead.

Engram is a steeper consideration. The Broncos could save $3.8 million but would incur $10.33 million dead. If they cut him and applied a post-June 1 designation, they could spread the hit out over two years, save $6.47 million on the 2026 cap and take $7.67 million of the dead cap hit in 2026.

How does the Broncos’ draft outlook shape up?

Denver could’ve certainly used Devaughn Vele in the AFC title game. But as they head into April, their preseason trade of Vele to New Orleans looks quite pretty. The Broncos picked up a key extra fourth-round pick in that trade, and now have significant capital for draft season. Here’s a current rundown of their expected picks:

1st round, pick No. 30

2nd round, pick No. 62

3rd round, pick No. 94

4th round, pick No. 108 (from Saints)

4th round, pick No. 130

5th round, pick No. 168

7th round, pick No. 246

The Broncos could also gain a couple more late-round comp picks for losing RB Javonte Williams and punter Riley Dixon in last year’s free agency.

“We have five picks in the first four rounds, and we could get two compensatory, which would give us nine,” general manager George Paton said Tuesday. “I always talk about flexibility. We’re going to have all sorts of flexibility.”

Where will they apply that flexibility? There’s a world of draft season left to unfold, but one thing is clear: this is a receiver-heavy draft class. NFL’s Daniel Jeremiah ranked 11 wideouts in his and the Broncos clearly need some pass-catching help. They could also look to bolster the interior defensive line (with Franklin-Myers’ expected departure), the offensive line (with some expensive veterans in Garett Bolles, Mike McGlinchey and Ben Powers) and the linebacker room.

What are the Broncos’ staff needs, and expected changes?

Sean Payton appears to have a changing of the guard brewing in his offensive meeting room.

Offensive coordinator Joe Lombardi: Fired. Senior offensive assistant Pete Carmichael: Off to Buffalo to be offensive coordinator there.

Let����ap take the offensive room first.

It����ap also probably worth pointing out that Payton brought former passing game coordinator John Morton back to consult for Denver’s playoff run after he was fired as Detroit����ap offensive coordinator.

Payton, regardless of how those top spots in the offensive meeting room shake out, will have different and likely younger voices around him.

On the defensive side, the Broncos appear poised to get coordinator Vance Joseph back. There surprisingly has been no landing spot for him among the 10 head coaching vacancies and the final two still open look ticketed elsewhere.

The Broncos safety lined up near the line of scrimmage on first-and-10 in the second quarter last week against Houston.

To his left were inside linebackers Alex Singleton and Dre Greenlaw.

Denver put eight in the box against a run look from the Texans, who had back-up quarterback Davis Mills in the game.

Hufanga started to rotate out toward the middle of the field just before the snap.

Then his instincts kicked in.

Mills playfaked to running back Woody Marks. Singleton and Greenlaw both flowed hard toward the run action.

Hufanga did not.

He saw what was happening, sprinted clear across the field — from outside his right hash to the left-side numbers — as Mills booted out. Mills dumped the ball off to tight end Harrison Bryant and Hufanga stopped him in his tracks for 2 yards.

What might have been a wide-open catch-and-run went for naught.

This sort of play is once again a common occurrence for Hufanga, the 2022 All-Pro who battled injuries the past two years with San Francisco but has reestablished himself as one of the best safeties in the business over his first half-season in Denver.

He’s not just doing it as a big-hitter, either. He’s transitioned smoothly from knowing only the 49ers’ defensive scheme in the NFL to defensive coordinator Vance Joseph’s man and match-heavy pass defense, he’s picked up a voluminous system, and he’s made plays from the backfield to the back end each week.

“He’s the ultimate eraser,” Joseph said Tuesday.

He’s doing a little bit of everything for the Broncos, too.

Always a forceful player against the run, Hufanga has also found himself lined up one-on-one with Colts receiver Michael Pittman in the slot. He’s played as the lone safety in the secondary above Denver’s aggressive third-down looks. He’s played in high zones and low zones. Lined up out wide, pressed on Chargers tight end Tyler Conklin. So on and so forth.

“Watching his tape in San Fran, he wasn’t asked to do a bunch of single-high coverage as far as seams or man-on-tight-end,” Joseph said. “… I was surprised in training camp. I watched him move around and cover guys, and it was surprising. Because he’s a big man. Not a small person at all. But he’s a twitchy guy who can really jump and run. So, his coverage stuff has been no issues for us.

“It����ap been really a blessing to have his range over the top of zones. I mean, he’s touched two balls in two games. He’s dropped ‘em both — gotta catch those footballs. But his range is apparent in the back-end. That I didn’t see in San Fran.”

The Broncos, though, believed Hufanga could learn a new system and play in a more all-around way. They’re different players, but Denver made a similar bet in free agency a year earlier with Brandon Jones.

Now they’ve got a pair of safeties who were seen as good players in particular molds but have blossomed into an interchangeable pair.

Broncos secondary coach Jim Leonhard never saw Hufanga in person in college, but he was the defensive coordinator at Wisconsin when Hufanga was putting together a stellar run at USC.

“With (Hufanga), it goes back to then and when he was really young in the NFL and was an All-Pro early in his career,” Leonhard said. “You’re like, ‘Ok, let me watch him and see how he plays.’ He’s just so fun to watch because as a former safety, as a former defensive coordinator, you watch him and you’re like. ‘OK, you can win with this.’ In a lot of ways.

“He makes plays in the pass game, makes plays in the run game. Finesse, physicality, you name it, and it shows up on the tape. That gets you really, really excited as a coach and as a fan of the game.”

Tape and data through Denver’s first 10 games show all of that and more. Repeatedly and consistently.

Against Los Angeles, Hufanga was the single-high safety, saw Ladd McConkey use a rub route to separate from Riley Moss and pull away over the middle, read quarterback Justin Herbert����ap eyes and closed 10 yards of space to break the pass up.

Against Houston, he shuffled out into a low zone, locked on to Marks and then undercut what should have been an interception.

Against the Raiders, he blasted tight end Michael Mayer at the line of scrimmage, standing him up and disrupting the timing of a tight end screen that ended in an incompletion.

He’s chased down touchdown-saving tackles. He made a heck of a play against Javonte Williams and Dallas earlier this year, once again bailing out of a rotation toward the deep middle to put his foot in the ground and calmly tackle a perfectly set up counter for a 4-yard gain.

“Anything in the run game or pass game that kind of pops and kind of gets loose, he gets it down for us,” Joseph said. “That����ap the mark of a great safety. He’s got great size, great range in both run and pass game. He’s a guy that����ap playing fast.”

The past two weeks, everybody’s had more coverage responsibility playing without star cornerback Pat Surtain II in uniform. In that span, according to Next Gen Stats, Hufanga’s been targeted six times and allowed two catches for 4 yards.

Entering Week 10, NGS had him allowing 0.1 yards per coverage snap, the fewest of any player in the NFL with at least 100 such snaps, and charged him with 43 total receiving yards on 18 targets. That’s in addition to racking up 36 tackles against the run, second-most of any safety in football.

“I just trust in Vance,” Hufanga said Thursday night. “Whatever he asks me to do, I’m going to do. I think that����ap the cool thing about it is there’s no nerves when you’re lined up against a receiver and you’re one-on-one. You learn that, oh, you’ve got the hard down. There’s a lot of guys that have the hard down. We ask Pat to do a lot. When Pat����ap out there, he’s covering the No.1 guy the whole game sometimes. It����ap like, who am I to be scared on a down when I’ve got to cover a receiver?

“So, I’m so thankful to have the guys that we do and the rush that we do because that helps me on my timing, too. Very different than San Fran, I’ll tell you that, but I’m very blessed to be here.”

It����ap a very different system from San Francisco, but Hufanga’s production has returned to what it looked like at the height of his powers there.

The 2021 first-round pick through 10 games this fall is on pace for 119 tackles (70 solo), both of which would outpace his production in 2022 (97 and 66, respectively). He’s already matched his career best with two sacks and nine quarterback pressures, including a fourth-and-5 blast past Raiders running back Raheem Mostert for a 9-yard sack and turnover on downs in the second quarter.

He’s had his hands on three passes the past four weeks and hasn’t come down with any of them, so the Broncos will gladly take more ball production — all seven of Hufanga’s interceptions came across 2022-23 in San Francisco — but overall they’ve got everything they could have expected from the 25-year-old safety.

“There is a physicality to him and then there’s a leadership skill-set to him — and anticipation,” head coach Sean Payton said Tuesday. “You guys have met him now and visited with him. He’s unique. He brings so much to the team aside from his skill set.

“Those are the players we are looking for, and we got a good one there.”

And run hard.

With the Raiders near midfield on a crucial third down on Thursday night, Tillman — an increasingly important component of Vance Joseph’s Broncos defense — started to creep in on quarterback Geno Smith from the outside. Running back Ashton Jeanty flared out from the backfield, though, and Tillman backpedaled to catch up. Smith’s delivery to the rookie Jeanty popped right off his hands, did an end-over-end parabola and fell directly into Tillman’s waiting arms.

The 6-foot-4, 247-pound outside linebacker then cradled the rock in his right arm, turned upfield like a receiver, and flashed right past a would-be Raiders tackler on a 23-yard return.

“Look at him gallop!” .

The interception leader on a Broncos defense approaching historically great status? Tillman, a player who didn’t receive a single Division I offer out of high school, played Division II ball at Indiana University of Pennsylvania and was discovered by scout Ish Seisay in the UFL.

Twice in the past three weeks, Tillman has electrified ����apountry with athleticism that flipped the field. He put Javonte Williams in the dirt and sped for 36 yards on a pick of Dak Prescott in Week 8 against the Cowboys.

Social media fired off a slew of jokes . Really, this is only a sliver of a joke. Because Tillman was quick enough to play tight end in high school.

“He would’ve been an undersized tight end,” Tillman’s high school coach Jason Allen told The Denver Post on Friday. “Could he have done it? Oh, yeah.

“I mean, when we would do blocking drills, he would run people off the football.”

In an alternate universe, there’s a world in which Virginia’s Potomac Falls High ran a one-tight-end system in the mid-2010s under Allen. In an alternate universe, Tillman could’ve switched over from the defensive line and taken a different collegiate path. But Potomac Falls already had a good tight end, Allen said, and needed more help on the defensive front. So Tillman stuck there.

This didn’t stop Allen from tossing Tillman in at tight end in short-yardage or red-zone situations, though. And if Tillman had the ball in his hands in high school, there were two certainties: He’d either “run you over, or run by you,” Allen said.

“He’s kind of sneaky fast and quick,” Allen said. “You don’t think so. But boy, he’s on you so quick – you thought it would’ve been different. And then he could put a move on you, and you’re like, ‘How does this guy move his hips so well, and has such quick feet?’”

This current reality is working out just fine for the Broncos. After a first year in Denver thriving as a pass-rusher in limited time (five sacks in 12 games), Tillman is playing a key role in Joseph’s edge rotation. Despite a profile as a power-rusher — a “finisher,” as Joseph called him in training camp — Tillman has spent considerably more time against the run and in coverage than he did as a rookie.

It’s paying off. The cornerback group is “kinda upset” with Tillman, he joked, because the outside linebacker is outpacing all of them in takeaways.

“That came out of nowhere,” Tillman said Thursday.

Tillman came out of nowhere to star at IUP and came out of nowhere to win a few rings in the UFL for the Birmingham Stallions. He has also come out of nowhere in Denver. His role should continue to grow after fellow reserve OLB Jonah Elliss suffered a hamstring injury against the Raiders on Thursday.

“The story is not done unless you want it to be done,” Allen said. “And I think that����ap the beauty of him.”

Denver’s come back from trailing in the fourth quarter four of the past five weeks. Improbably, Denver is now 4-0 when it trails entering the fourth quarter and 3-2 when leading. Quarterback Bo Nix has at least something to do with that.

The Broncos have already had four games decided on a last-second field goal attempt, and their defense has held four of nine opponents without a touchdown this year.

After yet another wild finish, here are 7 thoughts on the game and on the team’s status heading into a short week and a Thursday night home game vs. the Raiders.

1. The Broncos played their worst special teams game of the year and have problems that go beyond just one player or scheme. A major turnaround is needed.

Denver head coach Sean Payton deferred any first-blush analysis of two critical special teams errors for the Broncos on Sunday.

He’s not going to like what he sees on either.

He will wonder how it����ap possible that when he laid out the keys to victory for his team early in the week, he specifically mentioned Houston defensive lineman Denico Autry’s “rare” ability to block kicks. Later in the week, he told reporters that field goal protection had been a major point of emphasis.

And yet the first time Wil Lutz lined up for a 51-yard field goal in the first quarter, Autry stormed virtually untouched between Payton’s starting right guard Quinn Meinerz and right tackle Mike McGlinchey and penetrated so far into the backfield he looked like he’d been invited.

Payton will wonder, too, what practice squad receiver Michael Bandy was doing when he went to a knee as a fieldable punt bounced in front of him, hit his facemask and bounded into the waiting arms of Houston cornerback Jaylin Smith.

It took a sack from Malcolm Roach and Dondrea Tillman to keep the cost of that mistake to three points in the final 39 seconds of the first half.

Denver is fortunate that the sequence didn’t result in not only a touchdown but also a more serious injury to All-Pro defensive tackle Zach Allen.

The $102 million man took a wicked shot to the ribs from running back Woody Marks — it turned out he mostly just had the wind knocked out of him — on the ensuing set of plays when the Broncos defense should never have been on the field.

Perhaps all the more aggravating on the Bandy muff: Denver trusts the veteran receiver — staple of the club’s practice squad the past three seasons — but his services were only required in this game because of a communication failure that led to a fourth-quarter concussion for All-Pro return man Marvin Mims Jr. last week when the Broncos were beating Dallas by 20.

Not only that, but Payton was perfectly comfortable providing at least one piece of information about his special teams units after Sunday’s win: Those communication problems persisted in Texas.

“My concern was just the late subs; it was a little bit sloppy in the kicking game,” Payon said. “We’ll get that cleaned up or we’ll find somebody else that can do it.”

Payton, a source indicated after the game, was talking about personnel rather than special teams coordinator Darren Rizzi, despite the fact that he phrased it as “someone” rather than multiple someones.

Still, it was just Friday that Payton defended his long-time New Orleans lieutenant when the Mims fiasco once again came up.

“No, we’re good. We’re good,” Payton said then. “Darren’s been outstanding. Next question. Next good question.”

Sunday was anything but outstanding across Rizzi’s return and coverage units.

In addition to the blocked field goal and muffed punt, the Broncos committed two penalties for 25 total yards in punt coverage — a JL Skinner hold and a Mitch Fraboni personal foul for a late hit out of bounds.

They also gave up a 45-yard punt return to rookie Jaylin Noel.

“The thing that was troubling me a little bit was we went into it wanting to play as much of the game on their side of the field and I felt, in the kicking game, we didn’t do enough to leverage the field position battle,” Payton said. “Defensively, fortunately, we held up. If you really paid attention to the game, I felt like our drives were starting to the far right or left and their drives were starting more towards midfield, and, fortunately, our defense took care of that.”

The Broncos, of course, have still found a way to win six straight games and are tied for the best record in the AFC at 7-2.

But they’re going to have a tough time winning bigger games later in the season — like, say, against Kansas City in mid-November at Empower Field — if they continue on this path of special teams being an anchor rather than a buoy.

Here’s a non-exhaustive list of problems the Broncos have had this year:

Week 1: A 71-yard kick return to set up a late-half field goal for Tennessee.

Week 2: The “leverage” penalty. Not much more needs to be said there, though the fact that the players didn’t communicate well on alignment and assignment feels more on-brand with each passing week.

Week 3: A 33-yard punt return for Chargers return man Derius Davis.

Week 6: A 72-yard punt return for Kene Nwangwu in London and a minus-19 differential on starting field position following kickoffs against 2024 Broncos special teams assistant Chris Banjo.

Week 8: The late-game Mims concussion after a communication failure.

Only the leverage penalty directly impacted a Broncos loss, but Payton likes to tell his team all the time that they’ll be playing in bigger games in the future.

Any of those errors or any from the litany of issues Sunday in Houston can be the difference between winning a division or traveling for the first round of the playoffs. They can be the difference between advancing in January or going home. Reaching goals or falling short.

When Payton says they’ll get the problems fixed or find people who can, well, the clock’s ticking. J.T. Gray, whom Rizzi called the best cover man he’s coached in 30 years, was active for the first time Sunday and left the game with a hamstring injury.

There’s not a long line of players Denver can turn to on its roster. Every player active for the game besides No. 2 Jarrett Stidham saw time Sunday in Houston. Some young players who’d been healthy scratches earlier in the year, like OLB Que Robinson, were up for this game. So, unless the Broncos have been playing guys in the wrong spots, there’s not a clear path to a turnaround outside of playing much cleaner and much more effectively.

Nobody’s coming to the rescue for Rizzi’s groups. It����ap on him and his players to engineer a major turnaround and do so quickly. The units taken as a whole have dropped off considerably from where coordinator Ben Kotwica had them last year, and Payton fired him after the season — and let Banjo leave for the New York Jets, where he’s got a bad team playing well in the kicking game.

If Denver can’t get it going soon, Payton’s going to be faced with the prospect of at least considering going beyond personnel changes to examining the staff.

2. The Broncos have a 1-2 punch at running back that can power a run — as long as Payton doesn’t stray too far from them.

Quarterback Bo Nix opened his afternoon with a wide incompletion to receiver Courtland Sutton.

After that, he handed the ball to J.K. Dobbins three straight times for 24 yards.

Pretty good recipe, right?

Well, Dobbins had just one carry the rest of the first half and had six carries for 22 yards when the Broncos found themselves trailing 15-7 after three quarters.

That����ap three carries for minus-2 yards over a span of seven-plus possessions.

At halftime, Nix had 17 drop-backs, and Denver had run the ball six times total.

“I don’t even remember the numbers,” Payton said of Denver’s first-half splits.

Dobbins didn’t finish with his most prolific game, but he did end up with 15 carries for 61 yards. Rookie RJ Harvey added five catches for 51, including a 27-yard wheel route touchdown.

Ultimately, the pair accounted for 115 offensive yards.

“That 1-2 combination is nice to have as a coach,” Payton said.

This is Payton’s wheelhouse. Throughout his tenure in New Orleans, he had running backs who could impact the game in multiple ways.

As he prepared for the Texans’ vaunted defense this week, he thought back to Denver’s 2023 loss here and how powerless quarterback Russell Wilson and running backs Javonte Williams and Jaleel McLaughlin were to make Houston’s quarters-based defense sweat.

“We used to gut these defenses,” he remembered thinking Sunday. “But you’ve got to have the right people.”

Consider how many times over the past two-plus seasons Payton must have had similar thoughts in one fashion or another.

Now he’s got a duo in the backfield that can be the metronome for this offense. In fact, it����ap a pretty easy argument that they must be.

Denver’s got depth at receiver, but still not the kind of talent that gives opposing coordinators long nights and indigestion while preparing.

Dobbins was third in the NFL in rushing yards entering play and is now on pace for 1,312 yards this season. That would represent the eighth-best single-season mark in franchise history and double as the most by a Broncos back since Clinton Portis’ 1,591-yard 2003 campaign.

Harvey, meanwhile, has four touchdowns in his past 14 touches, and he’s done it in a variety of ways and from a variety of alignments. He’s scored on wheel routes and last week off a wheel route-wrinkle set up weeks before. Once he starts to master the choice route in the middle of the field, he’s got a chance to be a real difference-maker.

And give Payton credit for this: Even when Denver gets away from the running game early, one of the major differences this season compared to previous is his ability and willingness to get back to it later in games, regardless of score. That paid off in a major way Week 5 at Philadelphia, and it helped Denver again Sunday, though in more modest numbers.

The Broncos have put away leads by running the ball, but they’ve also got back into games with a hearty dose of the ground game, too.

That����ap a good place to be and to build from at the season’s unofficial midpoint. But it����ap also a reminder not to stray too far from the budding dynamic backfield duo in the first place.

3. As the Broncos get inside linebacker Dre Greenlaw fully up to speed, the passing game will be more complex to settle into than the run game. But Greenlaw is showing signs of being a difference-maker in both departments.

The Broncos started to take the reins off inside linebacker Dre Greenlaw in his second game of the season.

Greenlaw played just 21 snaps in Week 7 against the New York Giants, then had to sit out last week due to a one-game suspension.

He played throughout Denver’s win against Houston and made a series of impact plays along the way.

In fact, on the Broncos’ first goal-line stand from the 1-yard line, Greenlaw was credited with a partial tackle on all three snaps.

What will take a little more time is fitting Greenlaw into the passing game, though that appeared to be better this week than it was against the Giants, too.

Against New York, Denver’s communication between the inside linebackers and safeties was notably more demonstrative when Greenlaw was on the field.

The Giants averaged 11.5 yards per pass attempt with Greenlaw on the field compared to 7.1 when he wasn’t. That����ap not all on him, of course. It just helps illustrate how critical communication is in general.

“Obviously, you’ve got to be physically capable, but especially when you’re a match team like we are in coverage, communicating and passing things off is very important,” fellow inside linebacker Justin Strnad said.

Greenlaw’s work in run support, though, has been impressive.

The Giants ran 10 times for 16 yards when Greenlaw was on the field.

He had eight tackles against the Texans — a sack of C.J. Stroud and seven stops against running plays.

Greenlaw said during the week that he thinks the challenge of getting into the flow of communicating on the field has been smooth.

“It����ap not much. I’ve been in training camp, OTAs, the whole 9 yards,” he said. “I’ve heard every practice, every team meeting, every meeting I’m in. It����ap pretty simple.”

Another potential helper against Houston: The Broncos played less man and match coverage with Pat Surtain II out with a pectoral injury.

Regardless, coaches and teammates say he’s been a quick study.

“Mentally, he’s been awesome,” defensive coordinator Vance Joseph said during the practice week. “He’s been locked in, he’s been studying. Even when he wasn’t practicing, he’s taking the walkthrough reps. He’s taken every walkthrough rep. So mentally, he’s fine. Physically, obviously, he needs more reps to kind of get his football air. He was a little tired (his first game back).

“It����ap good having him back. Having your best players back is always a good thing. He’s back on his schedule to kind of just keep moving forward and playing good football and keep practicing and keep going as a player.

“To have a chance to play back-to-back weeks is going to be key for Dre.”

Given how Sunday went, any time Greenlaw’s on the field going forward should mean good things for Denver’s defense.

4. Alex Palczewski gutted it out Sunday and had a quiet day — a perfectly fine outcome for a sick offensive lineman

The Broncos’ left guard put forth a performance Sunday that wasn’t for the faint of heart.

‘Palcho’ was added to Denver’s injury list Saturday with an illness and at that point was listed as questionable.

He came out for warmups Sunday morning after most of the other offensive linemen and clearly did not feel well.

The third-year man out of Illinois, who has solidified the Broncos’ situation at left guard the past two weeks, found an open part of the field out around midfield and warmed up with nobody else around him.

At one point, he got a drink from a water bottle that a trainer gave him. When he handed it back, vice president of player health and performance Beau Lowery came over and grabbed the water bottle Palczewski used. A trainer took it over to the sideline, put tape on it and presumably labeled it as Palcho’s. From then through the rest of his warmup, he only used that water bottle.

Then the game started, and you wouldn’t have known the Illinois native was sick.

He played every snap and was once again a solid member of the Broncos’ front line.

Palczewski has made a remarkably smooth transition from playing mostly tackle and exclusively on the right side to being a starting interior player on the left.

He joked last week that the last time he played on the left side of an offensive line was during “the Obama administration,” meaning either his senior year of high school or his freshman year of college.

He got out of the locker room quickly Sunday after the win here, but the bet here is he’d be happy to go another couple of presidents before trying to play feeling the way he did for this one.

5. Dave Logan called his 600th game as a broadcaster on Sunday, complete with balloons and a big dose of appreciation for an incredible career — well, careers — in the game.

The long-time voice of the Broncos had a defensive struggle and yet another dramatic win for his 600th career game in the radio booth.

Dave Logan, who is, of course, also a former NFL player and the head coach at powerhouse Cherry Creek High School, called his 600th game as either the play-by-play man or color commentator Sunday in Houston.

“Honestly, I didn’t even realize it was 600 until my producer Alan Jackson brought it up,” Logan told The Denver Post outside his booth three hours before kickoff Sunday morning.

“… I’ve just been blessed to have this job for a long time — regular season and postseason only. They don’t count player stats for the preseason, so we’re not counting those games for the announcers.”

Logan does a pregame segment with Sean Payton after practices on Friday. This week, Payton finished up his news conference with reporters and then pit-stopped on his way to speak with Logan to grab a football commemorating Logan’s 600th game.

The veteran head coach, who has manned an NFL sideline for 302 regular and postseason games as a head coach, had a joke ready, too.

“It completely surprised me,” Logan said. “He walked out and he goes, ‘600 (freaking) games? That doesn’t count the games you’ve played in?’”

Indeed, it does not.

Logan recently surpassed 350 wins as a high school coach, too, and is past 400 coached overall. That means he’s been on the sideline or in the booth for more than 1,000 football games in his career.

Then there are the 121 career games played (119 regular season), 263 catches, 4,250 yards and 24 receiving touchdowns over nine NFL seasons, the first eight with Cleveland and the final with Denver.

Perhaps even more impressive, the Broncos broadcaster has never missed a game in the booth or on the sideline despite coaching Friday nights and then calling games on Sundays — or Saturdays, Mondays or Thursdays.

“You don’t realize the power of the microphone,” Logan said. “When you’re calling a game, it����ap almost like you’re calling a game sitting at home. …

“You sit in that booth, and it can get pretty cozy. You don’t think about who’s listening to the broadcast. But the longer you do it, there are reminders. Whether you’re in line at a coffee shop or at the gas station or whatever. The Broncos are such a powerful force in the Rocky Mountain region. People will remember a certain game or a certain call, or they’ll just want to talk football.

“There are still some of a certain vintage that will remember that I played, but there are certainly more that just know me as the voice of the Broncos.”

The wins are stacking up fast, too, between Cherry Creek and the Broncos. Two per week for the past several weeks. A remarkable career that just keeps on rockin’ and rollin’.

6a. Both games against New York teams earlier this season felt like trap games for the Broncos. The actual trap game is Thursday night.

Denver is riding high on a six-game winning streak. They opened as 10-point favorites at home Thursday night against Las Vegas.

After that, the Broncos will have 10 days to prepare for what, either way, will be a massive home game Nov. 16 against Kansas City.

Still, Zach Allen said he doesn’t think complacency is much of a risk for this group.

“There’s so much that we can be better on, even today just thinking back on it right now,” Allen told The Post. “It’s a good group because we’re not complacent with it. You’d think that after some of these wins you’d see a lull, but we’re good.”

Sean Payton said Monday will be “all about recovery.”

If the Broncos hold any practice that isn’t technically a walkthrough, it’ll be Tuesday. That����ap how Payton has structured the week leading into a Thursday night game previously.

“We’ve learned a little bit more over the years,” Payton said. “In Dallas, you play everything Thanksgiving Thursday, and our first year there with (head coach Bill Parcells), we were meeting. We went home (the Sunday before) and met Sunday night, whatever we did, it wasn’t right.

“I think we’ve learned a little bit more about the time from this game and how we have to get these guys mentally and physically recovered from it. And then, fortunately, we’re playing at home (Thursday).”

Denver only plays twice between flying home from Houston and traveling to Washington for a game Nov. 30.

If they play their cards right, that can be an advantage even though they’re on a big winning streak at the moment.

“We’ve had good-looking games. We’ve had bad-looking games,” Bo Nix said. “I’ve obviously not been on many teams, but this is a good win streak, and we’ve won in many different forms and fashions, so I do think the expectations are different. I think we understand what it feels like to have confidence.

“… It����ap hard to win on the road in this league. It����ap hard to do it continuously; we’re just finding ways to do it. We found another way today.”

Any team can come out and play poorly any week — the Broncos have done that this year and mostly found ways to win anyway. If they come out humming Thursday night and hammer the Raiders, it’ll be as sure a sign as any that the group has forged a mentally tough attitude.

6b. With Indianapolis’ loss to Pittsburgh on Sunday, Denver is now tied for the best record in the AFC. The Colts would still hold the tiebreaker because of their head-to-head win in Week 2, but it����ap a pretty remarkable run for Denver after falling to 1-2 on back-to-back walk-off road losses.

6c. The AFC West standings through nine weeks:

Denver: 7-2

L.A. Chargers: 6-3

Kansas City: 5-4

Las Vegas: 2-6

7a. The Broncos got dominated Sunday in terms of time of possession. Houston had the ball for more than 21 minutes in the first half and 34:36 overall.

Over Denver’s opening 11 possessions, the team had exactly one that lasted longer than 2 minutes, 57 seconds. That was an eight-play, 61-yard touchdown drive spanning the end of the third quarter and the beginning of the fourth.

Bo Nix and company saw their opening drive end in a missed field goal, then punted seven times and turned the ball over on eight of their next 10 possessions.
The difference, of course: They also found the end zone twice while the Texans settled for field goals throughout regulation.

Against Houston’s dynamic defense, though, the Broncos failed to get a first down on six possessions and picked up just one on two more.

7b. The Broncos defense put together one of its most impressive performances of the season given the circumstances. They were continually put in adverse situations and yet didn’t give up a touchdown in the game.

They were particularly dominant in the red zone and on third down.

The Texans went 0-of-3 in the red zone and 3-of-17 on third down.

After C.J. Stroud led Houston to a pair of third-down conversions to start the game, the Texans went just 1-of-15.

Continuing the trend: The Broncos stopped the Texans on their final nine third downs.

With Stroud knocked out of the game in the first half with a concussion, Davis Mills and Houston’s offense went 0-of-4 on third down in the fourth quarter, including an incompletion with 1:02 left that set up Denver’s final possession of the game and eventually Wil Lutz’s game-winning field goal.

Here’s The Denver Post’s stock report from the slaughter. The “stock down” section was hard this week.

Stock up

Alex Singleton: Let’s get this out of the way. There’s no world, even when Dre Greenlaw returns, in which Greenlaw suddenly supplants Singleton as the mike linebacker in Denver’s defense or Justin Strnad starts over him. Singleton’s simply too important as the lead communicator of the Broncos’ defense — wearing the green dot — for coordinator Vance Joseph to yank off the field.

Beyond that, Singleton has been good for two of his last three games. He’s missed just three tackles in his last five games, and flew around for 11 tackles on Sunday. Cowboys tight end Jake Ferguson came into Week 8 leading all NFL tight ends in catches, and didn’t finish with a single reception against the Broncos. Singleton played a role in that.

Quinn Meinerz: How about not one or two, but three pancakes? On one play? Meinerz had been good but not �����������Բ���start to 2025. On Sunday, though, the 2024 All-Pro version was back. He single-handedly took out three Cowboys defenders on a 40-yard touchdown toss to rookie RB RJ Harvey, and allowed just one pressure on Bo Nix in 35 pass-blocking snaps. Meinerz slipped and fell on a first-quarter run by J.K. Dobbins, got up, and sealed off the Cowboys’ Kenneth Murray Jr. to free up Dobbins for a 21-yard gain. It was a masterclass.

Skill dudes blocking: First, a tremendous quote from Broncos rookie Pat Bryant, asked about his affinity for run-blocking:

“I told all the running backs — ‘If y’all ever want to bounce it any way, just make sure y’all find 13,'” Bryant said postgame, “‘and I’ll make sure y’all boys get to the box.'”

rookie WR Pat Bryant on his blocking:

“I told all the running backs, if y’all ever want to bounce it any way, just make sure y’all find 13, and I’ll make sure y’all boys get to the box.”

— Luca Evans (@bylucaevans)

Bryant made sure Harvey got there on his 40-yard TD, sealing off Cowboys DE Sam Williams. It was part of an excellent day for Bryant and the Broncos’ skill players in the blocking game, as tight end Adam Trautman and receiver Trent Sherfield came away excited after opening up a 7-yard hole for Dobbins on the Broncos’ first play of the game. Denver’s screen game worked much better, too, and Dobbins picked up Cowboys safety Markquese Bell perfectly on a blitz to give Bo Nix enough time in the first quarter to laser his first TD strike to Troy Franklin. Lots of great tape.

Dondrea Tillman, Denver’s RB4: First off, the play Tillman made in the fourth quarter in coverage was incredible — a 6-foot-4, 247-pound man diving to pick off an underneath route from Dak Prescott to seal the Broncos’ win. But the runback? Oh, baby. Tillman had enough wherewithal to recognize nobody had touched him, get up, and start sprinting his way to the sideline. Then he bounced off Javonte Williams’ attempt at a tackle and kept chugging for 38 yards. Payton dialed up a goal-line play for Garett Bolles a couple of weeks ago; what’s to stop him from throwing Tillman in there at the goal line at some point?

Stock down

Darren Rizzi: With the Broncos up 20 points with less than five minutes remaining in the fourth quarter, Denver inexplicably had Marvin Mims Jr. in on a kickoff return. He got popped in the back of the head, suffered a concussion, and is now in protocol. Head coach Sean Payton explained Monday that his special teams coordinator was trying to send in Tyler Badie for Mims as the primary returner, but “somehow the communication failed,” and Badie went in for RJ Harvey. This is now the second massive special-teams miscommunication through eight weeks, including Week 2’s leverage incident, and this one might’ve actually led to an injury. Whoever’s fault this was, it’s not a great look for Rizzi.

����apounty narratives: Nearly every lingering issue the Broncos have got fixed on Sunday, at least for a game. Singleton was excellent in coverage. The Broncos held running backs and tight ends in check in the passing game. Riley Moss had four pass deflections in his hardest matchup of the season, and was integral to Denver’s win, . Sean Payton’s screen game was popping. Bo Nix hit on three deep balls. The Broncos’ top three draft picks all had tremendous games. The slate has been wiped clean.

National Tight Ends Day in Denver: Not much love in the Rockies for a foremost holiday. National Tight Ends Day was a disappointment this year. Ferguson had one target. The Broncos’ Evan Engram was pretty solid, though, with four catches. Engram now has 22 receptions in his last five games, a 75-catch pace over a full season.

Uh, Jeremy Crawshaw?: Really running out of options here. Crawshaw only had two punts on Sunday, and neither of them landed inside the 20. It was utterly inconsequential to the game’s overall outcome. This blurb doesn’t even really count.

The former Broncos running back returns to Denver on Sunday with the Cowboys looking not only the best he has since a devastating 2022 knee injury, but perhaps in the finest form of his career.

Through seven games, the 2021 second-round pick of the Broncos has rushed for 592 yards and six touchdowns — already surpassing the 519 and four he compiled in 17 games for Denver last season.

He’s generated 30 first downs on the ground, matching his mark from a year ago. He’s already got more yards after contact this year (462) than he generated all of last year and his 4.2 per carry after contact is not only the best mark of his career, but it����ap more than he averaged per carry, period, either of his final two seasons with the Broncos.

Williams has also hit 15 miles per hour 18 times this season, according to Next Gen Stats, already four more times than last year. He didn’t have a run longer than 21 yards since his rookie season in Denver. Earlier this year, he rumbled for 66.

It all adds up to two realities: Williams is all the way back, and the Broncos have a big challenge on their hands Sunday.

“I’m one of his biggest fans,” Payton said Friday. “There’s always that, ‘What����ap the market?’ And I think that he found a great opportunity. You talk about a wonderful guy. Tremendous guy, tremendous player, smart. I’m glad he’s in the NFC.”

The Broncos didn’t make Williams an offer as he approached free agency this offseason, and the sides were expected to go their separate ways through most of the winter and spring.

Williams this week called the split “mutual.” He signed a one-year deal worth $3 million with the Cowboys this spring.

“We bet right,” Dallas head coach Brian Schottenheimer said this week.

It����ap turned out well for both sides. Williams has returned to form in Dallas, and the Broncos have been among the league’s more efficient running teams thanks to the work of J.K. Dobbins, who not only signed a similar deal as Williams but also overcame a similar injury earlier in his career.

Williams, in particular, is benefiting from the dynamic nature of Dallas’ offense. Cowboys quarterback Dak Prescott is playing at an MVP level, and he’s got two premier receivers to throw to in CeeDee Lamb and George Pickens. Tight end Jake Ferguson is fourth in the NFL with 50 catches. That gives defensive coordinators a lot to account for.

“They’re averaging, I think, 6.2 yards per rush in 11 personnel because they’re seeing a bunch of shell and they’re handing the ball off and getting clean boxes,” Broncos defensive coordinator Vance Joseph said this week, noting the decision becomes whether to leave defensive backs exposed in coverage or ask your defensive front to stop the run with lighter numbers up front.

“That’s the challenge,” he said. “That’s the cat-and-mouse game you have to play.”

Williams, though, is a big part of that challenge.

“He’s playing at a high level also,” Joseph said. “He looks like he has his legs back, explosive, he’s breaking tackles. He’s catching the football. He’s playing on all three downs, so I’m happy for that dude. He’s such a great person.

“Obviously, that����ap our opponent on Sunday, so we have to get him stopped. But I’m happy for him.”

The teams are tied for third in the NFL at 4.9 yards per carry so far, and, interestingly, the Broncos are actually well ahead of Dallas in overall rushing yards per game. They check in No. 6 at 131.9 yards while the Cowboys are No. 14 at 122.1.

Denver defensive lineman John Franklin-Myers raved about Williams but also said he doesn’t think Williams’ history with the Broncos is any kind of advantage or disadvantage.

“You’re talking about a year removed, different scheme, different guys blocking for him and stuff,” Franklin-Myers said. “We know the player — we know he’s going to do a good job breaking tackles and stuff. He does a good job of running through arm tackles. We know we’ve got to actually hit him. Ee know we’ve got to bring our feet.”

You know the challenge is a big one when powerlifting and professional wrestling come up.

“You get population to the ball and I don’t care if it����ap Mark Henry,” Franklin-Myers said. “It don’t have to be Derrick Henry. You can put the Big Show back there and he’s gonna get hit.”

�³���:��2:25 p.m. Sunday

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Broncos-Cowboys series: Two historical NFL franchises, and this one tilts heavily in Denver’s favor. The Broncos have a 9-4 series record in 13 all-time matchups against this NFC foe, and drubbed them 30-16 in their last meeting when outside linebacker Jonathon Cooper recorded his first two NFL sacks against Dallas QB Dak Prescott.

In the spotlight: The NFL’s ultimate boom-and-bust team comes to town

On Tuesday, Cowboys head coach Brian Schottenheimer smiled when asked about coaching offseason addition George Pickens. And WR1 CeeDee Lamb. And tight end extraordinaire Jake Ferguson. And a suddenly All-Pro-level Javonte Williams.

“Fun,” Schottenheimer said. “I mean, it really is. It����ap fun.”

Want a genuine heavyweight for this Broncos defense? Look no further than Dallas, which rolls into Denver with the best offense in the league after hanging 44 on the Washington Commanders last weekend. There are no real on-paper weaknesses to this Cowboys attack. Quarterback Dak Prescott’s ability to navigate pressure has negated an at-times iffy offensive line, and Prescott’s overall play is reminding the world why he’s one of the best regular-season quarterbacks in the league. Lamb is back healthy and putting up triple-digit yardage every game. And Pickens — traded from the Steelers in May — has exploded both next to Lamb and in his absence.

During the Cowboys’ first red-zone period of OTAs in May, Schottenheimer recalled this week, Prescott lofted a ball for Pickens in the slot on a post route. Lamb, lined up next to Pickens, ran a little out and drew the safety down to him. He saw Pickens catch the TD, and Lamb thrust his hands up to the heavens, Schottenheimer described, with a Thank you.

Lamb has made three straight All-Pro teams, and yet this might be the most dangerous he’s been as a receiver. Defenses can no longer key in on him, with the hyper-athletic Pickens also on the field. The Cowboys’ lethal play-action game, helped by the emergence of Williams, adds another dimension. Ferguson is the first tight end in league history with at least 50 catches and six touchdowns through seven weeks. This is easily the stiffest test Denver’s defense has faced all year.

Pat Surtain II, who’s made a living this season frustrating No. 1 wideouts, will likely draw the Lamb assignment for the first time in his career (he didn’t shadow Lamb much when Denver played the Cowboys in 2021). That’ll leave Moss on an island against Pickens. And one couldn’t construct a receiver in a lab more perfectly positioned to take advantage of Moss’ weaknesses.

Pickens stands 6-foot-3; Moss is 6-foot-0. Pickens leads the NFL in receiving yards against press coverage; Moss got toasted by the Eagles’ DeVonta Smith in Week 6 when attempting to press. Pickens has a penchant for drawing defensive pass-interference calls; Moss has a penchant for drawing defensive pass-interference calls.

“George, I think, leads the league right now in yards gained because of pass-interference penalties, and people still continue to play him one-on-one, and we still continue to throw the ball up to him,” Schottenheimer said. “So usually, good things are going to happen.”

All these factors lend themselves to a Week 8 barnburner, and a Broncos win could hinge on a couple of factors: If the defense can generate key negative plays at opportune times and if the offense can play a consistent four quarters. Quarterback Bo Nix has spent seven weeks shifting between cruise-control and sport mode, but has a chance at a signature game against Dallas.

The two best offenses in the league thus far in 2025? The Cowboys, and whoever’s playing the Cowboys. Dallas has given up the most passing yards in the league, and their secondary surrenders lots of open windows. If Nix finds a rhythm early — something he’s struggled to do all season — watch out.

“It����ap just important that we start faster, and we just have to find a way to do it,” Nix said. “It����ap easier said than done. We just have to literally go out there and take the game at the beginning and not have to win it in the end.”

On paper, the Cowboys have more bullets than the Broncos. The Cowboys also don’t have a corner playing at the level of Surtain or Moss.

“Like any competitor, you want to go against some of the best,” Moss said. “And we’re going to get that this week.”

Who has the edge?

When Broncos run: Time and time again, Sean Payton has defibrillated his offense by simply giving the ball to J.K. Dobbins. A 32-yard pop on the Broncos’ first scoring drive of the game Sunday got Denver and Bo Nix going, and Dobbins has shown no signs of letting up as a workhorse, now sitting at seventh in the NFL in rushing yards (523). The Cowboys sit at third in the NFL in total yards allowed per game on the ground and third in the most rushes of 10-plus yards allowed, setting the stage for a big game for Dobbins. Edge: Broncos

When Broncos pass: If Payton can get Nix going as a true drop-back threat early, this is his chance for a signature game. The Cowboys just cannot cover consistently. Then again, the Broncos haven’t shown the ability to throw the ball consistently. Former All-Pro Dallas corner Trevon Diggs’ play has fallen off a cliff this season, and the Cowboys have gotten torched for a league-leading 10 touchdowns on throws of 20-plus yards. Time for Nix to dust off the cannon. Slight edge: Broncos

When Cowboys run: Welcome back, Javonte Williams. This, though, is an entirely different Javonte Williams. The guy who couldn’t turn the corner at the end of his Bronco days? Gone. In his place is a true home-run threat, as Williams has shown no signs of letting up in a 592-yard, six-touchdown effort on the ground through seven games. He’s averaging 5.3 yards a carry, a full yard more than any of his four seasons with the Broncos. Watch out. Slight edge: Cowboys

When Cowboys pass: This is the most dangerous quarterback and passing game the Broncos have seen thus far. Dak Prescott has tortured secondaries all year when No. 1 wideout CeeDee Lamb and new No. 1A George Pickens are healthy. It’s the best receiving tandem Pat Surtain II and Riley Moss have faced this season, and Pickens presents a rough challenge for Moss in particular. Denver’s underneath coverage, too, looked plenty vulnerable against the Giants last week. Slight edge: Cowboys

Special teams: The Cowboys have done next to nothing in the punt-return game, in large part because their defense has done next to nothing in actually getting opposing teams to punt. Kicker Brandon Aubrey is 15 of 15 on the year, though, and has nailed all five of his tries from 50-plus yards. The Broncos might get a slight boost here this week if All-Pro specialist J.T. Gray is ready to go. ���岵��:�������DzԳ��Dz�

��Dz����󾱲Բ�:��It’s been a rough couple of years for Matt Eberflus, who was kicked to the curb last year as Chicago’s head coach and now has struggled to pull the Cowboys’ unit together as the defensive coordinator in Dallas. Head coach Brian Schottenheimer is an offensive mastermind, but is sitting in his first year of head-coaching experience. This would all tilt in the Broncos’ favor, but Payton hasn’t shown the ability to consistently unstick his offense from the mud, and defensive coordinator Vance Joseph didn’t have a great day last Sunday. Slight edge: Broncos

Tale of the tape

By the numbers

57.3: Percentage of passes attempted against the Cowboys that have gone to an “open” receiver (three or more yards of separation), the highest in the league, according to Next Gen Stats.

139.8: Dak Prescott’s quarterback rating on play-action looks this year.

0: Interceptions by Broncos corners this year.

390: Javonte Williams’ rushing yards after contact this season, the fourth-highest total in the NFL.

77.7: Bo Nix’s quarterback rating in the first quarter this season.

104.0: Bo Nix’s quarterback rating in the fourth quarter this season.

X-factors

Broncos: WR Troy Franklin. Franklin caught just 3 of his 10 targets against the Giants last week. On paper, he profiles as the Broncos’ best option for a take-the-top-off explosive pass play. In reality, he’s caught just 8 of 28 total targets this season on throws longer than 10 yards. He and Nix struggled, in particular, to connect on a couple of deep scramble drills against New York. This could be the week for a big Franklin play.

Cowboys: TE Jake Ferguson. Giants tight ends went for a combined six catches for 154 yards and two touchdowns against the Broncos last Sunday. Now Ferguson enters the mix, a big body who’s fourth in the league in catches this season with 51 in seven games. He’s only averaging 6.5 yards a catch, but is a massive red-zone threat with six scores. The Broncos’ linebackers have been burned there several times this year.

Post predictions

Parker Gabriel, Broncos writer: Cowboys 28, Broncos 24

The Broncos’ performances offensively and in the penalty department have been enough to engineer fourth-quarter comebacks against Philadelphia and the two New York teams the past three weeks. Those three are, in order, 14th, 27th and 18th in scoring so far this season. Dallas is second. They’ve got two elite receivers, a resurgent Javonte Williams, a terrific and underrated tight end in Jake Ferguson and a quarterback in Dak Prescott who is playing at an MVP level. The Cowboys’ defense is bad and Denver’s is good, but all the same, a long dry spell or a continuation of the penalty plague will not end well this weekend.

Luca Evans, Broncos writer: Cowboys 31, Broncos 24

Denver’s dangled at the edge of a cliff for about three games now, and that ability to finish is both a skill and a cover-up for larger issues. The Broncos haven’t shown the ability to play a complete offensive game for — well, the entire year. Their underneath coverage got exposed against New York. Their special-teams play and general discipline are touch-and-go. Now the best offense in the league rolls into town, and Denver’s own offense hasn’t quite shown the consistent capability to win in a shootout (last Sunday notwithstanding).

Troy Renck, columnist: Broncos 27, Cowboys 24

The way the Broncos are playing is not sustainable. Puntapalooza for long stretches, blown assignments, endless penalties, all erased by magical fourth quarters. They cannot keep winning this way. But they should not have to against the Cowboys. Dallas averages 41.3 points and 441 yards at home, 24.5 and 353 on the road. And for Dallas, D has been optional. If the Broncos cannot find traction against this group, then sound the alarm. A Broncos cornerback will post an interception for the first time this season, Javonte Williams will find no room to run, and Bo Nix will rediscover the middle of the field with Evan Engram.

Sean Keeler, columnist:  Broncos 25, Dallas 23

The Broncos are the NFL’s ultimate Rorschach test. Are they good? Are they lucky? They’ve stumbled and bumbled, but they’re 5-2. When the offense stinks in London, the D bails them out. When the D struggles vs. the Giants, the offense catches fire. Belief is a heck of a thing. Meanwhile, the Cowboys are 1-3 on the road, where they’re averaging 24.5 points per game, and where old pal Javonte Williams sometimes looks mortal. Sean Payton is 5-1 against NFC opponents at Empower Field, and 3-0 vs. NFC foes at home in October. It’s OK to sweat the details, given the last two weekends of weirdness. Just don’t sleep on the trends.