Months earlier, he had little idea what was going on.

He was one of a few newcomers to the Broncos’ offseason program in 2025, and felt like it, finding his place as one of the levers and pulleys in Vance Joseph’s defensive system. So Hufanga would glance across the field at his safety partner Brandon Jones. Or north, at All-Pro cornerback Pat Surtain II.

“Like, ‘Hey, what are we running right here?'” Hufanga recalled in June. “‘I’m still learning the defense.'”

He is not, anymore. Few consequential members of Joseph’s defense are still in the elementary stages, entering the coordinator’s fourth season in Denver. These Broncos will head into training camp for the 2026 season still carrying 10 of the 11 defenders who started Week 1 in 2025, and those 10 starters average out at 28 years old. Not long in the tooth, exactly. But far beyond baby teeth.

That organization-wide emphasis on retention, though, has embroiled Joseph in a unique paradox after a second straight year crafting a top-three NFL defense.

“I think the challenge is human nature,” Joseph said in June. “I told the guys the very first day (of the offseason) that we’re not chasing what we’ve done in the last two years, but we’re chasing the process that got us there.”

This Broncos defense has little room for complacency, now, largely betting on the same personnel in 2026 to capitalize on a Super Bowl window that the outfit opened in 2025. An entire offseason came and went without any obvious on-paper upgrades to Joseph’s units; instead, Denver actually moved on from two notable contributors in John Franklin-Myers and Dre Greenlaw to cut costs. The gang’s mostly back, as the rest of the NFL has retooled.

“Starting over and chasing the process is our goal,” Joseph said, “and being better than we were last year.”

But how does one of the league’s most fearsome defenses — tied for fifth all-time in single-season sacks in 2025 — improve without actual personnel upgrades? Much of that will fall on Joseph, in yet another audition for an eventual second chance at a head-coaching job. Much of that, too, will fall on individual growth within his depth chart, as All-Pros like Hufanga and edge rusher Nik Bonitto are a year older and a year wiser.

As veterans are set to report for training camp this coming Tuesday, that depth chart looks awfully similar to the one the Broncos finalized at the end of 2025’s camp. But there are still a handful of key positional battles to play out — with a particular mind to cornerback.

Here’s an early two-deep defensive projection before the Broncos march into the start of the (pre)season.

Defensive line

¶Ł·”:ĢżZach Allen, Sai’vion Jones

±·°Õ:ĢżD.J. Jones, Malcolm Roach

¶Ł·”:ĢżEyioma Uwazurike, Tyler Onyedim

Starting point:ĢżHere’s where roster shifting will be felt the most on Denver’s defense. John Franklin-Myers’ time as a Bronco expired the minute his contract did, through no fault of his own. Can’t pay everyone. The Broncos, evidently, felt they had enough quality depth in the room to cobble together snaps to fill Franklin-Myers’ 7.5-sack void, and drafted to their defensive line in April by taking a body-type carbon copy in Onyedim in the third round.

The process of recongealing, though, might not be so smooth.

“Anytime you lose a great player, you know thereā€™s gonna be a big hole that you gotta replace,” Roach told reporters in June, at a charity softball event. “But also, when you lose a great friend, a great brother, it kinda hits hard.ā€

It could hit Allen the hardest, a bona-fide star who’s made two straight All-Pro teams and knocks around opposing quarterbacks more than anyone in the NFL. As the Jones-Roach rotation seems stable at nose tackle — even as the ascending Roach could continue growing in his versatility — the most movement here during camp will happen at boundary end, with a few hungry mouths awaiting.

The 28-year-old Uwazurike figures to play a massive role in 2026, after a mini-breakout last season: a 36% defensive snap share, 3.5 sacks, 49 tackles in 19 total games. He’ll be the stabilizer. Onyedim, meanwhile, looked instantly ready for serious NFL snaps this summer before Denver even put on pads, and figures to play at least a rotational role. Keep an eye on Sai’vion Jones here, the Broncos’ 2025 third-round rookie who now will have a serious shot to wreak havoc on passing-down snaps with his 82-plus-inch wingspan. Denver will likely give veterans Jordan Jackson and Matt Henningsen long looks in camp for 53-man spots, too, given the potential reliance on youth here.

Outside linebacker

°æ³¢µž:ĢżNik Bonitto, Que Robinson

°æ³¢µž:ĢżJonathon Cooper (?), Jonah Elliss

Cooper’s mere presence on this roster — let alone his outlook for 2026 — is in flux, after he was arrested multiple times in June in relation to a physical altercation with his girlfriend. That, correspondingly, leaves the Broncos’ entire edge outlook here in flux, as Cooper has racked up 27 sacks and 49 quarterback hits across 51 straight regular-season games as a starter in Denver.

However Cooper’s legal process and potential league and team discipline plays out, though, there’s still an overwhelming amount of talent in this room — enough to leave key contributor Dondrea Tillman off this two-deep entirely. If Cooper is suspended for any part of the 2026 season, expect Elliss to get the first crack at playing alongside two-time Pro Bowler Bonitto, who should be set for another leap in his own right. Head coach Sean Payton went public earlier this offseason proclaiming the Broncos would look at the 23-year-old Elliss to shift inside, only to walk that back months later and make clear that wasn’t an option simply because of Elliss’s talent playing the edge.

Another glaring breakout candidate here, too, is Robinson, enough for him to supplant Tillman as a rotational rusher beyond the Broncos’ top duo. His sack of Drake Maye in the AFC Championship Game made waves and his closing speed and upside are both ridiculous. Denver has some flexibility here.

Inside linebacker

±õ³¢µž:ĢżAlex Singleton, Red Murdock

±õ³¢µž:ĢżJustin Strnad, Jordan Turner

Utter crapshoot here behind a completely stable duo of Singleton and Strnad. Both veterans re-upped with the Broncos on multi-year deals in free agency as certified Joseph guys, and they head into camp as the unquestioned starters. They know it, too. Strnad, after all, told The Denver Post flat-out in January that he didn’t think he’d re-sign in Denver if he didn’t anticipate starting at ILB in 2026.

After two straight seasons of spot-starting at ILB, now Strnad will step fully into a featured role in the middle of Denver’s defense. And Singleton, for one, said in May he expects a “huge leap” from his running mate.

“You have that confidence where — a team finally gives you what you deserve, you have that confidence all offseason,” Singleton said. “So heā€™s had that already. There isnā€™t that question of, ā€˜Oh, what snaps am I going to play?ā€™”

That question comes further down, in what projects as a slight mess of a depth chart. Red Murdock (2026 pick No. 257), Taurean York (2026 undrafted free agent), Jordan Turner (2025 undrafted free agent), Karene Reid (2025 undrafted free agent), and Levelle Bailey (2024 undrafted free agent) don’t have a single NFL start between them. Strnad, as the team’s third ILB, has wound up playing a rather important role the past two seasons; the Broncos need one or two youngsters to step up in camp. Murdock should have an inside track, a loyal Buffalo product with a mean streak and a fast processor. Turner impressed the Broncos so much at 2025’s rookie minicamp that he earned a contract, then earned a practice-squad spot in camp, then earned a full-time roster nod down the stretch; he’s a third-ILB candidate to watch.

Cornerback

°äµž:ĢżPat Surtain II, Kris Abrams-Draine

°äµž:ĢżRiley Moss, Jahdae Barron

±·¾±³¦°ģ±š±ō:ĢżJa’Quan McMillian, Reese Taylor

Here’s where the most eyes will fall in any defensive realm this August. Barron was the No. 20 overall pick in 2025’s draft, spent most of his season playing in dime and specific nickel packages, and left quite a few fans wondering about the Broncos’ long-term plan for him. The short-term plan, at least, seems clear: have he and Moss duke it out for a CB2 spot to determine who Denver could extend long-term between Moss and McMillian.

Barron couldn’t beat out McMillian as a rookie for Denver’s starting nickel job, though, and supplanting Moss to play opposite Surtain will be no easy task. The 26-year-old Moss went public plenty of times in 2025 for a variety of pass-interference flags, but also surrendered just a 58% completion percentage despite seeing a ridiculously high volume of targets. Barron would need to showcase a leap from an uneven rookie season to win Moss’s job, particularly after playing limited doses of outside cornerback in 2025.

McMillian’s hold on his nickel duties, meanwhile, seems ironclad after a standout 2025 season. Abrams-Draine is an interesting piece here, a rising third-year cornerback who would likely be good enough to compete for a starting job on a handful of NFL teams.

Safety

³§:ĢżTalanoa Hufanga, Devon Key

³§:ĢżBrandon Jones, JL Skinner

The Hufanga-Jones marriage landed on hiatus in December, when Jones suffered a pec injury that ended up knocking him out for the season. Year 2 of their partnership could prove even better than Year 1, with Hufanga’s nose for the ball and Jones’ ranginess in coverage. The one glaring caveat there: the two have missed nearly 20% of their cumulative regular-season games throughout their career, putting obvious importance on Denver’s third-safety position after veteran P.J. Locke signed with the Cowboys.

Veteran Tycen Anderson, signed away from Cincinnati, could be a contender for Locke’s vacant job. But Denver hasn’t had much recent luck with signing impact-special-teamer safeties on the open market in recent years, cutting Sam Franklin at the end of last year’s camp and signing-and-cutting former All-Pro J.T. Gray midseason. Instead, look to Key, who has earned widespread organizational trust after a franchise-great season as a special-teams tackler in 2025.

Skinner, meanwhile, has played all of 54 regular-season defensive snaps in a Broncos uniform after Denver drafted him in the sixth round in 2023. The 6-foot-4 safety, though, could earn a foothold in camp with Locke gone, and was trusted by Joseph to play deep in hyper-specific closing-game situations last season.

Special teams

K: Wil Lutz

±Ź:ĢżJeremy Crawshaw

LS:ĢżMitchell Fraboni

If the Broncos had a 2025 playoff MVP, it might well be Crawshaw, who improved over the course of his rookie season in Denver and promptly deposited five of 10 playoff kicks inside the opponent’s 20-yard-line. The 2025 sixth-round pick could — relative to punting — be in store for a monster sophomore year.

Lutz, meanwhile, will serve as Payton’s kicker for a fourth straight season in Denver and 10th season overall. That takes a rare breed.

On the roster (10): Zach Allen, D.J. Jones, Malcolm Roach, Tyler Onyedim, Eyioma Uwazurike, Sai’vion Jones, Jordan Jackson, Matt Henningsen, Kristian Williams, Jordan Miller

How many on the 53?Ā Six to seven. The Broncos carried seven last year at this spot, and the top six names above are likely roster locks in training camp. Jackson has made the roster comfortably in each of the last two seasons, but played just five games in 2025 and then for head coach Sean Payton’s anger toward defensive staff for elevating him in the AFC wild-card game.

Most impactful offseason move:ĢżLetting John Franklin-Myers walk.

This was determined long before this offseason. But in a stretch where the Broncos prioritized retention to near-unfathomable degrees, Franklin-Myers’ absence looms as the most important departure from 2025’s roster to 2026. He finished third on Denver’s defense in sacks last season, with 7.5; more importantly, his ability to create interior pressure often teed up All-Pro Allen and the Broncos’ stable of outside linebackers.

ā€œHe was an impact player,” defensive coordinator Vance Joseph said in June. “After watching the cut-ups, you kind of realize what youā€™re missing there.”

The Broncos’ front office made an understandable choice to not extend Franklin-Myers on a long-term deal likely worth $15-million-plus a year, and will now recoup a valuable compensatory pick in 2027. But his absence will be felt, in one way or another. That leads directly into the subsequent section here.

Biggest question to answer in camp:ĢżWho steps up in place of Franklin-Myers?

Perhaps the answer is whoĀ doesn’t. Joseph clearly indicated during the Broncos’ offseason program that Franklin-Myers’ void could be filled by a sort of three-man rotation among Uwazurike, Sai’vion Jones and rookie Onyedim, with the athletic Jones perhaps in a third-down pass-rushing role.

Denver will carousel all of them during training camp, plus veterans Jackson and Henningsen, and see what cream ultimately rises. The early favorite is Uwazurike, who flashed legitimate starting-level potential with 3.5 sacks and 39 tackles as a reserve last season. Asked about replacing Franklin-Myers in 2026, Uwazurike told The Post at the end of the 2025 regular season that he felt he could “take over that role completely.” He’ll have his chance this summer.

Don’t count out Onyedim, though, who Denver’s defensive staff sees as an immediate potential Franklin-Myers replacement after drafting him in the third round this fall. And Roach could quietly pick up some of Franklin-Myers’ workload. More on that later.

Battle to watch: Sai’vion Jones vs. everybody for snaps.

After the Broncos moved up in the third round of the 2025 draft to nab Jones, the LSU product played exactly 39 total snaps in his rookie year. That was fine. And partly expected. Broncos general manager George Paton noted after the season that the staff knew Jones would “need a little development.”

“We were just so deep last year, it¶¶Ņõap tough for him to get in games,” Allen said in June. “But we saw in practice how great he was.”

The Broncos, now, need those glimpses in practice to show up in training camp. The 6-foot-5, 289-pound Jones has flashed the ability to push the pocket from the interior and blends an edge rusher’s speed with an interior rusher’s power. But he still needs work in the run game, as evidenced by Joseph’s suggestion that he could be a rotational pass-rusher. It would be a dream scenario for the Broncos if Jones shows in camp he’s ready, at least, to take up Uwazurike’s 36% defensive snap share from last season.

Under the radar:ĢżRoach.

The Sixth Man might become the Fifth Man on Denver’s defensive line, soon enough. The Broncos extended Roach on a three-year deal worth over $29 million total in November, a not-insubstantial number; clearly, Denver prioritized retaining Roach at a lower number rather than shelling out for Franklin-Myers. And Roach quietly put together a standout season on the interior in 2025, with six total sacks and six tackles for loss in 14 games between the regular season and playoffs.

“I felt like I was rushing the way I play the run game,” Roach told The Post in June. “And I know how to play the run game, so by me rushing like that, I knew, like, I wasn’t thinking. It’s just the instincts kicking in.”

For two seasons in Denver, Roach has been generally thought of as a one-two punch at nose tackle, behind starter D.J. Jones. But Roach clearly has the greater ability to create pressure from different gaps along the defensive line. It’s possible, ultimately, that Denver’s Franklin-Myers replacement has been staring everyone in the face all along.

He picked at the dirt in the front yard, right underneath the pecan tree. Sennecca’s voice rose and fell with a hymn, as her daughter wrapped Marty’s scales in an LSU flag and gently placed him in a small hole.

“You gon’ get another one?” Jones’ sister asked him as she patted the flag down.

He did ā€” Coco, Jones named it ā€” because through high school and eventual stardom at LSU, the now-Broncos 23-year-old defensive lineman has carried an obsession with bearded dragons that nobody in his circle can quite explain. Jones went everywhere with Marty, the lizard sinking its talons into his shirt and hanging along for the ride. His old high school coach, Robert Valdez, always found it personally unsettling how settled Jones was with a four-legged reptile crawling across his neck.

“He’s a different kid,” Valdez told The Post last year. “His best friend is a lizard.”

Jones is a 6-foot-5, 289-pound young man who plays a violent role in the trenches, but he is “still a kid,” as his mother, Sennecca, said. From the minute he was born, her son has been quiet. He’s comfortable around softer spirits and reclusive around older ones.

But Marty, now, rests under a Louisiana pecan tree. Jones left Coco at home in Vacherie, too, after the Broncos traded up in the third round of the 2025 NFL Draft to swing on his raw talent. And entering his second season in Denver, Jones is staring at a prime opportunity to shed a more reticent skin to make a louder impact at the heart of the Broncos’ defense.

Last fall, former Broncos defensive endĀ John Franklin-Myers took it upon himself to mentor Jones, despite being acutely aware that Denver may have drafted Jones to replace him. Franklin-Myers is now gone to Tennessee, a considerable loss for a defense that thrived on his and All-Pro Zach Allen’s symbiotic relationship. Jones is perhaps the highest-upside candidate of a mix of veterans and youngsters who will vie in training camp to fill Franklin-Myers’ void, with no clear arrangement sorted on this defensive-line carousel.

“With the way weā€™re rotating those guys ā€” if it happens to be one individual when training camp comes, great,” head coach Sean Payton said in June, when asked about replacing Franklin-Myers’ snaps. “If it happens to be the sum total of the group, so be it.”

Reserve Eyioma Uwazurike wants itĀ and is the most logical immediate replacement. Third-round rookie Tyler Onyedim, the Broncos’ first draft pick in 2026, turned heads externally and internally in the offseason program. Veteran Malcolm Roach could veer away from nose tackle to fill some of the void. And after a rookie year in which he played just 39 snaps, the Broncos still believe Jones will be “a player,” as general manager George Paton said in January.

Jones just needs to seize his spot on the board.

“He’s developed at the right pace for us,” Broncos defensive-line coach Jamar Cain told The Post in September. “He’s doing everything we ask him to do. But being a quiet kid, sometimes you forget he’s there. Show up. Let us know that you’re there. Let us know that you’re doing your job. And he is.”

‘God had other plans for him’

Jones has died before. Twice, actually. He still has the mark in his neck, as a reminder only his mother will truly understand.

At two months old, he was diagnosed with a breathing disorder called laryngomalacia, where tissue . Not uncommon. Often harmless. But baby Jones’ condition was dire enough to necessitate a tracheotomy tube in his neck to open his windpipe, and one day his babysitter heard him dead silent and noticed he’d yanked the tube out of his neck.

Seneca was at a party when her family called her, and told her to meet them at the local hospital . She arrived to hospital staff yelling code blue. Her son flatlined. And was resuscitated. And flatlined. And was resuscitated. And airlifted by helicopter to Children’s Hospital New Orleans.

He spent the first year of his life on a heart monitor and an oxygen machine. Sennecca said she still thinks of those days often. Impossible to forget.

“I think about how blessed he is, and how he has a testimony to share,” she told The Post last summer. “Hopefully, one day, he’ll share it and encourage some people. Because, he’s real quiet. He don’t speak much. You gotta pull words out of him. But he’s definitely blessed, and he came a long way.

“He could’ve been dead and gone,” she continued. “But God had other plans for him.”

Her son doesn’t remember, really. But tendrils of memory can sneak through the subconscious. Jones did speech therapy until middle school and would only speak to certain people growing up, his cousin Jontae recalled. In his senior year at St. James High in Vacherie, Jones became the first defensive lineman to win the Sportsline Player of the Year Award, presented by Baton Rouge television station WAFB.

He did not quite ham it up .

“That was a real eye-opening experience … he wasn’t comfortable with that, at the time,” said former St. James defensive coordinator LaVanta Davis.

According to the 2020 U.S. Census, Vacherie is a town of fewer than 5,500 people. Sennecca said her son was “scared” when he first got to LSU. Jones barely played his freshman season. As a sophomore, he was enrolled in a public speaking class. He hated it, his mother recalled. Cain, then LSU’s defensive-line coach, would call Jones’ mother and tell her he was slipping. She’d tell Cain to do what he needed to.

ā€œSaiā€™vion knew,” Sennecca said, “not to play with Coach Cain.”

Cain helped Jones through that class, Sennecca recalled. And helped him assert his voice, too, in the middle of a stacked LSU defensive line room. The Tigers had several upperclassmen and future NFL players ahead of Jones on the depth chart, and yet Cain would preach to Jones that he didn’t need to simply wait his turn.

“Be a player,” Cain would tell him.

Jones tallied the third-most sacks (4.5) on the roster despite finishing 16th in defensive snaps and leveraged the season into a starting role for two more seasons at LSU.

“I said, ā€˜Youā€™re better than him — go take his job,'” Cain recalled. “Like, this is on you. Donā€™t be happy being a backup. And then that¶¶Ņõap when he started taking off.”

Coveted size and speed

He is a different man now, after the LSU spotlight has coaxed Jones’ personality out to reporters. At heart, he is not that different. At the start of last season, The Post asked Sennecca if she had any idea where her son’s head was at as he entered his rookie season in Denver.

ā€œI donā€™t know,” Sennecca said, laughing. “I have no clue. He donā€™t talk.”

Jones has had a familiar ally in Cain, though, a highly touted defensive-line mind who jumped to the Broncos in 2023 after that one season with LSU. Their journey picked up right back where it left off three years ago, on a new stage but in a similar situation. And Cain has prodded Jones just the same as when he was in college ā€” a young man who ignites, former coach Davis said, when he realizes he has a legitimate opportunity in front of him.

“100%,” Cain said last fall, asked if he’s encouraged Jones to take others’ jobs in Denver. “I’ve done that with him. ‘Hey, Sai’vion, let’s get going, let’s get going.'”

The Broncos, certainly, did not expect or need Jones to fill an immediate need in 2025. Cain was the architect of a pass rush that finished tied for the fifth-most sacks in NFL history, after all, and Denver knew Jones would need some post-Louisiana seasoning after transitioning from an edge rusher to an interior defensive lineman over the course of his college career.

The promise, though, is simple enough: Jones has the burst of a speed rusher with the frame to put on a defensive tackle’s weight. He ran a blazing 1.59-second 10-yard split in pre-draft testing in 2025 and has the height and arm length (33.5 inches) to shed blocks quickly, as his high school coach Valdez said.

ā€œHeā€™s a big, physical player,” Patriots left tackle Will Campbell told The Post on Jones, his former LSU teammate, during the week of Super Bowl LX in February. “Extremely talented ā€¦ I know Saiā€™vion will be ready when his name is called.ā€

But Franklin-Myers and Jones, both, were well aware of the veteran’s expiring contract amid their mentor-mentee relationship last season. The Broncos specifically chose to let the 29-year-old Franklin-Myers walk for a three-year, $63 million deal in free agency, and have made the explicit decision to turn to internal development rather than pay for external help to fill a rather sizeable hole.

“We got a lot of good guys, and that’s going to create a lot of opportunities for people,” Allen said in June. “And we came close to the sack record last year, and we fully expect to break it this year.”

Easier said than done without Franklin-Myers, who finished with a career-best 7.5 sacks in 2025 and had a larger impact than simple raw numbers. According to film charted by The Post, the Broncos’ three best pass-rushers ā€” Allen, Nik Bonitto and Jonathon Cooper ā€” all had more sacks last season when Franklin-Myers was on the field as opposed to off (even as Franklin-Myers had just a 49% snap share in 2025).

The room is well aware, as Roach said, that it needs to find a way to fill Franklin-Myers’ shoes.

“After watching the cut-ups, you kind of realize what you’re missing there,” defensive coordinator Vance Joseph said in June. “Weā€™ve drafted to that position fairly well, so we have some young guys that we expect to step up and play. That¶¶Ņõap their job. That¶¶Ņõap why we drafted those guys … you canā€™t pay everyone. So we chose to let JFM walk and draft to his position. So those guys have to play well.ā€

In Uwazurike, Onyedim, and Jones, the Broncos have three suitors for Franklin-Myers’ snaps who have completely different body types yet are cut from the same cloth. The 28-year-old Uwazurike and 23-year-old Onyedim, in fact, overlapped for a season at Iowa State in 2021. And when the Cyclones were recruiting Onyedim out of Richmond, Texas, then-Iowa State defensive line coach Eli Rasheed went to then-senior Uwazurike and told him he wanted him to serve as Onyedim’s “big brother.”

The similarities run deeper, beyond a shared Nigerian background. Uwazurike played his entire high school career atĀ Southfield-Lathrup, a campus in Michigan,Ā . He left high school underdeveloped, and left Iowa State with untapped upside, as former defensive coordinator Jon Hancock would tell NFL scouts that Uwazurike’s best football was still ahead of him. And Uwazurike is still raw in NFL terms, with just 637 career defensive snaps after a full-season gambling suspension in 2023.

Onyedim, Hancock told The Post, is the “same guy” in football terms ā€” carrying raw upside into Iowa State and beyond.

“Enyi is, now, still tapping on the ceiling that’s growing,” Rasheed said. “Tyler is the same human in a twitched-up, faster body.ā€

In June, discussing Uwazurike’s development, Joseph made clear that all three in this triumvirate could cycle in to fill Franklin-Myers’ absence. Sometimes, even, all within the same set of downs.

“Maybe it’s a first-and-second-down run-stopping role,” Joseph said, “and Sai’vion takes over the pass-rush role.”

That name-drop means something and carries expectation. Jones has always lived on his own wavelength, his cousin Jontae said. He has been a young man comfortable in his own shell, family members said, only cracking when his frame got too large for him to remain hidden away.

And the Broncos want him ā€” and maybe need him ā€” to fully break through.

The Broncos offensive lineman showed enough during training camp to make the 53-man roster despite going undrafted in the spring of 2023.

He was placed on injured reserve after the roster cutdown, and remained there for the entire year and didnā€™t appear in a game.

Palczewski would work out on Denverā€™s rehab field on a daily basis, wondering what the future might hold.

In November that year, the Broncos announced plans for a new, cutting-edge $175 million training facility and headquarters project. The next summer, they broke ground on it.

Now the building is nearly complete. Team employees are set to be moved over in less than two weeks. Broncos players will be in their new locker room and digs for training camp next month.

Palczewski last week leaned against a bench after wrapping up the first week of OTAs and looked across at the gleaming new building and smiled, recalling ā€œvividly,ā€ he said, when he first heard about the plans.

ā€œI was like, ā€˜Oh, it¶¶Ņõap going to be open in 2026?,ā€™ā€ he recalled. ā€œThatā€™ll be pretty nice. I hope those guys enjoy it.ā€

Turns out, ā€˜Palchoā€™ is going to enjoy it, too. Perhaps for many years to come.

The versatile offensive lineman got his biggest opportunity yet in 2025, starting 10 games for injured Ben Powers at left guard — a position heā€™d never played before ā€”Ā and excelled. This spring, the Broncos rewarded him with a two-year, $9.5 million contract. It came with a $2.5 million signing bonus, $5.75 million in guarantees and can be worth up to $11 million based on incentives.

It also came with a clear message from the club: We may not have a starting job for you at the moment, but youā€™re a big part of the plan going forward.

‘I’m thankful every single day’

Palczewski was an offseason priority for Denverā€™s coaching staff and front office. His deal was finalized on March 5 and had been in the works for about a week before that. That meant it was done before the clubā€™s retention run of four more signings closer to the start of free agency, plus Palczewski was a restricted free agent, so the team could have taken more time had it wanted to.

To Palczewski, the wait from the crushing end of Denverā€™s 2025 season to hearing a deal was on the table felt long enough. It started with exit meetings, when he asked head coach Sean Payton and general manager George Paton what his future looked like in Denver.

ā€œIt¶¶Ņõap so weird, you go from thinking you could go to the Super Bowl, we get our hearts ripped out and then youā€™ve got to do that,ā€ he said.

They told him theyā€™d get to him. Thereā€™s a timeline for these things.

ā€œThen it¶¶Ņõap just silence. Weā€™ll get to it when we get to it,ā€ Palczewski said. ā€œBut when it happened? I mean, Iā€™m ecstatic. Looking back at the road, especially being an undrafted guy, Iā€™m thankful every single day.ā€

Even more rewarding for the Mount Prospect, Illinois native: Since he went undrafted, he chose the Broncos in the first place. He saw Denver generally and offensive line coach Zach Strief specifically as a place where he would get good coaching and development.

Three years later, Palcho has started games at two different positions, earned the staffā€™s trust and landed a quality contract.

Heā€™s done it, he said, by consciously paring down what he puts thought and energy into.

ā€œWhen I first got here my rookie year, I was just like, ‘How do I stay here the longest?’ā€ Palczewski said. ā€œAnd I kind of got into a mental, like, I donā€™t know how to say it without swearing. I just was, like, I just thought about the big picture too much. ā€˜What about this and this and this?ā€™ A week or a week and a half in, I was just like, ā€˜screw that.ā€™ Iā€™m just going to focus on what can I get better at today? Today, today, today. Iā€™ve got 24 hours, what can I do? And then, that way, it felt a lot more manageable.

ā€œI didnā€™t have to worry about the anxiety of, what¶¶Ņõap going to happen at the end of camp with cuts? Well, if I worry about it and Iā€™m too scared to play free, guess what¶¶Ņõap going to happen? Iā€™m getting cut. 100% chance.ā€

Finding a future fit

Now the next question: Where will Palcho play in 2026 and beyond? Heā€™s shown he can handle left guard, where Powers is back but entering the final year of his contract. Palcho can play right tackle, where Mike McGlinchey has two years remaining and is coming off one of his best pro seasons, though he turns 32 during training camp.

The Broncos brass knows it can’t have five premium-paid starters forever. They’re wary of getting old across the board at the same time. They’ve got enviable depth and versatility behind their high-priced starting quintet.

All of that means Palczewski’s time is coming. It’s a matter of when.

In the meantime, the soon-to-be 27-year-old is willing to acknowledge that starting is a goal, but he also continues to be adamant about the benefits of playing in a group that¶¶Ņõap been largely intact the past three seasons.

He also knows the career arc of his position coach well. Strief, a seventh-round pick in Sean Paytonā€™s first New Orleans draft class, spent five seasons as a reserve. Then he started 85 games over six years as the Saintsā€™ right tackle.

Palcho? Undrafted in Paytonā€™s first Denver class. Now going into Year 4 still perhaps ticketed for reserve duty, but with a future and a contract that suggests heā€™ll crack the lineup at some point.

ā€œI think Palcho is in position to be a starter for a long time,ā€ defensive tackle Malcolm Roach said recently.

Until then, Palczewski will keep focusing on small things and trusting theyā€™ll lead to big ones. For himself and for his team.

ā€œIt¶¶Ņõap simple for anyone to say, ā€˜I want to be a Super Bowl champion,ā€™ā€™ Palczewski said, using a high-pitched kidā€™s voice for emphasis. ā€œOK, well can you (freakinā€™) back-side cutoff? Can you hit your target on a guy when his shoulders are down on a bull rush? How do you just work it and focus on the process each day?

ā€œIf you take care of that, itā€™ll go on further.ā€

George Paton, the general manager who’d just traded for Waddle hours earlier, was there. So was running back J.K. Dobbins, whose ground game stood to benefit from Waddle’s field-stretching speed. So was newly-minted offensive coordinator Davis Webb, suddenly gifted a precise route-runner in his first year as a play-caller. And so was quarterback Bo Nix, of course, who Waddle got an instant picture of.

“Heā€™s different, in a good way,” Waddle told The Post on Thursday, on his first sitdown with Nix. “Heā€™s in tune. Heā€™s a family man. He loves playing football.

“He loves just being around, and heā€™s got one of them personalities you just gravitate to.”

The last time the Broncos mortgaged this much of their future on a player also brought a celebratory dinner at a steakhouse. It was Elway’s, for quarterback Russell Wilson in 2022. That outcome ended in disaster. The Broncos no doubt hope Waddle’s outcome will be different, because the situation is. Wilson was tasked with the entire foundation in Denver; Waddle simply needs to be the organization’s final piece of the puzzle, slotting in next to Dobbins and Webb and Nix.

“There was a crystal-clear vision prior to the trade,” head coach Sean Payton reflected Thursday. “As to — ‘All right, this is what we see, this is where he plays, and these are the things we feel like he’s exceptional at, and then let’s apply them into what we’re doing.'”

Three months later, the integration process is coming along smoothly. Payton said Thursday the 27-year-old Waddle “picks things up quick,” and there is no supplement for accelerated learning like accelerated talent. Nix won’t actually throw to Waddle in live situations until later in June, as the quarterback is still rehabbing his broken ankle. He was on the field to watch Thursday, though, as Waddle veered all across formations in 11-on-11 periods, broke off lighting-quick cuts on out routes and torched cornerback Riley Moss so badly on one in-breaker that Moss simply resorted to grabbing him.

After the third day of OTAs wrapped up, safety Talanoa Hufanga gave his initial impressions of Waddle.

“Everything he’s expected to be,” Hufanga said.

Fast and smooth

On Thursday, Waddle smiled and shrugged off a reporter’s question about whether he viewed himself as a “hired gun.” And teammates have not described the sixth-year receiver as some sort of savior, because the Broncos do not need him to be. They need him, simply, to do what he’s good at to upgrade the Denver offense, a process that has already turned plenty of navy-blue helmets.

ā€œHeā€™s a special dude,” veteran receiver Courtland Sutton said Thursday. “Thereā€™s a lot of things that he has, his qualities, that are very unique to himself. And I say that in a very specific way, because he has some qualities that only he could do. And it¶¶Ņõap fun to be able to watch it up close and personal, and I think Coach Webb and Coach Payton have done a really good job of trying to figure out the things that he can do well.ā€

The things Waddle can do well, Sutton smiled, are obvious. At Episcopal High in Bellaire, Texas, former offensive coordinator Kary Kimble dubbed Waddle “Magic.” Defenders saw him, until they didn’t. He was named an All-American returner as a sophomore at Alabama 40-yard-dash, and led all qualified NFL receivers in yards-per-catch (18.1) in his second year with the Dolphins in 2022.

The niche Waddle fits in Denver, though, goes much deeper than surface-level speed. Payton places a premium on smooth deceleration in evaluating wideouts; after Troy Franklin’s shaky first season in Denver, for example, Payton told the young receiver he wanted him to learn how to start “stopping like a Tesla.” The brakes are already innate to Waddle, who Payton praised Thursday for his ability to stop fast.

That single trait adds a complete unpredictability to Waddle’s breaks. The receiver grinned when asked by reporters on that Thursday, joking he couldn’t “give away the sauce.”

Hufanga, though, defined it well enough.

“I think his ability to make every route look the same is pretty important,” Hufanga said. “As a defender, when you can make a 10-yard stop look like a go, a 10-yard dig (route) look like a go, a 10-yard out-route — it¶¶Ņõap just, everything looks the same. And it puts pressure on your backpedal, as a DB.ā€

The best version of Waddle to date came in 2022, immediately after the Dolphins’ trade for Tyreek Hill but before the eventual decline of the Mike McDaniel-Tua Tagovailoa era in Miami. Hufanga, who faced the Hill-Waddle tandem firsthand while playing for San Francisco back then, noted the duo’s ability to accelerate and decelerate to disguise in-breaking routes as deep routes and vice versa. In Denver, now, Waddle can play off another “elite playmaker” ā€” as he termed it ā€” in Sutton, as the two give Payton and Webb options to interchange through a variety of alignments and route concepts.

“You could start slot to outside, or outside to slot,” Payton said, describing the vision for Waddle. “Just pick.”

The 30-year-old Sutton, of course, is nowhere near as quick as Hill. Few are. Quietly, though, Sutton finished second in the NFL in 2024 and tied for 10th in 2025 in catches on balls thrown more than 20 yards in the air, according to Next Gen Stats. It’s an open secret that Sutton is usually Nix’s go-to look on third downs, which could conversely pen up one-on-one looks for Waddle in high-leverage spots.

On the flip side, opposing secondaries keyed in on Sutton in 2025, often putting a natural cap on Denver’s offense. If Sutton was bracketed, Nix often didn’t have a consistent deep threat last year, and finished 17th in the NFL in completion percentage of throws 20-plus yards downfield.

Enter Waddle.

ā€œI think that he and I being able to manipulate the outside is going to help the run game,” Sutton said Thursday. “And then ultimately, whenever we do get a chance to get these one-on-one looks, I think it¶¶Ņõap going to be interesting to see where that safety does decide to shade.”

Low maintenance, high potential

The arrival of one star, of course, will naturally dim the light of those around him. On Thursday night, Sutton received the heartiest cheers and took the heartiest swings at UCHealth’s annual “Healthy Swings” home-run-derby at Coors Field; as he accepted a winner’s trophy, a fellow teammate off to the side cracked a joke labeling Sutton as “Mr. Bronco.” The eight-year veteran made a Pro Bowl in 2025 on the back of two straight 1,000-yard seasons, and Denver wouldn’t have made the Waddle trade if there was any risk that either receiver would lose sleep over lost targets.

Sutton, though, has established himself as one of the lowest-maintenance receivers in the NFL. Waddle, meanwhile, never publicly complained about diminished targets through two sub-1,000-yard seasons in Miami in 2024 and 2025.

“I think last year, we saw what it would take for a selfless offense to be able to get to where we want to get to,” Sutton said “It¶¶Ņõap not the ā€” I donā€™t think we have any individual personalities that are saying, ā€˜Hey, I need this. I need that.ā€™ I think we got a bunch of guys that are willing to put their pride aside and say, ā€˜Hey, look, what do I need to do for this team to be successful?ā€™”

Payton often refers to locker-room favorites as “force multipliers.” Dobbins is one. So is boisterous defensive tackle Malcolm Roach, for instance. Waddle does not project in the same vein; former coaches describe him as quiet, and he doesn’t carry himself with any particular gravitas when speaking at a public podium.

That personality, though, is a fit in itself. And Waddle has already begun force-multiplying with his first routes down in Dove Valley.

“I just think he takes us ā€” unlocks another dimension for us, especially with RPOs and stuff like that,” Roach told The Post Thursday night, at Coors. “I think the best is yet for him to come, and the best is yet for us to come.

“So I think it¶¶Ņõap going to be a good marriage.ā€

They have very few starting spots up for grabs, at least on paper.

They have, relatively speaking, very few question marks.

And yet, Sean Paytonā€™s fourth team will have plenty of competition throughout the early portions of the summer and into training camp.

There are, by The Post¶¶Ņõap count, somewhere in the neighborhood of seven to nine spots up for grabs on the 53-man roster at the moment and a pool of perhaps 18-20 players vying for them. Those counts come before any of the inevitable injuries that will crop up between now and the end of August.

This early projection comes before any potential substantial roster move, of which Denver has typically made at least one between OTAs and the start of the regular season. A year ago, for example, the Broncos signed running back J.K. Dobbins in June and then traded receiver Devaughn Vele in August.

It also comes before any big training camp surprise, a young player who makes a strong push or a veteran who suddenly appears out of gas.

Before Paytonā€™s team starts OTAs on Tuesday, hereā€™s an early attempt at a 53-man roster projection. The point of this exercise at this calendar waypoint is merely to mark a starting point and to attempt to determine where the most uncertainty — and opportunity ā€” lies on the Broncosā€™ current 91-man roster.

Finding 53 among this group requires tough decisions even before any actual football activity has started. There are players that were difficult to leave off the roster and some groups — offensive and defensive lines, in particular ā€” that are deep enough to impact other spots. Payton and general manager George Paton have shown time and time again they value quality players in the trenches.

There are a handful of veterans who could theoretically be considered cut candidates because of a combination of depth and salary, like tight end Evan Engram ($14.14 million cap hit) and left guard Ben Powers ($18.16 million). Denver could trade a veteran or quality player from a position of strength to help fortify elsewhere or accumulate future draft capital.

Among the players who look from this distance likely to exist somewhere around the bubble, however, none has a bigger cap number than offensive lineman Matt Peart¶¶Ņõap $2.39 million or more guaranteed money than quarterback Sam Ehlingerā€™s $1 million.

So, away we go. Players in the bubble conversation, both above and below the roster cut in this exercise, are in italics.

OFFENSE (25)

Quarterback (3)

Bo Nix, Jarrett Stidham and Sam Ehlinger

The question, really, with Denver’s quarterbacks is this: two or three? Denver started last year with two when Ehlinger agreed to start the season on the practice squad. If a similar scenario plays out — heā€™s got $1 million guaranteed ā€” then the Broncos could well take two. Denver values Ehlinger, though, and heā€™s going to get a bunch of work in OTAs and likely minicamp after Bo Nix had a second ankle procedure last month. This makes for tougher calls at other spots on a deep roster, but let¶¶Ņõap not mess around with the quarterback position when youā€™ve got players you like. If nothing else, using three as the starting point in this exercise ups the difficulty level the rest of the way.

Running back (4)

J.K. Dobbins, RJ Harvey, Jonah Coleman and Adam Prentice (FB)Ā 

Also: Jaleel McLaughlin, Tyler Badie and Cody Schrader

Colemanā€™s selection in the fourth round changes the complexion here by quite a bit. Heā€™s a potential third-down back right away and the Broncos are high on him if heā€™s needed beyond that early on. With a cleaner-fitting trio of backs, McLaughlin and Badie both have a tough road to the roster. If Denver wanted four plus Prentice, McLaughlin probably heads into the summer with the lead.

Tight end (4)

Adam Trautman, Evan Engram, Justin Joly and Caleb LohnerĀ 

Also: Dallen Bentley, Nate Adkins and Lucas Krull

One of the toughest projections. Lohner gets the nod for the moment after Payton raved about him earlier in May, especially because Payton was particularly impressed with Lohnerā€™s physicality and blocking. This, like many bubble decisions, could come down to who Denver thinks it can get to the practice squad between Lohner and Bentley, the No. 256 overall pick in April. With a bounce-back summer, Adkins could re-establish himself as a key role player. He could end up competing for a spot with Prentice, though, as much as it seems he could play some fullback; the Broncos just havenā€™t asked him to do it much so far in his career.

Wide receiver (5)

Courtland Sutton, Jaylen Waddle, Pat Bryant, Troy Franklin and Marvin Mims Jr.

Also: Michael Bandy, Lilā€™Jordan Humphrey, Michael Woods, Cam Ross, Kolbie Katsis, Joseph Manjack and Dane Key

Assuming no trades, it¶¶Ņõap hard to see how anybody besides the top five makes the initial 53-man roster. Waddle was the Broncosā€™ big offseason splash and, though he will impact playing time for the rest of the room, Denverā€™s brass has been consistent in saying theyā€™re not looking to move on from any of the regulars. Bandy and Humphrey are no strangers to starting the season on a practice squad and eventually seeing time on the 53-man roster. Itā€™ll be interesting to see if an undrafted rookie like Ross can make the Broncos think twice about going status quo, but that¶¶Ņõap a tall task.

Offensive line (9)

Garett Bolles, Ben Powers, Luke Wattenberg, Quinn Meinerz, Mike McGlinchey, Alex Palczewski, Frank Crum, Kage Casey and Alex ForsythĀ 

Also: Matt Peart, Nick Gargiulo, Calvin Throckmorton, Tyler Miller, Gavin Ortega, Michael Dieter and Nash Jones

The Broncos have enviable depth on their offensive line, but, like with wide receiver, the roles are defined enough that it¶¶Ņõap difficult to imagine a ton of wiggle room. Palczewski and Crum are valued depth and development pieces and Casey, a fourth-round pick, joins them in a similar mold. Forsyth has been the clear No. 2 center for two seasons behind Wattenberg. That¶¶Ņõap nine. Peart and Throckmorton are veterans who have stepped in and played, while Gargiulo showed some promise before a bad preseason knee injury last summer. Miller and Ortega are interesting undrafted rookies but, outside a rash of injuries or major training camp push, it¶¶Ņõap reasonable to think theyā€™re ticketed for the practice squad.

DEFENSE (25)

Defensive line (7)

Zach Allen, DJ Jones, Malcolm Roach, Eyioma Uwauzurike, Tyler Onyedim, Saiā€™Vion Jones and Jordan Jackson

Also: Matt Henningsen, Jordan Miller and Kristian Williams

A key part of the rationale for going heavy here again: Each of the past two years the roster cutdown has passed and Payton and Paton have made it clear that Jackson made the 53-man roster easily. Weā€™ll bet for now that the same ends up happening this summer. They might decide they just have to have a player at another position. Maybe somebody else is a surprise cut, though among this group 2025 third-rounder Saiā€™Vion Jones is the only real candidate and that would be a major surprise given they traded up for him and also liked his development last season. So, Payton and Paton instead stick to their principles and go heavy up front once again.

Outside linebacker (4)

Nik Bonitto, Jonathon Cooper, Que Robinson and Dondrea Tillman

Also: Drew Sanders, Johnny Walker and Dasan McCullough

The first three are absolute locks and thereā€™s not much doubt about Tillman, either. The going gets tough from there. Health has been a major obstacle for Sanders, but if he plays all summer, heā€™ll probably be productive enough to make the roster. The numbers just get tight elsewhere in a hurry. Keeping four here is really 4.5 in a way because Jonah Elliss can play on the edge if needed, plus a deep defensive line group can help take some work off the edge guys against heavier teams. Sanders is a training camp wild card, though.

Inside linebacker (4)

Alex Singleton, Justin Strnad, Jonah Elliss and Red MurdockĀ 

Also: Jordan Turner, Karene Reid, Levelle Bailey, Taurean York

Once again, this is about roster management and who makes it to the practice squad after the top three. Murdock was Mr. Irrelevant in the draft at No. 257, but forced 17 fumbles in his college career at Buffalo. Turnerā€™s got real promise, so it was not an easy call to leave him off. Reid was a special teams regular after making the initial roster as an undrafted rookie last year, but this is maybe a tougher roster to make despite the release of Dre Greenlaw earlier this spring.

Cornerback (5)

Pat Surtain II, Riley Moss, Jaā€™Quan McMillian, Jahdae Barron and Kris Abrams-Draine

Also: Reese Taylor, Jaden Robinson, Brent Austin, Ahmari Harvey and Paul Manning

Pretty straightforward here. The major storyline is more about beyond 2026, as McMillian and Moss are both entering contract years. For now, though, this is one of the deepest and most talented cornerback groups in football. Taylor has been a regular on the practice squad and was promoted to the active roster from mid-November on last year. The only question is if new secondary coaches Rob Livingston and Doug Belk see any of the personnel differently than Jim Leonhard and Addison Lynch previously.

Safety (5)

Talanoa Hufanga, Brandon Jones, Devon Key, Miles Scott and JL Skinner

Also: Tycen Anderson and Parker Robertson

There will be competition across multiple position groups based on special teams output. You can put Skinner, Anderson, Scott, Taylor, Turner, Reid, Sanders and more all into that group. The Broncos gave Anderson $650,000 guaranteed in part to be a key special teams player, so he might well make it. But over who? That signing was before Denver drafted Scott. Skinner is entering the final year of his rookie deal and is at a critical point in his career. The way coaches have talked about Key this offseason, he feels like the early favorite to replace P.J. Locke as the No. 3 safety. Denver signed Sam Franklin and gave him $1.34 million in guarantees last year, then cut him in August.

SPECIALIST (3)

PK Wil Lutz, P Jeremy Crawshaw and LS Mitch Fraboni

Also: LS Luke Basso

Not much mystery here. The Broncos signed the rookie Basso as summer competition, but Fraboniā€™s been solid and is under contract through 2027.

In a good way, of course.

Yes, the Texas A&M staff believed they were getting a good player when Onyedim transferred there after four years at Iowa State.

Yes, they were banking on him playing a sizable role on the Aggies’ interior defensive line.

Yes, they thought he had upside moving from the Cyclonesā€™ 3-3-5 defense to their even front.

Still, once A&M hit the field for spring ball, the defensive coaches quickly decided those expectations had been too modest.

ā€œWe kind of were like, ā€˜Oh damn. We got one,ā€™ā€ A&M defensive coordinator Lyle Hemphill told The Post.

One year later, Onyedim is set to start working in front of new coaches again, this time in Denver after the Broncos made him the No. 66 overall pick in last monthā€™s draft.

Hitting the jackpot in the transfer portal

When Onyedim and the rest of Denverā€™s rookie class begin work Friday at the teamā€™s rookie minicamp, he will do so as a player the Broncos front office fell in love with because of the season he put together at A&M.

The Texas native was a sturdy and quality starter at Iowa State, but never put up huge counting stats in what pro and college coaches and scouts call a unique defense.

Onyedim was asked to control multiple gaps on many snaps, read, react and play from there.

“Youā€™ve got to be a big boy in there to do some of that stuff,” Hemphill acknowledged, noting that ISU helped Onyedim grow into a high-quality player. “That, when it¶¶Ņõap all said and done, is probably the harder skill to develop.”

The Aggies, though, were after something different. When they looked for help in the transfer portal, they did something Denver head coach Sean Payton talks about frequently: They isolated subsets of tape to try to zero in on whether Onyedim fit their specific vision.

ā€œThere were times at Iowa State where you knew he was in pass-rush mode or just kind of go mode because of down and distance,ā€ Hemphill said. ā€œWe cut those clips out and watched those clips on the side and we were like, ā€˜Oh, wait, this kid can be something more than this defense allows him to be.ā€™ …

“When you watched him in that light, he became a different player.ā€

Even with that picture on tape at Iowa State, though, Onyedim surpassed what the Aggies thought they were getting. When he first arrived at the SEC school, Hemphill ā€” promoted to coordinator this offseason after spending 2025 as the teamā€™s associate head coach/defense ā€” and others thought Onyedim would be an early down player who didnā€™t provide much pass-rush juice.

By the time the season went along, they were instead building what would become the nationā€™s best third-down defense in part around Onyedim.

ā€œHe became the third-down big guy that we kept on the field,ā€ Hemphill said. ā€¦ ā€œ Next thing you know, weā€™ve got this really good third-down defense and we can put (him) to the overload side and you can create havoc. Iā€™ll be honest, we went from being OK at that position to being dominant at that position and that allowed our third-down defense to really take off.ā€

After logging 12 tackles for loss and three sacks over four years and 40 games at Iowa State, Onyedim collected 8.5 TFLs and 2.5 sacks in his lone year at A&M.

The NFL noticed.

When scouts came through practice, they asked about No. 11. Most had him as a Day 3 guy, fifth- or sixth-round, before the season began. By the time Onyedimā€™s campaign ended, the league ā€” and the Broncos ā€” had a much different view.

ā€œThe 3-3 scheme at Iowa State is a little different,ā€ Broncos assistant general manager Reed Burckhardt said after Denver selected Onyedim in the third round. ā€œAnd then he gets in a different scheme that fits ours a little bit more and ā€” thereā€™s always going to be differences, but we felt more comfortable seeing the evidence that he was playing in a scheme similar to ours. He had a really good year. His skillset is as a three-down player.”

Physically, the Broncos like the way Onyedim plays with his hands. Heā€™s got a frame similar to departed free agent John Franklin-Myers, including arms that are 34-plus inches and an 81-inch wingspan.

The same abilities that impressed A&M are what drew the Broncosā€™ attention ā€” and eventually marathon film sessions from GM George Paton and head coach Sean Payton.

ā€œThe tape was good at Iowa State,ā€ Paton said, ā€œBut we really liked it at A&M.ā€

Onyedim, Hemphill said, played anywhere the Aggies wanted him to up front.

ā€œHe can play inside the tackle, he can 3, he can play 2i, he can play shade,ā€ Hemphill said, noting they also had a package against multi-tight end sets where Onyedim played on the edge. ā€œHe can play 5 against big personnel groups and be pretty good. I think heā€™s going to kill a tight end if they try to block him.ā€

Ready to ‘learn from the best’

That versatility should serve Onyedim well in Denver, not just because the group heā€™s joining is deep and talented but also because of the way defensive coordinator Vance Joseph and defensive line coach Jamar Cain like to deploy their linemen.

ā€œWhen youā€™re talking about a 3-technique, you want a guy that can get on an edge, loop and game,ā€ Burckhardt said. ā€œā€˜V.J.ā€™ does a ton of that stuff. He fit the total package of what weā€™re looking for inside with the versatility.ā€

The day he was drafted, Onyedim said his mindset arriving in Denver and joining a group that includes All-Pro Zach Allen, veterans like D.J. Jones and Malcolm Roach, a close friend in former ISU teammate Eyioma Uwazurike and more was to learn as much as possible.

ā€œDonā€™t be an arrogant person,ā€ he said. ā€œJust learn. Sit back and learn from the best. That¶¶Ņõap my mindset, just learn from the best and cramming everything so I can be the best player I know I can be.ā€

Hemphill cited that ability as one of Onyedimā€™s foremost off-field strengths. The Broncos, Hemphill said, will be able to ask him to play whatever role at whatever time and be confident in it because Onyedim is a quick study.

ā€œHe understands what youā€™re trying to accomplish defensively and it just comes easy to him,ā€ Hemphill said. ā€œWe really, truly bounced him all over the d-line and he had no issues with it. I think heā€™s the type of kid that enjoys that. ā€˜Challenge me a little bit, Iā€™m good with it.ā€™

ā€œNever bitched, never complained. Really solid. Heā€™s just a grown man.ā€

Texas A&Mā€™s staff learned that and more quickly last spring.

Now, Onyedim will try to author a repeat performance at the gameā€™s highest level.

Or, at least for the Broncos, the 2026 offseason program kicks off Monday.

This is in many ways the start of the long march toward September and the start of the season, though players and coaches still have a five-week break to look forward to this summer.

Denver head coach Sean Payton decided to start this springā€™s program later than usual and later than everybody else in the NFL, citing a Broncos 2025 season that lasted until late January.

Payton is also a longtime believer that running and lifting are more important this time of year than getting on the field for football-related activities.

So, players start the voluntary part of the offseason program Monday, but outside of a rookie minicamp May 8-10, Denver will abstain from on-field work until the first week of June.

ā€œAll of May will just be weightlifting,ā€ Payton said earlier this year. ā€œYouā€™ll see us on the field in June. Weā€™ll have two weeks of OTAs and a week of mini camp, but I donā€™t want them to feel like they were just here.ā€

Payton has also said in the past that he doesnā€™t want his players feeling like theyā€™re going to football practice in the spring.

Still, Monday morning will feature the Broncosā€™ first 2026 team meeting, the first messaging about starting over and building toward a title run this fall. Itā€™ll feel like the start of something in the building.

With that in mind, here are four questions about the coming months in ¶¶Ņõapountry.

When will Broncos QB Bo Nix be back in action?

The likely answer now: Not for a while. Nix will likely still be aroundĀ for Phases 1 and 2 of the offseason program over the next several weeks, but heā€™ll be rehabbing from theĀ recent clean-up procedure on his surgically repaired right ankle rather than doing the full lifting and running regimen his teammates will be on.

OTAs and minicamp are still a month-plus away, but from here, sources expected Payton and Denverā€™s medical and training staffs to be cautious with Nix through those weeks. The start of training camp is still nearly three months away. Having Nix back to full go then is the new priority for the staff.

There is still no clear understanding of what the recent procedure entailed for Nix, but sources indicate the cleanup work was going to have to happen at some point ā€” if not now, then likely after the 2026 season. Nixā€™s rehab from the initial fracture repair in January went well enough that Dr. Norman Waldrop III, Nix and the Broncos decided they had a window to get it done now. It will cost Nix most of the early stages of the offseason program, but in return, he enters the year without the prospect of another procedure hanging out there somewhere on the horizon.

Could Denver add a veteran free agent of note?

It¶¶Ņõap always a possibility.

Denver signed RB J.K. Dobbins in June last year. In 2023, the club signed OLB Frank Clark around the same time.

For a time, the Broncos looked like they could perhaps use a veteran defensive lineman. Then they used their top draft pick, No. 66 overall, on Tyler Onyedim. Thereā€™s a long way to go to late August, but right now Denver looks like it could again easily take seven defensive linemen into the season: Zach Allen, D.J. Jones, Malcolm Roach, Eyioma Uwazurike, Onyedim, Saiā€™Vion Jones and Jordan Jackson.

If thereā€™s a spot to add a Dobbins-esque veteran, what about outside linebacker and what about Cam Jordan? The 37-year-old has a decade of history with Sean Payton, heā€™s still playing well even after 15 years in the NFL and, while the Broncos are by no means short at outside linebacker, they donā€™t have huge numbers there after sliding Jonah Elliss inside. Now, Denverā€™s top line is among the best in the business with Nik Bonitto and Jonathon Cooper. The club is high on Que Robinson and Dondrea Tillman provides quality depth. Denver could always kick Elliss back outside if it needed. But Jordan had 10.5 sacks a year ago and, critically, is hardly a situational pass-rusher. Heā€™s still a force against the run and could be used creatively both on third down and early downs. The Broncos have one of his biggest fans in Payton and also a New Orleans native in Vance Joseph as their defensive coordinator.

Are there any big contract extensions on the table?

Not like last year, where the Broncos had a laundry list of mega deals to do with cornerstone players like Courtland Sutton, Allen and Nik Bonitto.

The biggest decision to make is in the secondary, where nickel Jaā€™Quan McMillian and corner Riley Moss are each entering contract years and 2025 first-round pick Jahdae Barron is waiting in the wings.

Other starters and key players entering the final years of their contracts include safety Brandon Jones, left guard Ben Powers, receiver Marvin Mims Jr. and tight end Evan Engram.

Overall, thereā€™s far less certainty about who from that group will end up in Denver long term than there was a year ago, when it seemed all but certain that the big three would get deals done eventually.

Denver typically has done offseason extensions closer to training camp (Quinn Meinerz in 2024) or during (all three last year and Pat Surtain II in 2024) rather than in the spring.

What else is on the spring cleaning list at Broncos Park?

A handful of other projects. Now that the NFL draft is in the rearview mirror, an extension for general manager George Paton moves closer to the batterā€™s box. CEO and owner Greg Penner has made it clear Patonā€™s wanted long-term and has essentially said a deal is a matter of when, not if. Most front office movement of all kinds comes after the draft and into the summer. On a related note, Patonā€™s front office is highly regarded and has been raided repeatedly over the past two offseasons, so more movement on that front cannot be ruled out.

Denver also has a major move ahead in June, when the club relocates from its current headquarters to its new building across the practice fields, which is nearing completion.

Jonah Coleman looks like he could be the second coming of C.J. Anderson: A short, tanky back with big-time pass protection skills. It looks like we’re going into 2026 with J.K. Dobbins as RB1 again, but can he beat out RJ Harvey for that RB2 slot? Thanks.

— Ryan Smith, Commerce City

Hey Ryan, thanks for writing and getting us going this week.

The other Broncos running back that Coleman has drawn early comparisons to: Dobbins himself. In fact, head coach Sean Payton brought it up during the draft and assistant general manager Reed Burckhardt after the draft called the comp ā€œvery valid.ā€ That¶¶Ņõap a pretty good starting point for the fourth-round pick out of Washington.

Dobbins will indeed lead Denverā€™s running back group into the 2026 season. It¶¶Ņõap early to know exactly how roles shake out, but to my mind the early blueprint is essentially Dobbins and Harvey in similar roles to what they did last year and then Coleman as the third-down back plus maybe a little more.

Let¶¶Ņõap just make the overarching disclaimer once, since most of the questions this week are about guys who have not yet stepped on an NFL practice field, let alone played in preseason or regular season games: It¶¶Ņõap April. Every rookie has a lot to do to get onto the field and there are months of work, development, signings, injuries and all the rest before we even get to the seasonā€™s starting point.

The Broncos would of course love it if Harvey took a big step in Year 2 and added every-down rushing efficiency to his obvious talent and explosiveness catching the ball and working in space. They would love it if Dobbins plays the entire season for the first time in his career. Theyā€™d love it if Coleman made himself difficult to keep off the field.

Colemanā€™s going to have to prove he can pick up Denverā€™s protection plan ā€” not an easy task for a rookie ā€” in order to lock down the third-down job, but the Broncos like his ability in that department. Add in 51 catches over the past two years at Washington and thereā€™s a chance he can essentially consolidate the roles of Tyler Badie and Jaleel McLaughlin. In an ideal world, Coleman and Harvey can perhaps take a bit of the load off Dobbins and complete the orbit of needs around him and then also serve as complementary options should Dobbins miss time.

On paper, it looks good. If everyone is healthy going into the season and Harvey looks poised to take a leap, Colemanā€™s role right out of the chute might be third down only. But even that¶¶Ņõap an important spot, and the rookie could push for more.

Hey Parker! What do you think of our draft class? I like Jonah Coleman and I think he can be a contributor this year. But how do you feel about Tyler Onyedim? And what’s up with us not going for an inside linebacker until literally the last pick in the draft?

— Mark, Arvada

Hey Mark, thanks for writing and, more importantly, for agreeing with me on Coleman.

Onyedim, too, is going to have a real chance to carve out a role, even if it¶¶Ņõap not a massive one. Basically, heā€™s going to get thrown into the mix of players attempting to replace John Franklin-Myers, who got more than $20 million per year from Tennessee in free agency.

It¶¶Ņõap worth saying thereā€™s no guarantee that Denver will play its defensive rotation exactly like it did a year ago. Franklin-Myers played very similar rates each of his two years in Denver ā€” 46% in 2024 and 49% last year. That doesnā€™t necessarily mean the Broncos will see those 517 snaps as the exact shape of the hole. They could use Malcolm Roach even a bit more (career-high 50% play time in his 12 games last year) and Eyioma Uwazurike (36% playing time) figures to be a key in the equation, too. If Denver keeps Roach in essentially the role he excelled in last year, then it has three options to replace JFMā€™s approximate snaps: Uwazurike and Onyedim ā€” former teammates at Iowa State ā€” and 2025 third-rounder Saiā€™Vion Jones.

Uwazurike has the most experience, even after missing 2023 due to suspension and playing just 63 snaps in 2024. Overall, though, that¶¶Ņõap a good battle going into this summer. Plus, Uwazurike is entering the final year of his rookie contract this fall.

As for the linebacker conversation, thereā€™s never a good way to say exactly how or why a team didnā€™t draft a position during a particular draft. Burckhardt made it clear afterward that Denver wanted a linebacker, but didnā€™t see it as a critical need after re-signing Justin Strnad and Alex Singleton earlier this spring. It¶¶Ņõap also worth considering how the second round developed.

Remember, GM George Paton said the club had a group of six players targeted as options at No. 62.

“They all started going,” Paton said Friday night after selecting Onyedim while noting that the defensive lineman was in that group of six.

Combine that with the fact that five ILBs (and four TEs) went in the 19 picks before Denverā€™s original slot. ILB Anthony Hill Jr. and TE Max Klare were selected in the spots immediately preceding Denver. It¶¶Ņõap not difficult to figure out where, at least in part, the Broncos were initially looking.

Do you think either of the tight ends we drafted will do much this year? I don’t know much about them.

— Phillip K., Denver

Hey Phillip, thanks for the question. Theyā€™ll each have a chance to contribute early, but Iā€™m not sure you look at either as a surefire rotation member right out of the gate.

They are different kinds of players. Justin Joly, the fifth-rounder out of NC State, is a pass-catcher first and foremost. Heā€™s, in positional parlance, an ā€œFā€ who will move around the formation, play from the slot or wing and factor in the passing game. Dallen Bentley, the seventh-rounder out of Utah, is a ā€œY.ā€ Heā€™s the classic tight end who can line up in-line, attached to the tackle on either side of the formation.

The shorthand: Joly begins as an Evan Engram-type and Bentley begins as Adam Trautman-type.

Those arenā€™t Denverā€™s only tight ends, of course, though injuries limited the rest of the group in terms of playing time in 2025. That trio came in this way: Nate Adkins (199 snaps in nine games), Marcedes Lewis (81 snaps in five games) and Lucas Krull (53 snaps in three games).

Trautmanā€™s 57% playing time checked in between 2024 (52%) and 2023 (70%). Engram played less in Year 1 with the Broncos than any healthy season previously in Jacksonville and with the New York Giants.

The Broncos need to figure out how to get more production out of this group. If that¶¶Ņõap via Joly or Bentley right away, great. Maybe they can help Denver play heavier or feature more TE variety. If it¶¶Ņõap as simple as unlocking Engram more, that¶¶Ņõap more than fine. As a starting point, Iā€™m not sure thereā€™s a massive role for either rookie right away, but perhaps one or both can make some summer noise and alter that conversation.

What can you tell me about this Red Murdock kid? I’ve been watching videos about him and it feels like we found a gem that fell through the cracks. He owns the NCAA record for most career forced fumbles! How did he not get drafted higher?

— Walter, Pueblo

Hey Walter, thanks for writing in. First thing, make sure to catch Sean Keelerā€™s column from early this week. It¶¶Ņõap a good one and will tell you a lot about Murdock the person. Heā€™s a smart, interesting guy.

The stats are indeed wild. Murdock forced 17 fumbles over 34 games at Buffalo. He was credited with 298 total tackles in the past two seasons. So on and so forth.

Not only that, but plenty of services thought Murdock would go sooner than No. 257. The Athleticā€™s Dane Brugler, for example, had him graded as a fourth or fifth-round pick and the No. 138 overall player in the class. Murdock checked in two spots behind Boise State OL Kage Casey on Bruglerā€™s overall list. The Broncos drafted Casey No. 111 overall.

As for why Murdock was available late, teams see players in increasingly disparate ways as the draft enters its latter stages. Murdock also doesnā€™t have a huge wingspan and isnā€™t a top-shelf athlete, comparatively speaking. He also dealt with a foot/ankle injury last year that he played through but which lingered long enough to cut his pro day short this spring.

Which of the undrafted free agents do you think will have the best shot at making the team?

— K.J., Cheyenne, Wyo.

Hey K.J., good question and definitely one to revisit after rookie minicamp, which will be next weekend. Thereā€™s always somebody who jumps out when reporters get a chance to watch guys on the field. That doesnā€™t always equate to making the 53-man roster, but it¶¶Ņõap always an interesting exercise. Plus, it¶¶Ņõap hard to complain about seeing football-related activities in May.

The first guide is typically money. If you see a big guarantee for an undrafted free agent ā€” some teams committed as much as $300,000 in total guarantees this spring ā€” that means the team believes that player will at least be on their practice squad. The base practice squad salary for a rookie is $13,750 per week, totaling $247,500 for the season. So some players are essentially being guaranteed an entire PS salary plus a little.

By that measure in Denver, youā€™d look to players like ILB Taurean York (Texas A&M), OLB Dasan McCullough (Nebraska) and OT Tyler Miller (Iowa State). Of course, offensive line and outside linebacker are going to be two of the toughest position groups to crack, assuming good health. So let¶¶Ņõap say York as an early candidate, but see what happens once the guys have been on the field a couple of times, too.

It doesnā€™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, it¶¶Ņõap meat and potatoes.

Sometimes, it¶¶Ņõap patience ā€” or something like it.

Sometimes it¶¶Ņõap waiting 61 picks, trading back four more and then taking a player at what was arguably your deepest position the past two years.

That¶¶Ņõap 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 Broncosā€™ 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 ā€” “that was a boring day,” Paton said ā€” 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.

“It’s a typical draft ā€” there’s a run at different positions, which we figured there would be,” Paton said. “It fell like we thought it would. I think I mentioned we had six players and they all started going. Tyler was one of those six, but it fell kind of like we thought it would.”

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. Tennessee general manager Mike Borgonzi, a former Kansas City executive, explained trading up to No. 60 for Hill by talking about pro scouting and understanding the needs and potential interest of the teams in your part of the draft board.

When Denver’s pick arrived, Paton and head coach Sean PaytonĀ 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.

“He plays a position that’s always hard to find at defensive tackle,” Payton said Friday night. “His strike, his shed, the athlete, makeup, those are traits.”

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 Saiā€™Vion Jones.

Roach and Uwazurike each are expected to help fill the gap left by John Franklin-Myers, Denverā€™s lone high-profile free agency departure, but Saiā€™Vion Jones and Onyedim are the kinds of pieces the Broncos are betting play key roles at some point in the future.

ā€œWe typically like to draft high-trait players,ā€ Paton said earlier this month. ā€œMaybe they lack a little bit of polish and it¶¶Ņõap going to take some development. Weā€™ve done a great job with the coaches in developing these types of players. ā€¦ Sure, weā€™d like somebody to come in and start right away, but that¶¶Ņõap not always realistic no matter where theyā€™re picked. It¶¶Ņõap just hard.

ā€œWith the way our team is built now, it¶¶Ņõap going to be hard to come in and start Day 1.ā€

That is true of Onyedim, too. His versatility ā€” he called himself ā€œa true d-linemanā€ capable of playing every spot ā€” is a virtue and in the Broncosā€™ mind maximizes the chance heā€™ll find a home somewhere along the front at some point, whether it¶¶Ņõap 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 ā€” though clearly at a lower hit rate ā€” 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 itā€™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.

ā€œJust going into it, we feel pretty good,ā€ he said a month ago. ā€œWe have Saiā€™Vion and we have our four guys coming back. Our starters and then Eni really came on. Then Saiā€™vion and Jordan Jackson.ā€

In the NFL, though, the reality is there is almost no such thing as too much depth on the line of scrimmage.

“We’re looking closely at the grade and at the stack,” Payton said. “We’re never trying to worry about the splash.”