Denver Broncos: Identifying the team’s top roster weaknesses so far
Cornerback
Beyond the 2018 season, the only cornerbacks on the Broncos’ active roster under contract are soon-to-be 30-year-old Chris Harris Jr. and rookie Isaac Yiadom.
The Broncos are giving Bradley Roby this season to determine whether or not he’s worthy of a contract extension, but he’s been a mixed bag so far through four games in 2018 despite some great improvement in 2017.
The team brought in Tramaine Brock and Pacman Jones to help ease the pain of losing Aqib Talib, but Talib was such a great player for so many years in the NFL, he’s hard to really ‘replace’.
The Broncos’ pass rush is good enough that they should be able to plug a number of guys into their man scheme who can have reasonable success, but if the pass rush isn’t getting home, the coverage won’t matter all that much.
Solution: Reasonably priced free agent and high draft pick
The way Bradley Roby is playing, it’s hard to believe someone is going to pay top dollar (as in $12 million or more per season). If he picks things up as the season progresses and turns out to be the top corner the Broncos anticipated he could be, it will be tough to justify not bringing him back into the fold.
Other options in free agency could include Ronald Darby, Darqueze Dennard, and Jason Verrett. We don’t know at this point which players could also be cap casualties, and the Broncos could also pursue trades for solid players here.
The way the Broncos are going to have to prioritize rebuilding this position is through the NFL Draft, and they should be considered strong candidates to take a cornerback in the first two rounds of the draft.
Next. Denver Broncos 2018 rookie report card. dark
The 2019 NFL Draft has some solid players at the cornerback position that could interest the Broncos like Jamel Dean of Auburn, Lavert Hill of Michigan, Greedy Williams of LSU, and DeAndre Baker of Georgia.