Denver Broncos tried for a 2020 first rounder in trade back

In a behind-the-scenes look at the Denver Broncos first two days of the 2019 NFL Draft, Peter King reveals John Elway tried to secure a 2020 1st rounder.

When the Denver Broncos were on the clock with the 10th overall pick in the 2019 NFL Draft, they had to make some quick decisions.

The Broncos had talks with the Pittsburgh Steelers about moving down to the 20th overall pick if Michigan linebacker Devin Bush was on the board. The Broncos were in a position to take Bush as well if they didn’t get an offer they liked, and the Steelers sweetened the pot by giving the Broncos not only a second-round pick in 2019 but a third-round pick in 2020.

According to Peter King, the Broncos tried for a 2020 first-rounder.

"Denver had the Giants and Falcons on the phone during the trade with Pittsburgh. The Giants made a competitive offer, Elway said, but not as good as Pittsburgh’s … and the Steelers, by the way, stonewalled Elway when Denver pushed for a first-rounder in 2020.Peter King"

When I saw Peter King follow Elway out the door after the Broncos’ day one press conference, I knew he was going to have some fun information to share for his column, and that’s one of many great nuggets he had about how this whole thing went down.

Think about how different things would have been if the Broncos had gotten the Steelers’ 2020 1st-rounder rather than their 2019 2nd.

There would have been no trade for Drew Lock, in all likelihood.

Some fans may not be upset about that, but I, for one, am thrilled with how things worked out, and the Broncos got good value even if they were ‘stonewalled’ when asking for a first-round pick.

If the Steelers had been desperate for a quarterback, the Broncos would have gotten that first-round pick. That’s the going rate to move up that far for a quarterback these days. The 2017 NFL Draft included two trades involving future first-round picks. The 2018 NFL Draft had a couple of trades with similar value (the Jets gave up three second-round picks to move up for Sam Darnold).

But, the Steelers weren’t looking for a quarterback for their offense. They were looking for a quarterback for their defense. Thus, they stuck relatively close to the ‘trade value chart’ which is an ancient value chart given to draft picks to give some kind of indicator of fair compensation.

The Broncos picked up the extra second-rounder this year, using it to move up for Drew Lock. They got an extra third-round pick next year, and who knows what player that might turn into?

The behind-the-scenes of the NFL Draft is always fascinating if you can get any sort of nuggets. Peter King’s column shed some light on really fun situations around the league, including Denver’s, Oakland’s, and Arizona’s.