The Denver Broncos have a lot of needs in 2020 but who’s to say some of those needs won’t be filled by in-house players? Keep an eye on these guys.
The Denver Broncos have a lot of needs to address in the 2020 offseason.
Thankfully, they have plenty of cap space ($62 million at this point) and draft selections (nine before compensatory picks are awarded) to work with, but those are not the only two ways the Broncos are going to be able to address needs this offseason.
Aside from trades being an additional option to upgrade the roster, the Broncos can perhaps look to a way of improving the team that is perhaps the most often overlooked: Developing in-house players.
As shocking as it may sound, the Broncos will certainly explore upgrades at positions of need, but they also may trust in their player development and the progression of some of the young talent this team has drafted within the last 2-3 years.
While that is certainly risky in some cases, it’s also not a bad idea for the Broncos to believe that they have the right staff in place to fill needs with in-house guys.
It was more than a little nerve-wracking when the team just decided that Matt Paradis, a practice squad player in 2014, was going to be the starting center for Peyton Manning on the 2015 Broncos. How’d that turn out?
There was a large section of Broncos Country that determined the team had inadequately addressed the linebacker position over the course of the offseason, instead trusting in the development of young players like Josey Jewell and Alexander Johnson.
At least in Johnson’s case, that trust paid off.
There are plenty of other situations where the Broncos have trusted in young players or developing players to fill needs and quite frankly, if you don’t have a coaching staff capable of extracting the best out of high draft picks, unless there’s something significant wrong with the player, it’s on the coaching staff.
The Broncos brought in a veteran coaching staff not just to work with a bunch of high-priced free agents or to only succeed with first- or second-round draft picks. They are obviously going to be active in free agency and in the 2020 NFL Draft, but here are some players the Broncos could look to who are already on the 90-man roster that could fill some of their top needs.