Which Denver Broncos players are poised to break out in the 2020 season?
With a roster as young and talented as the Denver Broncos in 2020, there are bound to be a few breakout player candidates.
This year’s Denver Broncos team, in particular, is full of young guys who will benefit from either continuity in Vic Fangio’s defensive scheme or stability at the quarterback position, even if there are growing and learning experiences along the way for Drew Lock.
Who qualifies as a potential breakout player candidate?
It might be easier to identify the kind of player that does not qualify first and foremost.
Von Miller cannot be a breakout player in 2020. That should go without saying, but Von Miller is an established superstar in the NFL and even though he could have a huge increase in production in 2020 compared to 2019, that doesn’t mean he’s ‘breaking out’ as a player.
Even Bradley Chubb, a third-year player who was injured most of last season, is not a player who you would really consider a breakout candidate after his rookie season was really his coming out party.
What about Courtland Sutton? He’s not unanimously considered a top 5-10 receiver in the NFL yet. Can he be a breakout player? Absolutely not. Sutton has already broken out and established himself in the NFL, regardless of who is paying attention.
An extreme example of a breakout player would be someone like Alexander Johnson, a player who rode the bench for the first four games of the 2019 season before becoming one of the best linebackers in the NFL for the final 12 games.
A breakout player in the NFL is someone who has little, modest, or no production in their NFL career and then all of a sudden they establish themselves as a big-money type of player. This is typically a second- or third-year player in the league.
Rookies are all breakout candidates, and too obvious to select for this kind of exercise.
Who are the Broncos’ top breakout candidates in 2020? Let’s take a look.