The Denver Broncos have to be aggressive in the 2026 offseason to not only fill roster holes, but address the true top need of the team as a whole: Talent upgrades.
The Broncos have plenty of players to fill roles and holes on the roster. They've mostly been filled by "Sean Payton guys" or overachievers, but the team's need for an influx of upgraded talent at certain positions has never been clearer.
Bleacher Report recently put out an article outlining trade targets for the 2026 offseason for every NFL team, and the names they picked for the Denver Broncos were rather underwhelming overall.
Bleacher Report's predicted Broncos trade targets miss the mark for a successful offseason
The three trade targets B/R picked for the Broncos are Colts wide receiver Michael Pittman Jr., Raiders tight end Michael Mayer, and Saints running back Alvin Kamara.
Let's start off by discussing the possibility of Michael Pittman Jr., who has just one year left on his contract in 2026 with a base salary of $22 million. That fact alone makes this possibility extremely underwhelming for the Broncos' context, because Pittman is not even as good of a player as Courtland Sutton, who already signed a contract extension with the team last year.
And Sutton already has a cap hit of less than $14 million this coming season, so trading for someone whose skill set is redundant, is only under contract for one more year, and is not that much younger than Sutton? That would be a mistake for the Broncos.
The best idea on this list is the idea of trading for Michael Mayer, but the preventative issue here is the fact that the Broncos would have to strike a deal with the Raiders to get him. While it's not impossible to think that there could be a trade with a division opponent, it just isn't likely to happen.
A player like Mayer would be nice for the Broncos to add, because the Broncos need to upgrade over Adam Trautman going forward.
The idea of trading for Alvin Kamara with the Saints is another idea that really has to be done. Kamara makes absolutely no sense for the Broncos unless there is an injury to RJ Harvey. The Broncos found a gem last year very late in the offseason when they brought in JK Dobbins, a bigger back who was able to shoulder the biggest portion of the workload for the first 10 games of the season before his Lisfranc injury.
That is the type of back the Broncos need, not Kamara, whose skill set is redundant with Harvey on the roster.
If the Broncos are formulating an ideal trade targets list, it should start with players like AJ Brown of the Eagles or Jaylen Waddle of the Dolphins. And TJ Hockenson of the Vikings, if he's available, should also be on that list. This year's free agency class is so strong at running back that trading for a running back would seem like a poor use of resources, unless the Broncos could get someone for a bargain.