When the Denver Broncos signed Evan Engram during 2025 NFL free agency, he was pitched by head coach Sean Payton as the "joker". Broncos fans had gotten so tired of hearing that term that many fans muted it altogether on Twitter, but it wasn't just Payton who confirmed Engram was signed to play that role.
Engram himself confirmed it when he was signed.
The Joker role was a big reason why Engram chose the Broncos in his free agent recruitment, which came down to the Broncos and Chargers. Although winning cures all, it's safe to say the vision for Engram did not match what happened on the field over the course of the 2025 season.
Evan Engram says his role with Broncos in 2025 was out of his control
Asked #Broncos TE Evan Engram how his role this year ended up being different from the vision pitched when he originally signed.
— Luca Evans (@bylucaevans) January 26, 2026
“I mean, a lot of the stuff that was different was out of my control. I can only do the most with the opportunities I get.”
Full response: pic.twitter.com/QbVxaClEeU
Engram played just 42 percent of the Broncos' offensive snaps in his first year with the team. He caught 50 passes for 461 yards and just one touchdown, which came in the team's comeback win against the Philadelphia Eagles.
The difficult part about the season we saw from Engram was, like he said, the fact that he maximized the opportunities he was given. And every time Engram made a play, Broncos fans were reminded that there's a game-changing tight end on the roster who is simply not being used properly.
This is something Sean Payton is really going to have to ponder on in the 2026 offseason. Although he's one of the best offensive minds in football, Payton has fit players to his scheme rather than building the scheme around his players, at least in some ways.
For Engram to play just 42 percent of the snaps at his pay grade is egregious, especially because there were rarely any games where you could tell there was a concerted effort to get him the ball, or that the Broncos were deliberately designing ways to get him more involved.
It was more of a situation where if Engram saw the ball, it was almost as an afterthought.
There were very few opportunities drawn up for him to stretch the field vertically. It felt like Lil'Jordan Humphrey when he returned to the team, albeit in a very different role.
It was just one of the most frustrating aspects of the team in 2025. Engram was barely used in the red zone. He wasn't a consistent threat on third downs. He never became that "easy button" many hoped he could be when he was signed. We rarely saw Engram affecting the middle of the field.
He certainly wasn't doing anything that you would imagine a "joker" would do for the Sean Payton offense. Then again, a lot of the Broncos' production on offense felt difficult in 2025. They had to scrape and claw their way to wins as opposed to just coming out and beating the brakes off of teams. It wasn't a clean operation from the start of the year to the disappointing end in the playoffs.
And with that, the Broncos will need to do some soul searching in the 2026 offseason about what the future holds for a player like Engram. He's one of their most talented weapons in the passing game, but the passing game has to be designed for him to be a threat in order for him to truly thrive.
Like Engram said, it was out of his control.