The Denver Broncos don't pick until the third round of the 2023 NFL Draft, and even with limited capital, should we expect the unexpected from this team? A lot of folks right now feel like the Broncos are pretty likely to go with a center at some point in round three, and they may very well be able to find a starter there. Others feel like the best direction for Denver in the third round is to go after an EDGE player, and I'm here to tell you they shouldn't necessarily back themselves into any particular corners.
When you don't pick until round three, how can you back yourself into a corner? Given their draft positioning, the Broncos hopefully won't be drafting for a specific need. That's how you get into trouble of missing out on better prospects because you decided to enter the draft with a clear area of need, and you're force-feeding a specific position rather than playing the board.
Although we all have our preferences of what the Broncos should do with their five picks, I think what the team ultimately needs to do is keep a very open mind. Even if it means going after some positions you may not expect...
3 positions the Denver Broncos could surprisingly target early in the 2023 NFL Draft
1. Quarterback
I can already hear people complaining from here. Why would the Denver Broncos take a quarterback early in this year's draft? They have Russell Wilson and they just signed Jarrett Stidham!
Yes, there is no doubt that if the Broncos used a high pick on the quarterback position, he would be no better than QB3...For now. I am of the belief, however, that QBs are currency in the NFL. Valuable currency. I just don't think you can eliminate the possibility that you might like a guy enough at any juncture of the draft. Keep this option open.
Who would the Broncos take with one of their higher picks? Well, right now, there's a pretty massive gap between the guy most consider to be the fifth-best QB in this class (Tennessee's Hendon Hooker) and the next best guy (whoever you may have ranked there), but it's possible -- just like every year -- that NFL teams have fallen in love with guys behind the scenes and will have them ranked in a bizarrely different way than anyone expects.
I think Hooker is going to go to early for the Broncos to have a shot at him, but I also think there are guys they could consider in rounds 3-4 that provide some intrigue.
- Stanford's Tanner McKee
- BYU's Jaren Hall
- Fresno State's Jake Haener
- Georgia's Stetson Bennett
- UCLA's Dorian Thompson-Robinson
I don't think anything is off the table. Even some surprise names falling into that category. What about Sean Clifford out of Penn State, who the team did a Zoom interview with? What about someone like TCU's Max Duggan, who had an awesome Combine workout? I think the Broncos will approach this draft with an open mind at the QB position, as they should. Again, don't be surprised if Denver and other NFL teams have these QBs graded way different than the mock draft machines.
2. Tight End
To say that Sean Payton had a less-than-glowing endorsement for the Denver Broncos' offense in 2022 when he watched the film would be an understatement. Payton noted that watching last year's offense was "hard" and he also didn't exactly have a glowing endorsement for second-year tight end Greg Dulcich, one of the Broncos' top picks in the 2022 NFL Draft.
"“We’ll see. We haven’t gone through every player relative to the evaluation process. Some of it was hard—the evaluation. Some of it was hard.”"Sean Payton (via Broncos PR)
I mean, you're typically going to get a pretty candid answer on everything from Sean Payton, it seems like, but when you're asking about a young player who was one of your better options in a dismal offensive season last year? This is not what you want to hear the head coach say at all. Now, Payton could be talking about how it was hard to evaluate Greg Dulcich fairly given the horrendous offense and Dulcich's own injuries, but it also seems like he might be dancing around the question a little bit to protect the player in the public eye.
Either way, I wouldn't be shocked to see the tight end position higher on the Denver Broncos' 2023 NFL Draft priority list than many people think.
I recently looked at a mock draft scenario where the best player on the board was South Dakota State's Tucker Kraft. This is a deep crop of tight ends coming out in the Draft and certainly, it's possible that the best player sitting there when the Broncos are on the clock at pick 67 and 68 overall is a tight end.
Although a lot of people assume the group of Greg Dulcich, Albert Okwuegbunam, and Chris Manhertz is going to do just fine, I think the Broncos might be looking for a more complete option at this position, and this is a spot where Sean Payton has historically been willing to invest pretty heavily.
3. Cornerback
This may qualify for the "least" surprising position group to be targeted early by the Denver Broncos in the 2023 NFL Draft, but I think attacking the cornerback position before offensive line, defensive line, or perhaps some other spots might surprise folks.
The Broncos have one of the game's top cornerbacks already in Pat Surtain II. Last year, we saw the emergence not only of Surtain but also 2022 fourth-round pick Damarri Mathis, who fell to the fourth round despite some day two hype in the weeks leading up to the event.
Even with Surtain and Mathis, even after the addition of Tremon Smith, even after retaining Essang Bassey, I think this is a position the Denver Broncos will want to look at early on in the NFL Draft. You can find good players in this pick range at the cornerback position, and it's a position group that is getting more and more expensive every year in terms of keeping guys around on long-term contracts.
As Vic Fangio once put it, there are 96 starting jobs in the league, essentially, and there aren't 96 guys to fill them. If you can find an option in the middle rounds of the draft at this position group, it might be worth sacrificing someone you have on your target list on the interior offensive line to snag them.
You never know, because growth is not always linear in the NFL (almost never) -- what happens if Damarri Mathis takes a step back in year two? Nobody wants to see that, but what if he does struggle? It seems like the Broncos are banking a lot on his development without a real fail-safe in place.
Adding a player with one of these two picks would be a smart idea even if it might surprise some people to see this position prioritized.