How far can the Denver Broncos trade up in the 2023 NFL Draft?

The Denver Broncos don't pick until the third round of the 2023 NFL Draft, but how far can they realistically trade up? Interesting information has been brought up about Sean Payton and his draft habits as a head coach.

He's overseen many instances of trading UP the draft board, so it does seem more likely than not that the Broncos do that in 2023, just given Payton's history of doing such. Even though Denver does not pick until the third round of the 2023 NFL Draft, could they still make a significant trade up?

I think so, and to make this easy to see and understand, I'll use the 2023 NFL Trade Value Chart. Teams utilize a similar chart like this to assign value to their picks. This helps in negotiating trades involving draft picks with other teams.

The Denver Broncos hold the 67th and 68th overall picks. The 67th pick holds a value of 255 and the 68th overall pick holds a value of 250. If we combine those two picks, we get an estimated value of 505.

Well, what does that mean? The 39th overall pick, held by the Carolina Panthers, has a value of 510. The 40th overall pick, held by the New Orleans Saints, holds a value of 500. Basically, the value of Denver's two third-round picks is roughly worth the 39th overall pick in an NFL Draft.

To make life easy, let's say that Sean Payton does business with his old team, the Saints. New Orleans gets the 67th and 68th overall picks while Denver gets the 40th overall pick. They're now picking near the very top of the second round.

Who could they get with that pick? Well, we can run a mock draft simulator using the New Orleans Saints since we have their pick now. I'll run one using PFN's Mock Draft Simulator.

Oh, man. I have some studs available at 40. Players like Michael Mayer, Calijah Kancey, O'Cyrus Torrence, Darnell Washington, and Emmanuel Forbes are all there at 40 for me to pick from.

I think I'd pick Torrence in this specific mock. Let's run it again.

In the second run-through, I have Kancey, Zay Flowers, Dawand Jones, and Jahmyr Gibbs available to me, among many other talented players.

I'd feel very conflicted having to choose between Flowers and Gibbs, but I'd probably take Gibbs as he profiles very closely to Alvin Kamara, and we all know how good Kamara is and was with Sean Payton.

The Denver Broncos do have a very realistic path to get higher in the 2023 NFL Draft, and the return from a move like that could be great.