Early on in Denver Broncos training camp, it's become abundantly clear that the wide receiver position is going to be one of the toughest to sort out on the entire team.
Even with only one padded practice in the books, players can ill afford a down day, but the latest update regarding third-year player Troy Franklin is much more ominous than just a bad practice.
According to Luca Evans, who covers the Broncos for The Denver Post, the issue at the Broncos' first padded practice had little to do with Franklin struggling, and more to do with his general involvement. Evans said that he was "not seeing many touches" for Franklin, which is a pretty significant concern, even early on in camp.
Troy Franklin may already be falling behind other Broncos WRs early at training camp
Let's talk about the good news for Troy Franklin before we get to the bad. The good news is, the Broncos don't really have a true "WR3" in their offense. Sean Payton has made that crystal clear, especially lately, and that the expectation should be more of the Broncos finding ways to incorporate all of their playmakers.
And Payton isn't just blowing smoke there. The Broncos use different personnel groupings all the time to throw defenses off, and try to gain an advantage that way. Payton is a mastermind of exploiting certain tendencies a defense might have by utilizing his wide variety of personnel.
With that in mind, there is still going to be a pecking order for snaps and roles on the team, and after just a handful of practices, it feels like Franklin is clearly falling behind the likes of Marvin Mims Jr. and second-year player Pat Bryant.
Heck, there's even been more positive hype surrounding players like veteran Lil'Jordan Humphrey and UFL star Hakeem Butler.
Especially with Bryant already stacking days and not going a single practice without making at least one notable big play, Franklin's role is quickly becoming harder and harder to define for this upcoming season.
Last year, the Broncos were obviously motivated to get Franklin a big role within the offense. He ended up ranking second on the team in total targets behind Courtland Sutton, and it was a close second. Even though that is an inarguable fact, it's also fascinating that Franklin was losing snaps down the stretch last season to Pat Bryant. Although the overall snap count was similar, Bryant outsnapped Franklin in the second half of the season overall.
This isn't some type of conspiracy theory, but there is a numbers game when it comes to the roster and how many receivers you can actually end up keeping. The Broncos currently have one receiver on the team who plays special teams: Marvin Mims Jr. And Mims is the team's primary return specialist, so it's not like he's a core-four special teams ace.
How many receivers can realistically be on the roster without having some type of role on special teams? Will the Broncos downgrade Franklin's value by keeping him on the 53 but possibly making him inactive on gamedays?
We're getting way ahead of ourselves at this point, but these are all interesting questions to ask as we get into the thick of training camp, and roles start to get more clearly defined.
Part of the reason why the wording from Evans about Franklin not having much of a role is interesting is the situation we saw last year with Audric Estimé during training camp. The former 5th-round pick out of Notre Dame had clearly fallen out of favor with the coaching staff, and it seemed like no matter what he did, his time with the Broncos last year during camp was strictly an audition for another team.
And then you factor in last year's surprise Devaughn Vele trade with the Saints, and teams will know that the Broncos are relatively open for business.
The team will have to do some thinking regarding the long-term future as well, because Franklin could still be part of the future equation even if he's falling behind a bit this year. But the fact that it's not him struggling on the practice field, just not having a clarified role, is the noteworthy storyline to monitor into the preseason.
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