Mile High Report
Good Morning Broncos Country!
The Denver Broncos are 6-5, exceeding expectations, and a big reason for that is the success of their rookie draft class. For the most part, all of the Broncos rookies have contributed at some point this season and are giving the Broncos hope in the present but also in the future.
We have to start with rookie quarterback Bo Nix. He has turned it on lately and is now arguably the frontrunner for offensive rookie of the year. He is coming off a 4 touchdown game vs. the Falcons and has been bringing in all the awards this week. Nix is looking the part of a franchise quarterback and is making head coach Sean Payton look like a genius.
Back in February, Payton met with the media that he thinks that “we’ll be really good” at evaluating the quarterback class and that he is glad that a lot of people are not good at it. The Broncos would go on to select Bo Nix with the 12th overall pick in the 2024 NFL Draft and he was sixth and last quarterback to be drafted in the first round.
Well, through 11 weeks of the season, Payton and the Broncos appear be really good at evaluating quarterbacks and are benefitting from the others not being as good at it.
The rookie class does not stop with Nix. Overall, Payton believes the class is special and was asked about this earlier this week. He told reporters that they had each player they drafted (not named Bo Nix) graded two rounds higher than they were actually drafted.
“I thought it had a chance to be. We’ll look back on it. With each player—let’s get past [QB] Bo [Nix]—then the next pick we had a higher grade on [where we picked him] and then with the next pick. With each player when we drafted them, we probably had a grade two rounds earlier. That’s doesn’t happen often. I think most importantly was the vison for each guy. ‘How do we see this guy fitting in Year 1?’ We did a lot of work on it. Three years from now—we’ll know for sure, like where this draft panned out. We did know it would be measured certainly with the first selection, and I understand that. We felt real good about those other selections as well.”
So far, the Broncos rookies are living up to the grades the Broncos had on them. Most of them are contributing weekly and likely will have bigger roles moving forward.
Jonah Elliss, the Broncos' third-round pick has been a solid rotational edge rusher for them and has 3 sacks on the year so far. If we take Payton’s comments as fact, the Broncos had a first-round grade on him and were able to get him in the third round. With Jonathon Cooper and Nik Bonitto entrenched as the starters, Elliss has time to develop and serve as a reliable rotational edge rusher off the bench....
