The Broncos initial 53-man roster itself is written in pencil.
There will be changes, perhaps as soon as Wednesday and undoubtedly over the opening weeks of the 2024 season. Keep the eraser handy.
The message behind the Broncos’ initial 53-man roster, though, is written in Sharpie.
All caps. Bold. Underlined.
The future is now. Or at least it starts now.
In a flurry of moves over the past two days to trim from a 90-man roster down to the initial regular-season set, the Broncos went from “young and hungry” as head coach Sean Payton called the group through training camp, to younger and hungrier.
Several veterans were cut free – receiver Lil’Jordan Humphrey, fullback Mike Burton and linebacker Jonas Griffith on Tuesday followed Tim Patrick, Samaje Perine and Angelo Blackson to the door they left through the day prior.
Several developmental projects made the cut. Not just the likes of receivers Devaughn Vele and Troy Franklin but running back Blake Watson and tackle Frank Crum and others like young defensive linemen Eyioma Uwazurike and Jordan Jackson.
Payton through his career in New Orleans systematically carried veteran rosters around veteran quarterback Drew Brees.
Last year the Broncos sort of split the difference.
No such tightrope walking in 2024. This is a young team built around a young quarterback.
“We also have experience in some key areas and we’re just trying to put together our best 53 and win regardless of youth, but it is nice to have some youth,” general manager George Paton told reporters Tuesday afternoon. “As you know, the roster is fluid as we get to the wire tonight, so that could change a little bit.
“But we don’t mind young players, that’s for sure.”
Young teams often make mistakes because they don’t know any better.
But young teams sometimes also break through because they don’t know any better.
The Broncos are going to suffer through some of the former and hope to also experience the rush that comes with the latter.
If Payton had his way, the franchise’s eight-year playoff drought would simply be an artifact for somebody else in some other place to worry about.
His Broncos didn’t make the playoffs last year. They’re trying to this year. That simple.
“There are some, maybe, sins of the past that we can’t control with this team,” Payon said last week before adding that the pedigree of the franchise was one of the reasons he wanted the job. “… If you just took this roster and then you went back to Year 1 after the last Super Bowl, then Year 2, Year 3, it would take a while before you found on this team someone that, ‘Oh, he was (there)’… We’ve had some veteran players, maybe a year ago — Justin (Simmons), certainly — there were players that have been a part of all those teams.”
Those prior chapters have been burned out. They’ve been released or waived or traded and replaced with as little institutional knowledge as possible.
With Patrick gone now, too, the longest-tenured Broncos are left tackle Garett Bolles and receiver Courtland Sutton. After that pair, only seven others have been with the franchise since 2021, Paton’s first year as general manager, and five of them are from that year’s draft class.
This is a group scouted almost entirely by the Paton regime and tailored far more extensively than even last year’s roster by Payton and his staff.
“You see the energy and you see the enthusiasm of these players,” Paton said. “That’s a reflection of Sean. I’m excited with what we’re building and how they work and go about their business day-to-day. We’re getting there. Time will tell. We’ll see when we get to the regular season, but we certainly like the foundation.
“Again, I can’t say enough that we’re excited for this season and beyond.”
At the same time, part of this is by necessity. The Broncos entered this week with $67 million in dead salary cap money — $53 million of it attributed to former quarterback Russell Wilson — and will finish it with more than $76 million. That’s likely to lead the NFL heading into the regular season and it accounts for right about 30% of Denver’s team cap number, according to NFL Players Association data.
Another year, armed with more flexibility, the Broncos might have proceeded differently through free agency or treated some of their decisions on veteran players with less cleaver and more scalpel.
Or perhaps they wouldn’t have. Payton and Paton seemed committed from January on that this was going to be a project rooted in getting younger, in re-setting the books — though there, too, they did push money down the road with some of their 2023 free agent crop — and in re-setting the identity of the roster.
“These guys have a chance to just write their chapter in a pretty good book,” Payton said even before the last two days of decisions furthered the working theme of this story. “They really can’t pay attention to the prior chapters.”
Broncos 53-man roster
OFFENSE (25)
QB (3): Bo Nix, Jarrett Stidham, Zach Wilson
RB (4): Javonte Williams, Jaleel McLaughlin, Audric Estime, Blake Watson
WR (5): Courtland Sutton, Josh Reynolds, Marvin Mims Jr., Devaughn Vele, Troy Franklin
TE (4): Adam Trautman, Greg Dulcich, Lucas Krull, Nate Adkins
OL (9): Garett Bolles, Ben Powers, Luke Wattenberg, Quinn Meinerz, Mike McGlinchey, Alex Forsyth, Alex Palczewski, Matt Peart, Frank Crum
DEFENSE (25)
DL (6): Zach Allen, John Franklin-Myers, D.J. Jones, Malcolm Roach, Eyioma Uwazurike, Jordan Jackson
OLB (4): Baron Browning, Jonathon Cooper, Nik Bonitto, Jonah Elliss
ILB (4): Alex Singleton, Cody Barton, Justin Strnad, Levelle Bailey
CB (6): Pat Surtain II, Riley Moss, Ja’Quan McMillian, Kris Abrams-Draine, Levi Wallace, Tremon Smith
S (5): Brandon Jones, P.J. Locke, Devon Key, JL Skinner, Keidron Smith
SPECIAL TEAMS (3)
ST (3): K Wil Lutz, P Riley Dixon, LS Mitchell Fraboni
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Originally Published: August 27, 2024 at 5:37 p.m.
