Most of the conversation about the Broncos between now and April’s draft will be about quarterbacks.
At next week’s NFL Combine? Quarterbacks.
Leading up to free agency in March? Quarterbacks.
Whenever a final decision is made on Russell Wilson’s future? Yeah, quarterbacks.
All with good reason, of course. It’s the most important position in the game and Sean Payton’s team is in limbo.
As Payton, general manager George Paton and company continue to study the 2024 rookie class of quarterbacks, their plan for how to deploy the No. 12 pick — or move around in the first round — will revolve at least in part and perhaps nearly entirely around how they feel about the signal-callers.
Quarterback certainly isn’t the Broncos’ only need, though, and if they don’t take one in the first round, they might try to find a player who can harass the likes of Patrick Mahomes and Justin Herbert in their own division.
They could target an interior disruptor like Texas’ Byron Murphy or they could be in position to select from the top edge rushers in this year’s draft class.
Depending on the day, anywhere from the top five to 10 picks in the draft project as offensive players between quarterbacks and a dynamic group of pass-catchers and tackles. Somewhere along the way, though, likely in the neighborhood of No. 12, other premium positions like edge rusher will start coming off the board.
The candidates include Alabama’s Dallas Turner, Florida State’s Jared Verse, Penn State’s Chop Robinson and UCLA’s Laiatu Latu.
Turner waited behind several other Crimson Tide standouts, then racked up 10 sacks and 14.5 tackles for loss this fall. Verse may have been a first-rounder if he declared last year, but strengthened his position further over the Seminoles’ standout season. Robinson didn’t put up monster numbers at PSU — four sacks and 7.5 TFLs in 2023 — but has a tantalizing skill set.
Latu put on a show at the Senior Bowl recently after a 2023 campaign in which he logged 13 sacks, 21.5 TFLs and a pair of interceptions over 12 games. In two years in Westwood, the 6-foot-5, 261-pounder recorded 23.5 sacks and 34 TFLs.
At the Combine, teams will get more medical information on Latu, who sat out the 2020 and 2021 seasons after medically retiring from the University of Washington due to a neck injury. Since then, he’s come back and played in 25 straight games before sitting out UCLA’s bowl game in December.
“I never doubted myself,” he told The Post at the Senior Bowl. “I had that determined mindset. I love the game. It’s a passion for me and I never gave up.”
Latu’s not likely to test in the same lofty range as Turner and Robinson at the Combine next week, but he’s got the deepest bag of pass-rush moves in the class.
“It really started developing when I was at Washington and I got to learn from guys like Joe (Tryon-Shoyinka), Levi Onwuzurike,” Latu said. “Then the whole time I was gone from football, I really took it upon myself to watch guys like Maxx Crosby, T.J. Watt. I watched them try to throw their moves and then worked them into my moves. Really just blending it all into my own.”
In college, the top edge players can overpower most tackles. In the NFL, getting to the quarterback becomes a match of size and strength but also an art.
“It’s all reaction at the end of the day,” Latu said. “I have moves in my bag so that when I get into those situations, it’s like a chess game. You want to set up power first so they have to respect that. Maybe I go to the outside a couple of times if they’re sitting on the edge. Then I can take the inside.
“It’s a chess game.”
The Broncos have a nice young corps of pass-rushers in Baron Browning, Jonathon Cooper, Nik Bonitto and perhaps Drew Sanders if he sticks on the edge rather than moving back to inside linebacker. Even still, none have emerged as an elite player — none were drafted higher than Bonitto at No. 64 in 2022 — and Browning and Cooper are entering the final seasons of their rookie contracts.
That all makes edge a position of need and one that will be on the Broncos’ first-round radar screen if they don’t take a quarterback come late April.
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