When the Las Vegas defense meets this week to go over Denver’s offensive personnel, the players shouldn’t have much trouble remembering the list of Broncos wide receivers.
After all, Sean Payton’s team is setting out on its first game week preparations with just four on the active roster. One of them, Jerry Jeudy, injured his hamstring two weeks ago and as of Monday had not yet returned to practice.
If Jeudy misses the opener — initial injury designations will be released Wednesday, but Denver is unlikely to shed much light on his status ahead of Sunday — and the Broncos don’t add to the room, their 53-man wide receivers will be Courtland Sutton, Brandon Johnson and Marvin Mims, Jr.
“Everybody just has to step up and play their game,” the rookie Mims said Monday of the prospect of playing without Jeudy. “Go out there and execute the offense as it’s called.”
Payton and general manager George Paton last week acknowledged that the first days and weeks after rosters are set often come with more fluidity than once the season settles into a rhythm.
Even still, four is a light number at receiver, particularly considering Jeudy’s injury.
Of 32 opening rosters, only three teams carried four receivers. The most popular number, by far, is six (19 teams), while six carried seven receivers and four more kept five.
Every situation is different and rosters don’t stay the same for long. The three teams that started with just four receivers included two of 2022s worst clubs (Denver and Indianapolis) and one of its very best (Philadelphia).
The Broncos fortified the position some by bringing back veteran Lil’Jordan Humphrey to the practice squad and also adding veteran Phillip Dorsett and David Sills V, too.
“Really, we have 69 players on a team,” Payton said last week. “It’s just changed a lot, so that added depth for every team. COVID kind of taught us a few things relative to personnel, and it’s helped not only the clubs, but I think it has helped the addition for a lot of players to still play and develop.”
Last year when Denver had a run of injuries at wide receiver, defenses were able to tilt more attention to Sutton. He started the year hot, averaging six catches and 83.4 yards per game over the Broncos’ first four, then saw those numbers halved over the next seven.
This week, he said he relishes the challenge of garnering the attention that will come if Jeudy, who had 972 yards in 2022 thanks to a terrific finishing kick, is on the sideline.
“Every time I step on the field, I’m looking to put my best foot forward,” Sutton said. “I would hope that defenses have seen that and understand what I’m able to bring to the table. Being able to go out there and play with that idea that they have to account for me on the field, it’s a fun thing to be a part of.
“I’m going to leave it at that.”
Mims has found a rhythm as his first NFL training camp has progressed.
“’Marv’ had a really good camp,” Sutton said. “Watching him develop, watching his game and NFL IQ develop. Seeing different coverages, being able to see it and react on the fly, it’s been cool to watch him progress. He’s only going to continue to keep growing. Each game he gets, he gets to bank that film and bank those reps in his mind. The game’s going to continue to slow down for him.
“The dude can fly. You can tell that he loves the game and to watch him go make plays is going to be fun.”
Mims could end up playing outside with Brandon Johnson in the slot, though Payton likes his receivers lining up in multiple spots.
“I feel real comfortable playing all the spots,” Mims told The Post. “They have me rotating a little bit. Really it’s just knowing matchups and knowing how defenses are playing stuff. It’s way different from college. That’s probably the biggest difference from college.”
The onus won’t be on those three entirely, of course. Denver could use one or both of its practice squad elevations for the week on receivers, and Payton will undoubtedly use other positions creatively.
Being short at receiver could be construed partially as indicative of the offseason-long talk of being committed to running the football. It might be yet another sign that tight end Greg Dulcich is going to be a featured player in the passing game. Few offensive coaches in the past two decades have been better at getting running backs involved in a multitude of ways than Payton during his long run in New Orleans.
Nobody would have been shocked if the Broncos had kept Kendall Hinton or Marquez Callaway on the 53-man roster. But they decided not to. They decided to go into Week 1 with this arrangement.
Sutton on Monday said he liked where Payton’s plan for the Raiders was headed.
“It’s going to be fun,” he said. “Even with just the extra day we got, to be able to see the early bits of his game plan and what his idea is, I think it’s going to be a lot of fun to watch it come to fruition on Sunday.”
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