With only five picks in this year’s NFL Draft, coach Sean Payton and general manager George Paton are looking for a value addition in the later rounds. Ideally, a player with many skills.
Enter Jack Colletto, the Paul Hornung Award winner for the most versatile player in major college football — and perhaps the NFL’s next Taysom Hill.
At Oregon State, Colletto played quarterback, Wildcat QB, fullback, linebacker, receiver and also was the Beavers’ top special teams player. It’s a skill set that’s eerily similar to Hill, the utility player who once played a key role on Payton’s teams in New Orleans. Colletto, who projects as a Day 3 draft pick, had an in-person Top 30 visit with the Broncos in March. He told The Columbian that Payton and Denver’s staff see the potential to use him as an “offensive gadget” as the Broncos reboot in Russell Wilson’s second year.
“I believe with creative minds (my potential) definitely sparks interest,” Colletto told The Columbian earlier this month. “I think it allows them to be like, ‘OK, well, what can we do with this guy and how can he add value to the team?’ And the fact is I can do a lot of things.”
Few coaches know how to use such a player better than Payton.
If the Broncos — who have picks in Rounds 4, 5 and 6 on the final day of the draft Saturday in Kansas City — land on Colletto, the veteran coach will be able to get inventive, plugging him in at numerous spots on offense as he did with Hill during his tenure in New Orleans.
Payton has said the Broncos need to “improve dramatically” on special teams, and while there would certainly be a learning curve transitioning to the NFL, Colletto also has the skills to be a core special teamer.
The Broncos also might also be looking to add a body at fullback, where Michael Burton is the lone depth option entering the draft. Burton, a member of the Chiefs’ 2022 title team, is a nine-year veteran who also figures to be a primary contributor on special teams.
While Colletto doesn’t quite have the passing pedigree of Hill, who won 23 games at BYU and is 7-2 as a starting quarterback in the NFL, Oregon State offensive coordinator Brian Lindgren said Colletto can keep teams honest with his arm.
“His (QB role) would be more package-oriented, like in a Wildcat,” Lindgren said. “We started using him as more of a fullback over the last couple years, because we’re like, ‘This is probably an NFL fullback we’ve got in our program.’ So we started doing that, and also using him an off-the-ball, H-back type of guy we could move around.”
Colletto earned the “Jackhammer” nickname and forever fame in Corvallis for his role in the program’s recent resurgence. He was a star high school quarterback in Washington, where he earned the state’s Gatorade Player of the Year honor in 2016. From there, he went to Arizona Western determined to become a Division I QB.
“His dream was to be a Power 5 quarterback,” said Jon Eagle, Colletto’s high school coach at Camas. “He had some lower-level Division I program offers out of high school that he turned down to go to Arizona Western, where he was a backup QB and still received a scholarship to play quarterback at Oregon State… Even with (the position change) no one who knows him is surprised by where he is right now because we saw it coming.”
As a sophomore at OSU, Colletto made one start at quarterback for the Beavers, against CU in Boulder. He was benched at halftime, but returned in the second half and scored two rushing TDs out of the Wildcat — the second the game-winning score in overtime that capped a rally from being down 28 points.
“He’s a team guy, he played his role, and those two runs from a Wildcat QB formation helped us win the game,” Lindgren said. “From there, we knew we could use him the rest of the season in a Wildcat-type role, and kept running with that. Then (after converting to linebacker the next spring) he would spend time at practice doing a little bit of both, linebacker and Wildcat or fullback.
“This is all why a team is going to get a steal with that guy considering how he can impact the game and all the things he can do and his background as a quarterback.”
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