While speaking at the NFL combine last month, Denver Broncos coach Sean Payton was asked if he has a threshold for the number of starts he’d like a quarterback to have before entering the NFL draft.

During his answer, Payton seemingly indirectly referenced Kenny Pickett (not by name), and he later pivoted to the running back position. His comment about running backs in last year’s draft caught our attention.

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“I don’t. I’ve heard — Bill [Parcells] has even talked about it — there are certain things we won’t budge off of,” Payton said. “I don’t like a seven-game starter. That’s going to have to look like it walks on water. You with me? So I don’t like that. There are certain prototypes with the position, hand size. Those are important. I hear people say, ‘Why?’ Because historically speaking, if someone tells me in 30 years, there have only been two [to have success below a certain measurement], then I have to pay attention to those numbers. Fortunately, I haven’t had to look at it that often and then have to make that decision that often when it comes to like, ‘How much playing time?’ I think we were the benefactors of someone who’s played a lot, so there was a lot of that evidence on tape.”

Now, his comment about the running back.

“I’m sure, historically speaking, like we would always ask these questions,” Payton said of anomalies in the draft. “There was a running back last year that fumbled a bunch I kind of liked. I was like, ‘All right, give me the numbers in the last 25 years, runners who fumbled a lot and then came into our league and it was corrected.’ There’s quite a few of them. But at quarterback, there aren’t many that were sacked a lot where that got cleaned up. There are certain things that are just bigger alerts.”

So, there was a running back in last year’s class who had a fumbling problem, but Payton liked him. Who was it? We might never know for sure, but Jaydon Blue fumbled nine times on 270 touches at Texas.

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Denver used a second-round pick in last year’s draft to select RJ Harvey out of UCF. Three rounds later, the Dallas Cowboys took Blue at pick No. 149 in the fifth round. The Broncos did not hold a fifth-round pick last year, jumping from the fourth round to the sixth round on Day 3 of the draft.

Blue was a backup in Dallas in a backfield led by Javonte Williams last fall. He appeared in five games last season, rushing 38 times for 129 yards and one touchdown. He also had one fumble on just 42 touches. Blue has three years left on his rookie contract. If he cleans up his fumble woes, perhaps Denver will consider him as a free agent down the road.

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This article originally appeared on Broncos Wire: NFL draft: Sean Payton liked a running back with fumble problems