{"id":130664,"date":"2025-06-15T01:23:06","date_gmt":"2025-06-15T01:23:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/130664\/"},"modified":"2025-06-15T01:23:06","modified_gmt":"2025-06-15T01:23:06","slug":"broncos-caleb-lohner-draws-jimmy-graham-comparisons","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/130664\/","title":{"rendered":"Broncos’ Caleb Lohner Draws Jimmy Graham Comparisons"},"content":{"rendered":"

Broncos’ Caleb Lohner Draws Jimmy Graham Comparisons<\/a> originally appeared on Athlon Sports<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Switching positions within the same sport is one thing, but transitioning to a new sport entirely is another.\u00a0Denver Broncos<\/a> rookie tight end Caleb Lohner is looking to accomplish the latter feat and become the next former college basketball player to have a successful professional football career.<\/p>\n

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In fact, Lohner is already drawing comparisons to someone whose athletics career closely mirrors his own: Jimmy Graham, who was a five-time Pro Bowler during his 13 years in the\u00a0NFL<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Graham, after playing four years of college basketball at Miami, stuck around for another fall to take graduate-level classes and play one season of college football. Lohner followed a somewhat similar pathway. He focused exclusively on basketball at BYU and Baylor before deciding to play both football and basketball at Utah during the 2024-25 academic year.<\/p>\n

The two players’ similarities do not end there. Broncos head coach Sean Payton also coached Graham when he first entered the league with the New Orleans Saints<\/a>, which makes Lohner-Graham comparisons even more fitting.<\/p>\n

\"Utah<\/p>\n

Utah Utes tight end Caleb Lohner (84) celebrates after catching a touchdown pass in the first half against the Utah State Aggies at Merlin Olsen Field at Maverik Stadium.Jamie Sabau-Imagn Images<\/p>\n

Shortly after\u00a0the Broncos selected Lohner with a seventh-round pick in the 2025 NFL Draft<\/a>, Payton addressed these comparisons, as well as how the rookie would need to refine some areas of his game in the professional ranks.<\/p>\n

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“People bring up Jimmy. Now, Jimmy was a third-round pick. I get it, but there were some similarities in that. He only played a year, 80-something snaps. I think he had 18 catches,” Payton said. “So, yes, we have to coach and develop [Caleb].”<\/p>\n

Payton also discussed the difficulty of evaluating Lohner’s football skill set with limited game film. Lohner played 57 snaps during the Utes’ 2025 season and caught just four passes, all of which were touchdowns.<\/p>\n

But Payton said, in a matter of weeks, he has already seen the potential Lohner possesses.<\/p>\n

“There are two or three clips where I\u2019m like, \u2018Play it again. Play it again.\u2019 Then, when you watch him, and you watch him move,” Payton said. “You guys see him, and shake his hand and stand next to him, like, \u2018Holy cow.\u2019 There are traits there that excite me… I\u2019m excited to watch it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Related: Broncos\u2019 J.K. Dobbins Sends Shot at Chargers After Denver Decision<\/a><\/p>\n

This story was originally reported by Athlon Sports<\/a> on Jun 14, 2025, where it first appeared.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Broncos’ Caleb Lohner Draws Jimmy Graham Comparisons originally appeared on Athlon Sports. Switching positions within the same sport…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":130665,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2062],"tags":[232,2894,18234,231,258,2426,7,13088,216,55,6,1813,12951],"class_list":{"0":"post-130664","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-denver-broncos","8":"tag-broncos","9":"tag-caleb-lohner","10":"tag-college-basketball","11":"tag-denver","12":"tag-denver-broncos","13":"tag-denverbroncos","14":"tag-football","15":"tag-jimmy-graham","16":"tag-miami","17":"tag-new-orleans-saints","18":"tag-nfl","19":"tag-sean-payton","20":"tag-utah-utes"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/114684769478248774","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/130664","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=130664"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/130664\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/130665"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=130664"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=130664"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=130664"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}