To this day, Mike Lohner doesn\u2019t quite know where his nephew found the money. Or the parts. Or why, really, he decided to rebuild a 1960s-era van from scratch, in the summer of 2021.<\/p>\n
The why has always seemed less important than the how, with Caleb Lohner.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere are those people that plan out their life,\u201d Mike said. \u201cAnd there are people that sort of go where life leads them.\u201d<\/p>\n
Life led a younger Caleb Lohner, before his sophomore year of hoops at BYU, to getting his hands on a vintage camper. He fixed up the engine. He redesigned the interior. The hours faded, and Lohner once rushed to a summer workout at BYU with oil grease smeared across his cheeks.<\/p>\n
\u201cCaleb, what?\u201d BYU assistant coach Chris Burgess recalled asking him then. \u201cGo wash your face off.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI tried,\u201d Lohner replied. \u201cIt\u2019s all over the place.\u201d<\/p>\n
This is how the now-Broncos rookie has always been. A \u201cbeautiful kid,\u201d Burgess called him. Lohner plays guitar and surfs. He preferred hopping in Utah\u2019s Provo River to hopping in ice baths in the training room at BYU. He would plop himself down in Burgess\u2019s office, in his couple of years there, and chatter on about topics much broader than sports.<\/p>\n
They\u00a0would eventually talk about sports, because the 6-foot-7 Lohner could barrel through a brick wall and jump higher than 40 inches. For his entire life, Lohner believed he had a future in basketball. But Burgess, who spent a decade playing basketball overseas and another decade coaching, often told Lohner he\u2019d make a good tight end in football.<\/p>\n
Everyone told him that, really. Forever. On a recruiting visit for Utah basketball, Utes TEs coach Freddie Whittingham \u2014 a longtime family friend \u2014 half-joked to Lohner he should come out for football. He shrugged it off.<\/p>\n
![\"Caleb](\"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/TDP-L-MARCH-MADNESS_AAO9353xx.jpg\")
Caleb Lohner (33) of the Baylor Bears drives on Miles Norris (5) of the UC Santa Barbara Gauchos during the second half of Baylor\u2019s 74-56 win in the first round of the NCAA men\u2019s basketball tournament at Ball Arena in Denver on Friday, March 17, 2023. (Photo by AAron Ontiveroz\/The Denver Post)<\/p>\n
But as a college hoops career wound down at Baylor, Lohner paused. He told his uncle that he had a deep belief he was meant to make a difference in sports. And so, in May 2024, Lohner transferred to Utah to play football.<\/p>\n
One year later, a kid who had four catches \u2014 whose family had no\u00a0idea how to go about any kind of draft process \u2014 signed an NFL contract. The pivot from college basketball to pro football was exceedingly complicated. The reality was simple.<\/p>\n
Lohner wanted to do it. And so he did.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s like, \u2018Of course I\u2019m playing football \u2014 this is what I do, and this is what I\u2019m working on,’\u201d Burgess said. \u201cHe\u2019s not a worrier. He\u2019s not an overthinker. He just gets things done.\u201d<\/p>\n
On April 26, before the 241st pick in the seventh round, Sean Payton called Lohner to tell him the Broncos were taking him. He added a sales pitch, too, based on one of his all-time success stories with the New Orleans Saints.<\/p>\n
\u201cHey, you ever heard of Jimmy Graham?\u201d Payton asked Lohner, as his Uncle Mike recalled. \u201cWe\u2019re going to make you the next Jimmy Graham.\u201d<\/p>\n
Lohner just nodded along for the ride, like he\u2019s always done.<\/p>\n
\u201cCaleb, of course, said, \u2018Yeah,’\u201d Mike Lohner recalled. \u201c\u2018Let\u2019s do it.’\u201d<\/p>\n
\u2022\u2022\u2022<\/p>\n
The Graham comparison wasn\u2019t a shock. Or new. Far from it.<\/p>\n
That comparison has followed Lohner ever since he arrived in Denver \u2014 ever since the night he was drafted, when Payton brought up the former Saints stud unprompted when asked about Lohner.<\/p>\n
Lohner, for his part, has mostly shrugged it off.<\/p>\n
\u201cI try personally not to hear it,\u201d Lohner told The Denver Post in May. \u201cJust because I\u2019m on my own journey, how I\u2019m learning.\u201d<\/p>\n
That journey, though, started with a look at Graham. Whittingham, Utah\u2019s tight ends coach for a decade, grew up with Lohner\u2019s father in the same neighborhood in Provo and was sold for years on the kid as a future NFL pro.<\/p>\n
After a disappointing two years at Baylor that saw him receive limited minutes despite team success, Lohner finally called Whittingham and told him he was considering the transition. So Whittingham, eventually, sat Lohner and Uncle Mike down for a PowerPoint presentation.<\/p>\n
On one slide, Whittingham put a picture of former All-Pro Graham with a side-by-side physical comparison to Lohner. Graham came into the NFL at 6-foot-6 and played four years of college basketball before switching to football. He recorded just 17 catches his senior year. Lohner stood at 6-foot-7, Whittingham pointed out, and played four years of college basketball.<\/p>\n
\u201cI just was saying, \u2018They\u2019re looking for guys with traits like you,’\u201d Whittingham said.<\/p>\n
Utah\u2019s long been a breeding ground for NFL tight ends. In the past four years, four Utes TEs (Cole Fotheringham, Thomas Yassmin, Dalton Kincaid, and now Lohner) have cracked pro rosters. Lohner put himself on a path to becoming the fourth when he decided to jump to Salt Lake, arriving at Utah at the end of summer workouts in 2024.<\/p>\n
He missed spring ball. He hadn\u2019t played organized football since eighth grade. Staffers had to literally teach Lohner how to put his pads on, at first, as Utes head coach Kyle Whittingham recalled.<\/p>\n
He wound up barely seeing the field. Behind the scenes, though, a grizzled Utah staff saw a gem.<\/p>\n
\u201cI really believe that they\u2019ve got themselves something with Caleb,\u201d Kyle Whittingham said. \u201cAnd not to take anything away from all our other guys, because really, we like all those guys as well.<\/p>\n
\u201cBut Caleb\u2019s kind of an anomaly.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u2022\u2022\u2022<\/p>\n
In one practice in BYU\u2019s 2020-21 season, Burgess was coaching on the baseline in a team period when Lohner \u2014 the team\u2019s leading rebounder as a freshman \u2014 barreled over big man Kolby Lee to crash the glass.<\/p>\n
Lee, a 6-foot-9 mountain of a junior, didn\u2019t take too kindly to Lohner\u2019s aggression. Peeved, he came roaring in after an offensive rebound to try to knock him on his behind. Bruise for bruise.<\/p>\n
Except Lohner didn\u2019t even budge, Burgess recalled. Didn\u2019t even recognize it was a cheap shot.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe just like, stands there,\u201d Burgess recalled, \u201cand kinda looks at him like a bug hit him.\u201d<\/p>\n
The BYU assistant still marvels over Lohner years later, telling the tale of another time he tried swiping down to dislodge the ball from Lohner and wound up with a fractured finger.<\/p>\n
\u201cI know these sound like Bo Jackson-type stories,\u201d Burgess said. \u201cBut he has this athletic ability and this strength that\u2019s really, really powerful.\u201d<\/p>\n
Lohner\u2019s game was fit for football. None of it was finesse. He high-pointed rebounds, smacked guys around and dunked. It translated, in his short stint at Utah, to four touchdown grabs in red-zone packages.<\/p>\n
![\"Caleb](\"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/GettyImages-2171235580.jpg\")
Caleb Lohner of the Utah Utes catches a touchdown pass over JD Drew (3) of the Utah State Aggies during the first half of their game at Maverik Stadium on September 14, 2024 in Logan, Utah. (Photo by Chris Gardner\/Getty Images)<\/p>\n
Still, Lohner entered the draft process this offseason as a near-complete unknown. Utah\u2019s collective ended up giving him an NIL package to play basketball in 2024-25. Lohner used it to pay for pre-draft training. Uncle Mike, a longtime entrepreneur who\u2019d built the Cowboys Golf Club in Dallas, consulted longtime Cowboys executive<\/a> Stephen Jones for advice.<\/p>\n Eventually, Mike wound up pleading his nephew\u2019s case to a couple of agents. Jack Bechta, who\u2019s repped numerous NFL tight ends, took a meeting with Lohner in Salt Lake City and came away impressed enough to refer him to colleague Jack Tabb.<\/p>\n \u201cAfter looking at how he could play basketball,\u201d Tabb recalled, \u201cI was like, \u2018(expletive), I\u2019d be more than happy to help you.’\u201d<\/p>\n Tabb was once an NFL tight end himself, latching on briefly with the Saints during Payton\u2019s tenure. And once or twice a week, for half a year, he\u2019d hop on Zooms with Lohner and break down an NFL playbook. And blocking schemes. A crash course, in real time, of how to play pro football.<\/p>\n There is little expectation that Lohner will contribute for Denver in 2025. Much of the intrigue around Lohner is projecting \u2014\u00a0a word Payton tossed out after the Broncos drafted him. But he took plenty of pass-catching reps in minicamp, and Payton said in June the rookie was \u201ccoming around.\u201d<\/p>\n True to form, Lohner has little expectation for the future, Uncle Mike said. Wholeheartedly focused, for now, on simply making it past cut day in late August.<\/p>\n Others, though, are leveling the expectations for him.<\/p>\n \u201cI just think,\u201d said Utah defensive coordinator Morgan Scalley, \u201che\u2019s a future star in that league.\u201d<\/p>\n