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Nebraska running back Emmett Johnson speaks during a news conference at the NFL football scouting combine in Indianapolis, Friday, Feb. 27, 2026. (AP Photo\/Julio Cortez)<\/p>\nINDIANAPOLIS \u2013 Never mind that the last running back the Broncos selected from Notre Dame didn\u2019t work out. They might grab another one early in the 2026 draft.<\/p>\n
The Broncos have plenty of interest in Fighting Irish stalwart Jadarian Price, who is expected to be a late first-round pick or a second-round selection in the April 23-25 draft in Pittsburgh. Denver holds the No. 30 pick in the first round.<\/p>\n
In 2024, the Broncos selected running back Audric Estime out of Notre Dame in the fifth round, and he was waived after one season. But Price has more versatility than Estime.<\/p>\n
Playing behind Fighting Irish star Jeremiyah Love, who rushed for 1,372 yards, Price ran for 674 yards in 2025 while averaging 6.0 per carry. He also led the nation in kickoff returns with a 37.5-yard average on 12 attempts while bringing two back for touchdowns.<\/p>\n
Price, rated by most analysts as the second-best back in the draft after Love, had a formal interview with the Broncos at the scouting combine in Indianapolis. He came away from it pleased.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe Denver meeting went well,\u2019\u2019 Price said Friday, a day before taking the field Saturday at Lucas Oil Stadium for combine drills. \u201cJust the questions they asked and the answers I followed up with, I thought I did pretty well, and I think they like me.\u201d<\/p>\n
Head coach Sean Payton at the combine called running back one of Denver\u2019s \u201cmusts\u201d in terms of offseason needs. The Broncos\u2019 top back in 2025, J.K. Dobbins, will become a free agent in March after he rushed for 774 yards in 10 games before being lost for the season with a foot injury. The top back the Broncos have under contract for 2026 is RJ Harvey, a second-round pick in 2025 who ran for 540 yards as a rookie but averaged just 3.7 per carry.<\/p>\n
A source said Friday the Broncos will not tender restricted free-agent running back Jaleel McLaughlin, which will make him unrestricted. The Broncos did not want to put a tender on McLaughlin for $3.5 million for the right of first refusal but do have an interest in re-signing him at a lesser figure.<\/p>\n
Also Friday, a source said the Broncos are anticipated to sign exclusive rights free agent Tyler Badie to a one-year, $1.075 million deal. However, Badie, a third-down back used in 2025 primarily for pass protection, had just 23 yards rushing.<\/p>\n
The Broncos had formal interviews with at least two other running backs at the combine in Emmett Johnson of Nebraska and Jonah Coleman of Washington. Both might be mid-round selections.<\/p>\n
Nebraska running back Emmett Johnson speaks during a news conference at the NFL football scouting combine in Indianapolis, Friday, Feb. 27, 2026. (AP Photo\/Julio Cortez)<\/p>\n
If the Broncos want to snag Price, they likely would need to do so at No. 30 or with a second-round pick. He is an explosive runner who likely would have piled up very big numbers had he not been playing behind Love, who finished third in the Heisman Trophy voting.<\/p>\n
\u201c(Price) has the opportunity and the potential to be one of the best running backs in the league,\u2019\u2019 Love said. \u201cAs long as he goes into it with a humble mind and just a hunger to work and just competes, the sky\u2019s the limit for (Price). He\u2019s going to do great things in the league and he\u2019s going to play for a long time.\u201d<\/p>\n
Love called it \u201cvaluable\u201d that Price provides the dimension he does on kickoff returns. The Broncos are looking for a threat on kickoffs to line up on the opposite side of star returner Marvin Mims Jr. to prevent teams from having the easy option of kicking away from Mims.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think when you go to the next level, the NFL, the more value you have to stay on the field with other things besides running back, it just makes you more valuable and appreciated as a player,\u2019\u2019 Price said of his ability to return kicks, setting him apart from some other running backs in the draft. \u201cSo, I think it does help me.\u201d<\/p>\n
Negatives on Price are that he can be fumble-prone and is limited as a receiver. He caught just six passes for 87 yards in 2025, although he did have two of his 13 overall touchdowns through the air.<\/p>\n
If the Broncos don\u2019t take a running back high in the draft, options later on could include Johnson and Coleman. Johnson ran for 1,451 yards in 2025 while catching 46 passes for 370 yards. Coleman, after rushing for 1,053 yards in 2024, had 758 in 2025 and caught 31 passes for 354 yards.<\/p>\n
\u201cCoach, Payton, man, he\u2019s a great guy,\u2019\u2019 Johnson said about his Denver meeting. \u201cReally nonchalant guy. And I learned a lot just in a short amount of time. \u2026 I think I like the fact that they were quizzing me with questions that I already knew the answers to. So, it was great.\u201d<\/p>\n
Coleman also claimed to have answered questions well from the Broncos.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe just talked about pass protection, and I killed it,\u2019\u2019 he said. \u201cI was pretty much answering the questions before they would ask me. So, I went in the room and they pretty much broke everything down, like, this is how we teach our pass protection. \u2026 (We) just ran through some of my tape and asked me to call out the runs that I was running. And I was able to do that because they run a similar offense (to what Coleman did at Washington).\u201d<\/p>\n
Price said a number of teams in combine interviews wanted to know why he didn\u2019t leave Notre Dame to \u201cgo somewhere else and want to be a feature back.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI just tell them, \u2018Notre Dame was the place for me,\u2019\u2019\u2019 he said. \u201cAnd they ultimately, at the end, they\u2019re like, \u2018We do respect that. We\u2019re glad you made that decision.’\u201d<\/p>\n
As it turned out, Price still became the draft\u2019s second-rated back after Love. And he said the Broncos like him.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"INDIANAPOLIS \u2013 Never mind that the last running back the Broncos selected from Notre Dame didn\u2019t work out.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":781367,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2062],"tags":[232,231,258,2426,7,6],"class_list":{"0":"post-781366","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-denver-broncos","8":"tag-broncos","9":"tag-denver","10":"tag-denver-broncos","11":"tag-denverbroncos","12":"tag-football","13":"tag-nfl"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/116146382766611099","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/781366","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=781366"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/781366\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/781367"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=781366"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=781366"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=781366"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}