{"id":813552,"date":"2026-03-15T10:14:28","date_gmt":"2026-03-15T10:14:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/813552\/"},"modified":"2026-03-15T10:14:28","modified_gmt":"2026-03-15T10:14:28","slug":"2-of-3-teams-risky-free-agent-signings-paid-off","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/813552\/","title":{"rendered":"2 of 3 team&#8217;s risky free agent signings paid off"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>March 14, 2026, 6:00 a.m. MT<\/p>\n<p class=\"gnt_ar_b_p\">The <a href=\"\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" data-t-l=\":b|e|k|\u2691u\" class=\"gnt_ar_b_a\">Denver Broncos<\/a> took three big risks last year when they signed a trio of free agents with notable injury histories.<\/p>\n<p class=\"gnt_ar_b_p\">Denver signed safety <a href=\"http:\/\/broncoswire.usatoday.com\/story\/sports\/nfl\/broncos\/2025\/03\/10\/nfl-news-broncos-sign-safety-talanoa-hufanga\/82233708007\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener nofollow\" data-t-l=\":b|e|k|\u2691u\" class=\"gnt_ar_b_a\">Talanoa Hufanga<\/a>, linebacker <a href=\"http:\/\/broncoswire.usatoday.com\/story\/sports\/nfl\/broncos\/2025\/03\/10\/nfl-free-agency-news-dre-greenlaw-signs-with-broncos\/82242378007\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener nofollow\" data-t-l=\":b|e|k|\u2691u\" class=\"gnt_ar_b_a\">Dre Greenlaw<\/a>\u00a0and tight end <a href=\"http:\/\/broncoswire.usatoday.com\/story\/sports\/nfl\/broncos\/2025\/03\/12\/nfl-news-broncos-sign-te-evan-engram\/82227903007\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener nofollow\" data-t-l=\":b|e|k|\u2691u\" class=\"gnt_ar_b_a\">Evan Engram<\/a> in 2025. Those three deals resulted in one big hit, one big bust and one mixed result. Hufanga earned a second-team All-Pro nod, but Greenlaw missed more than half the season and was <a href=\"http:\/\/broncoswire.usatoday.com\/story\/sports\/nfl\/broncos\/2026\/03\/12\/nfl-news-broncos-cut-dre-greenlaw\/89109840007\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener nofollow\" data-t-l=\":b|e|k|\u2691u\" class=\"gnt_ar_b_a\">cut in 2026<\/a>. Engram only missed one game, but his <a href=\"http:\/\/broncoswire.usatoday.com\/story\/sports\/nfl\/broncos\/2026\/02\/22\/broncos-evan-engram-says-limited-targets\/88785212007\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener nofollow\" data-t-l=\":b|e|k|\u2691u\" class=\"gnt_ar_b_a\">production was underwhelming<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p class=\"gnt_ar_b_p\">During his end-of-season press conference in January, Broncos general manager George Paton was asked about the team&#8217;s process for signing free agents with a history of injuries.<\/p>\n<p class=\"gnt_ar_b_p\">\u201cI think we have a really good process,&#8221; Paton said. &#8220;I think you evaluate each player differently. You don\u2019t want to bring in a bunch of guys who have been hurt, but with <a href=\"http:\/\/broncoswire.usatoday.com\/story\/sports\/nfl\/broncos\/2024\/09\/03\/nfl-injuries-broncos-rate-reduced-under-beau-lowery\/75053257007\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener nofollow\" data-t-l=\":b|e|k|\u2691u\" class=\"gnt_ar_b_a\">Beau Lowery<\/a> and our medical department, we feel really strong about their opinion.<\/p>\n<p class=\"gnt_ar_b_p\">&#8220;If someone has been hurt somewhere else, maybe we feel like we can get them going, and we\u2019ll have a plan, not that other teams don\u2019t. We just feel really strongly about our medical team and our sports performance team where we can bring someone into our environment and they can thrive. I think they have.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Need a news break? <a target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\" data-t-l=\":body nav (play)|e|auto spike click:5|\u2691u\" class=\"gnt_ar_b_sp_a\" href=\"https:\/\/play.usatoday.com\/?itm_source=SPIKE&amp;itm_campaign=PLAYSPIKE&amp;itm_medium=ONSITE\">Check out the all new PLAY hub with puzzles, games and more!<\/a><\/p>\n<p class=\"gnt_ar_b_p\">Hufanga certainly thrived, and Engram stayed healthy for most of the season. Greenlaw was the one big miss. So after taking three big risks in 2025, Denver&#8217;s bringing back two of the players in 2026. Is hitting on two of three considered an acceptable success rate? That&#8217;s a question only the team&#8217;s front office can answer.<\/p>\n<p class=\"gnt_ar_b_p\">Social: Follow\u00a0<a href=\"\/\" data-t-l=\":b|e|k|\u2691u\" class=\"gnt_ar_b_a\">Broncos Wire<\/a>\u00a0on\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/BroncosWire\/\" data-t-l=\":b|z|k|\u2691u\" class=\"gnt_ar_b_a\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Facebook<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/thebroncoswire\" data-t-l=\":b|z|k|\u2691u\" class=\"gnt_ar_b_a\" rel=\"nofollow\">Twitter\/X<\/a>!\u00a0Did you know:\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/broncoswire.usatoday.com\/story\/sports\/nfl\/broncos\/2019\/08\/03\/denver-broncos-famous-fans-celebrities-include-paul-george-amy-adams\/79446413007\/\" data-t-l=\":b|e|k|\u2691u\" class=\"gnt_ar_b_a\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">These 25 celebrities are Broncos fans<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"March 14, 2026, 6:00 a.m. MT The Denver Broncos took three big risks last year when they signed&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":813553,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2062],"tags":[95878,232,791,231,258,2426,7,6,95879,95880,95882,96115,97238,98656,95893,95899,95883,96180,95881],"class_list":["post-813552","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-denver-broncos","tag-accessfree","tag-broncos","tag-co","tag-denver","tag-denver-broncos","tag-denverbroncos","tag-football","tag-nfl","tag-sstssportsnflbroncos","tag-sstsnbroncos","tag-tagamerican-football","tag-tagdenver","tag-tagdre-greenlaw","tag-tagevan-engram","tag-tagfacebook","tag-tagoverall-neutral","tag-tagsports-news","tag-tagtalanoa-hufanga","tag-typestory"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/116232668383827177","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/813552","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=813552"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/813552\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/813553"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=813552"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=813552"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=813552"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}