{"id":849872,"date":"2026-04-02T19:32:25","date_gmt":"2026-04-02T19:32:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/849872\/"},"modified":"2026-04-02T19:32:25","modified_gmt":"2026-04-02T19:32:25","slug":"the-free-agency-failure-that-left-denver-shocked","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/849872\/","title":{"rendered":"The free agency failure that left Denver ‘shocked’"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Denver Broncos<\/a> had a great season last year, and they made it all the way to the AFC Championship. Unfortunately, they didn’t have the one guy who helped them get there, Bo Nix, who was injured in the Divisional Round<\/a> against the Buffalo Bills.<\/p>\n

They’ve already made a few moves during free agency in hopes of having that same success, but they’ve also missed out<\/a> on some players that they wanted, according to Mike Sando of The Athletic.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnother exec said the Broncos thought they were going to sign former Jaguars running back Travis Etienne<\/a>, only to have the Saints land him instead,\u201d Sando wrote.<\/p>\n

The executive who spoke to Sando said that the Broncos were \u201cshocked\u201d that they weren’t able to land the running back, and they had to pivot, re-signing J.K. Dobbins.<\/p>\n

One of the weak spots for the Broncos on offense this past season was in the backfield, and adding a player like Etienne would have improved that area. Etienne finished last season with the Jacksonville Jaguars, totaling 1,107 rushing yards and seven touchdowns, and shared the backfield with Tank Bigsby before he was traded to the Philadelphia Eagles.<\/p>\n

Dobbins was the lead back for the Broncos<\/a> last season and finished with 772 rushing yards and four touchdowns. He also shared the backfield with RJ Harvey and Jakeel McLaughlin.<\/p>\n

The Broncos still have a chance to make an upgrade with the upcoming draft, and it will be interesting to see what they prioritize when that time comes.<\/p>\n

The passing game should have an upgrade after they traded for Jaylen Waddle, and it gives Nix another weapon to utilize. As long as the defense is still one of the best in the league, they should be competitive, even if their offense isn’t all the way up to par.<\/p>\n

The Denver Broncos had a great season last year, and they made it all the way to the AFC Championship. Unfortunately, they didn’t have the one guy who helped them get there, Bo Nix, who was injured in the Divisional Round against the Buffalo Bills.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Denver Broncos had a great season last year, and they made it all the way to the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":849873,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[2062],"tags":[232,231,258,2426,7,6,832,7150],"class_list":{"0":"post-849872","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","14":"tag-nfl-rumors","15":"tag-travis-etienne"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/116336783865600887","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/849872","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=849872"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/849872\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/849873"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=849872"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=849872"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=849872"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}