{"id":868031,"date":"2026-04-16T23:51:24","date_gmt":"2026-04-16T23:51:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/868031\/"},"modified":"2026-04-16T23:51:24","modified_gmt":"2026-04-16T23:51:24","slug":"nfl-draft-broncos-have-six-players-gm-likes-at-no-62","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/868031\/","title":{"rendered":"NFL Draft: Broncos have ‘six players’ GM likes at No. 62"},"content":{"rendered":"

In a week and a half, Sean Payton and George Paton will venture down to the bowels of the Broncos\u2019 facility in Dove Valley, shut their laptops, and suffer a mild wave of depression. They know this about each other, by now. Denver\u2019s head coach and general manager present and speak on two opposite ends<\/a> of the spectrum of human existence, but share a key common love: this spring month in their draft war room.<\/p>\n

They have been crushing tape there daily since returning from league meetings at the start of April<\/a>. And they will mourn when it\u2019s over.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat day or two (after the draft),\u201d Payton said Thursday, sitting next to Paton, \u201cis like \u2014 we don\u2019t know what to do with ourselves.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWe want to stay down there, if they\u2019d allow us,\u201d Paton chimed in.<\/p>\n

Their approach to prospect evaluation has \u201cblended,\u201d as general manager Paton said, across a variety of NFL Draft positions over their three years in Denver. The fourth year of Payton\u2019s tenure has now brought them back to the beginning: a late second-round slot, one single pick (No. 62) ahead of their first No. 63 draft choice as a partnership in 2023.<\/p>\n

And both made clear, in their pre-draft press conference Thursday, that they feel entirely comfortable waiting for a prospect on Day 2.<\/p>\n

\u201cOur expectations are the same \u2014 I mean, they\u2019re high,\u201d Paton said. \u201cWe think there\u2019s good players in this draft, we think there\u2019s good players where we\u2019re picking at 62, we have two picks up in the top of the fourth, and we feel good what\u2019s going to be there. And so, we like it.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe know we still have flexibility with the seven picks to move up, or move back and get more picks,\u201d Paton continued, speaking on the Broncos\u2019 current draft arsenal. \u201cAnd so, we have experience with this. We\u2019ve gotten good players with lesser picks.\u201d<\/p>\n

Denver, as Paton said Thursday, could certainly hop up a few rungs from that No. 62 slot. But after sending their first-round pick to Miami in the Jaylen Waddle deal<\/a>, the Broncos simply don\u2019t have the capital for a monumental move up the order once the draft kicks off on April 23. Trading into the first round, Paton said, would be \u201cunlikely.\u201d<\/p>\n

Instead, Paton said the Broncos have \u201choned in\u201d on a crop of prospects on their board ranked between Nos. 40 and 75.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s six players we\u2019re kinda focused on,\u201d Paton said, \u201cthat could be there at 62. We feel good about those players.\u201d<\/p>\n

That\u2019ll ignite a week, of course, of fans and media alike trying to identify those special six. The Broncos have hosted a number of prospects in that range on top-30 visits, from Florida defensive tackle Caleb Banks to Vanderbilt tight end Eli Stowers. Such visits don\u2019t have a particularly strong\u00a0historical correlation to who Denver ends up drafting,\u00a0aside from<\/a>\u00a0a seventh-round swing last year on tight end Caleb Lohner<\/a>.<\/p>\n

But the Broncos, returning the core of a roster that came an ankle snap away from a Super Bowl appearance, will almost certainly target a prospect with a higher ceiling rather than higher-floor, lower-upside at No. 62.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe like to draft high-trait players, and maybe they lack a little polish, and it\u2019s going to take some development,\u201d Paton said.<\/p>\n

\u201cSure, we\u2019d like someone to come in and start right away \u2013 but that\u2019s not always realistic,\u201d he added. \u201cFor first (round), second, no matter where they\u2019re picked. And it\u2019s just hard. And with the way our team is built now, it\u2019s going to be hard to come in and start Day 1.\u201d<\/p>\n

Even in years with a weaker roster, too, the Paton-Payton pairing has leaned in favor of the upside play on Day 2. After the Broncos sent their first-round pick to New Orleans to trade for Payton, they traded up to the back of the second round to nab All-Pro returner Marvin Mims Jr. \u2014 who ran a 4.38-second 40-yard-dash \u2014 at No. 63 in 2023<\/a>.<\/p>\n

That was a few months into the Payton-Paton dynamic, and certainly before they started accidentally sharing draft-room <\/a>water bottles. But there\u2019s an established record of hits at that same second-round range, when factoring in the Broncos\u2019 2022 selection of Nik Bonitto at No. 64.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve done well,\u201d Paton said, \u201cin that realm.\u201d<\/p>\n

Regardless, they need to hit again in a week\u2019s time, still carrying a few remaining needs but few remaining resources. The Broncos are the only team in the NFL with just one pick in the draft\u2019s first three rounds; they have some flexibility to add another, with picks No. 108 and No. 111 in the fourth round. If they stand pat, though, Denver still needs to identify quality depth at skill positions (tight end, running back), their defensive front (defensive end, linebacker), and their offensive line.<\/p>\n

Paton, for his part, shrugged off any process that the lack of draft capital adds more pressure on that No. 62 selection. The GM and coach, after all, have been here before.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re going to go through our process,\u201d Paton said. \u201cOur process has worked. And it continues to evolve, but I think it\u2019s better. I feel more prepared for this draft than I was for last year\u2019s and the prior draft.\u201d<\/p>\n

Want more Broncos news? Sign up for the Broncos Insider to get all our NFL analysis.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"In a week and a half, Sean Payton and George Paton will venture down to the bowels of…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":868032,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[2894,258,7,1272,14706,929,926,6,15,1625,1813,9,505],"class_list":{"0":"post-868031","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nfl-draft","8":"tag-caleb-lohner","9":"tag-denver-broncos","10":"tag-football","11":"tag-george-paton","12":"tag-jaylen-waddle","13":"tag-latest-headlines","14":"tag-more-broncos-news","15":"tag-nfl","16":"tag-nfl-draft","17":"tag-nik-bonitto","18":"tag-sean-payton","19":"tag-sports","20":"tag-super-bowl"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/116417074510627444","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/868031","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=868031"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/868031\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/868032"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=868031"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=868031"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=868031"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}