Denver Broncos’ Day 3 pivotal to expanding title window after only 1 draft pick so far

ENGLEWOOD, Colo. — Denver Broncos head coach Sean Payton and general manager George Paton have spent dozens of drafts inside team headquarters during their respective decades-long careers in the NFL.

They have rarely waited so long to get in on the action.

The Broncos on Friday selected Texas A&M defensive tackle Tyler Onyedim with the 66th pick. That came at the top of the third round, after the Broncos acquired a sixth-round pick from the Bills to hop back from the 62nd spot. The result was that the Broncos, for only the third time in franchise history, did not make a first- or second-round pick during a draft.

“It fell like we thought it would,” Paton said.

The Broncos never felt the urge to dart up the board in search of an instant upgrade. It was the continuation of a message the Broncos have sent to members of their roster this offseason, a group that finished 4 points shy of a trip to the Super Bowl. Denver may not travel the same path in their championship quest this season, but it’ll largely be bringing the same cast on the journey.

Denver has added exactly one veteran free agent since the new league year began in March: Tycen Anderson, a part-time safety and full-time special teamer. The Broncos on Friday became the only team in the league to end Day 2 having made only a single pick.

There was the major splash, of course, that brought dynamic wide receiver Jaylen Waddle to Denver. Can you imagine the pitchforks that would be out in the Mile High City if Waddle hadn’t penguin-danced into town back in March?

“Yesterday, that was a boring day,” Paton said of the draft’s opening round Thursday. “But we forget that we did trade (their first-round pick) for one of the better receivers in the league, so it was a good day.”

Go ahead and scan the initial 53-man roster the Broncos put together last fall, the one that embarked upon a journey that ended with the AFC’s No. 1 seed. A conservative projection right now could point to somewhere between around 43 and 45 of those same players being on the roster that Payton and Paton put together ahead of their 2026 season opener in September. Open starting spots on this roster? They are in short supply. The foundation is largely set.

Quietly, though, the Broncos have set themselves up for a substantial Saturday. The trade with Buffalo pushed Denver’s total of Day 3 picks to seven. The work they do with that capital will be critical to Denver’s quest to ensure its status as title contenders becomes an annual occurrence for the foreseeable future. A massive contract for quarterback Bo Nix looms, but that’s an anchor only if the Broncos can’t continue to reinforce critical rotational spots on their roster through the draft.

And that doesn’t have to come, Paton said, with the glitzy Day 1 and Day 2 selections that garner all the headlines.

“As we go through our discussions, these two fourth-round picks will define our draft,” Paton said. “We should, if we’re doing our job, hit on the second-round (pick), now third. It’s really the middle-round picks that define your draft. We’re looking for young developmental backups with traits that we can develop.”

Onyedim fits that description. After four years at Iowa State, where he played one season with current Broncos defensive lineman Eyioma Uwazurike, Onyedim transferred to Texas A&M in 2025 and put together his best season. Importantly, the scheme at Texas A&M under defensive coordinator Mike Elko showcased his ability as a one-gap interior pass rusher.

“That defensive scheme sometimes, that’s one of the challenges to projecting (a defensive lineman),” Payton said. “The importance of him at the A&M exposure, you got to see a guy play a different position or technique. I think that probably helped a lot of teams (with Onyedim’s evaluation), not just us.”

Uwazurike produced his best season with the Broncos in 2025, his third in the NFL. He’ll enter the final year of his contract this season while playing alongside Onyedim and Sai’vion Jones, the second-year player whom Denver selected out of LSU in the third round last year. The Broncos lost John Franklin-Myers in free agency after he produced 14 1/2 sacks the past two seasons, but the Broncos are taking a developmental approach in replacing his production, while planning to lean more on freshly extended veteran Malcolm Roach.

It’s not a flashy process, but it’s one, extrapolated at positions across the roster, that explains how the Broncos have steadily risen from a five-win outfit the year before Payton arrived in 2022 to a team that ended Kansas City’s near-decade run atop the AFC West.

“The reason why we’ve been so good the last couple of years is because of our depth, and where you get that depth is the third day,” Paton said. “They may be backups in Year 1 like (outside linebacker) Nik Bonitto or (cornerback) Riley Moss, and then in Year 2, if you hit on them, maybe you get a starter or a key contributor. That is what we are looking for on Day 3.”

Bonitto (a late second-round pick in 2022) and Moss (third round in 2023) were actually Day 2 selections, but the Broncos have found other impact pieces on the draft’s final day since Paton became the team’s general manager in 2021. Edge rusher Jonathon Cooper, center Luke Wattenberg, offensive lineman Alex Forsyth, safety and special teams ace JL Skinner, wide receiver Troy Franklin and Uwazurike are all starters or rotational contributors taken in the fourth round or later. The Broncos drafted wide receiver Devaughn Vele in the seventh round in 2024 and were then able to flip him for one of the fourth-round picks they have in this draft in a trade with the Saints last August.

The reality is that good teams with complete rosters are rarely the most buzzy teams during the NFL Draft or the offseason writ large. The Broncos have embodied that truth to the highest degree in the months since their special season ended on the doorstep of a Super Bowl appearance.

Saturday could nonetheless prove to be a pivotal day for the Broncos. The pieces they need to make a championship run in 2026 are in place. But making similar chases in the seasons to follow demands that they hit the defining Day 3 picks ahead.

“We feel good about where we are at, and we feel really good about the day,” Paton said. “We feel good about the first day (of the draft). We got Waddle. Then, we got (Onyedim), who we really like. (Saturday), we’re going to have a good day.”

The last time the Broncos didn’t make a first- or second-round pick in a draft was 1995. A player they did pick? Running back Terrell Davis.

No pressure, George.