With the 2025 NFL Draft now over, we can accurately reassess the depth charts of teams around the NFL. In this series, we’ll be taking a look at players who either gained or lost value based on what their team did during the draft.
Denver Broncos
Draft Class
- Round 1, pick 20: Jahdae Barron, CB, Texas
- Round 2, pick 60: RJ Harvey, RB, UCF
- Round 3, pick 74: Pat Bryant, WR, Illinois
- Round 3, pick 101: Sai'vion Jones, DL, LSU
- Round 4, pick 134: Que Robinson, EDGE, Alabama
- Round 6, pick 216: Jeremy Crawshaw, P, Florida
- Round 7, pick 241: Caleb Lohner, TE, Utah
Broncos head coach Sean Payton spent the entire off-season saying he wanted to find his “joker”. At pick 20, every skill position player except Ashton Jeanty, Tetairoa McMillan and Emeka Egbuka were on the board. That meant that Luther Burden, Jayden Higgins, Matthew Golden, or any of the other receivers could have gone to the Broncos to immediately function as their number one target.
When they went with Jahdae Barron, Engram’s stock immediately went up. When the whole draft passed without them dipping into a deep tight end class, it soared. Engram’s new deal with the Broncos has him guaranteed $16.5m over the next two years , which makes him the tenth highest paid tight end in the league. Looking at this receiving core, there’s no reason why Engram won’t be the starting slot in an offense that saw the highest ever target total go to its slot receiver. Engram won’t be Michael Thomas, but I think he ends the season as the Broncos' target leader.
