Broncos Among 'Least Improved' Teams of 2024 per MMQB

At the beginning of the 2024 offseason, the Denver Broncos telegraphed their intention to reset the roster, releasing tenured veterans like quarterback Russell Wilson and safety Justin Simmons. In the modern NFL, most teams don't have the time, nor the rope (with respect to ownership and job security) to orchestrate an old-fashioned rebuild.

In Denver's case, Sean Payton has the full faith and support of the Walton/Penner ownership group. Still, Payton doesn't want to strip-sell the roster for small-time draft capital, only to wait years to field a competitive team.

The Broncos are trying to microwave the rebuild process, and they started by picking Bo Nix in the first round. Payton gets a quarterback in his image to serve as the lynchpin to his rebuild.

It's been a wild offseason. This team has experienced a lot of roster turnover in 2024. The question is, at the moment, have all Denver's moves amounted to a net positive or negative?

The MMQB's Matt Verderame would seem to believe the latter, including the Broncos among the "least improved" teams of 2024.

The Broncos absorbed $85 million in dead money over two years after the release of Russell Wilson, and the replacement plan includes a depth chart of first-round pick Bo Nix, Jarrett Stidham and Zach Wilson. Clearly, the Broncos are resetting the franchise. The problem is Denver is short on young talent because of that aforementioned trade, along with dealing away premium capital to acquire coach Sean Payton. The Broncos are doing the right thing by stripping down the roster, but they should have gone further. Trade Courtland Sutton for a pick or two. Trade Patrick Surtain II for a haul. See what the market is for anybody with value.
Matt Verderame

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It's kind of curious to see someone from the national perspective compliment the Broncos for "doing the right thing" only to criticize them in the same breath for not doing enough. As cognitively dissonant as that may be, it's at least fair to question whether Payton and the Broncos did enough in "stripping down the roster."

Every rebuilding franchise needs a roster cornerstone or two in order to begin construction. Ahead of the 2024 draft, it could be argued that Denver, after all of its personnel releases, trades, and signings, retained at least two such cornerstone pieces: the aforementioned Surtain and left tackle Garett Bolles.

Bolles might be on the wrong side of 30 and entering a contract year, but he's in the fold for 2024. You could take it a step further and include Sutton among the cornerstone pieces, considering that he's a bonafide No. 1 receiver.

Knowing that Denver's plan was to land a quarterback in the first round, what good-faith front-office actor would select a rookie signal-caller, only to saddle him with a roster so porous and devoid of talent that he had little chance of success in his first couple of years? The absence of a WR1 and a legit blind-side blocker on the edge is a recipe for disaster for a rookie QB.

Let's face it; the Broncos made some extreme personnel decisions this offseason. As Verderame writes, just ripping off the Wilson bandaid took some intestinal fortitude, knowing that it would not only deprive the quarterback room of starting experience but also saddle the team with a punitive, record-setting level of dead money on the salary cap.

And yet, Payton still cut the chord. He didn't stop there, releasing one of the Broncos' most beloved and accomplished players of the past decade in Simmons, and trading away the team's 2020 first-round pick — Jerry Jeudy — in exchange for some mid-round draft compensation.

To boot, the Broncos opted to refrain from pursuing two starters/leaders in free agency — center Lloyd Cushenbrerry III and linebacker Josey Jewell — because the dollars weren't there to offer a competitive contract thanks to the onerous Wilson contract. Yes, it's some high-level roster turnover, but did the Broncos offset these losses with meaningful additions?

Denver Broncos head coach Sean Payton and rookie quarterback Bo Nix. | Ben Swanson/Denver Broncos

First, there's Nix. The Broncos drafted a 24-year-old quarterback in the first round, and have mostly garnered nothing but derision in the national press for their decision. Forget the 'he's too old' trope; he's the most experienced quarterback to ever enter the NFL draft, and the bottom line is Payton believes Nix is NFL-ready.

Nix also happens to be a perfect fit for Payton. Thus, the Broncos shed an albatross of a Wilson contract, parting ways with a signal-caller who was the water to Payton's oil, replacing him with a young quarterback with five years of NCAA Divison I starting experience and coming off a final collegiate season in which he was voted a Heisman Trophy finalist.

The quarterback is always going to be the most crucial, coveted building block to a roster. Nix's arrival checks three of the four boxes the Broncos need relative to the four cornerstone positions. All that was missing was an alpha pass rusher.

While the Broncos drafted Utah's Jonah Elliss in the third round, it's unlikely that he goes on to become such a pass rusher out of the gates, leaving that particular cornerstone box unchecked. For now. Baron Browning has a good chance of checking that box for Denver in 2024, if he stays healthy.

Beyond Nix and Elliss, the Broncos drafted wideout Troy Franklin — Nix's No. 1 target at Oregon coming off a prolific 1,400-yard, 14-touchdown season — as well as bruising Notre Dame running back Audric Estimé, Missouri cornerback Kris Abrams-Draine, and Utah receiver Devaughn Vele. With Cushenberry taking his talents elsewhere, the Broncos punctuated their 2024 draft haul by adding South Carolina's Nick Gargiulo in the seventh round as a hedge.

In free agency, the Broncos made multiple second and third-wave additions, including safety Brandon Jones, wide receiver Josh Reynolds, defensive tackle Malcolm Roach, and cornerback Levi Wallace, while re-signing a few key veterans like safety P.J. Locke, wideout Lil'Jordan Humphrey, tight end Adam Trautman, and linebacker Justin Strnad, and kicker Wil Lutz, among a few others. Throw in the trade acquisitions of defensive end John Franklin-Myers and quarterback Zach Wilson, and the Broncos had a quietly productive offseason.

The Broncos weren't trying to win the offseason. Teams for whom that becomes the priority end up much like the 2023 New York Jets, as Payton himself predicted would happen last summer.

The Broncos knew that releasing Wilson would tie their hands in free agency. And yet, for the most part, the team offset the departure of each key veteran mentioned above with either a rookie draft pick or a lower-cost/higher-upside veteran.

The Takeaway

Perhaps Verderame is right and the Broncos didn't do enough to improve. Only time will tell. But the great equalizer for a team that finds itself amid a rebuild is the coaching staff.

The right coaching staff can not only accelerate the development of a rebuilt roster, but exceed expectations sooner than anyone may have guessed. Payton is one of the highest-paid head coaches in the NFL for a reason.

Up to this point, nothing Payton has done as head coach of the Broncos should deprive him of the benefit of the doubt when it comes to his wherewithal and expertise. His 16 years with the New Orleans Saints led to the team's first and only World Championship, and his offensive and defensive units were ranked among the NFL's best more often than not.

Payton is exactly the kind of coach you want in the fold when making the difficult decision to rebuild. His resume is littered with one example after another of him extracting blood from the most unlikely of stones.

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