What Broncos' Addition of Jeudy & Hamler Really Means for Pro Bowl WR Courtland Sutton

The 2020 NFL Draft has come and gone and while the results of it are final, the second-guessing and Monday morning quarterbacking of what GM John Elway and the Denver Broncos should have done is in full swing.

Perhaps controversial to many, Elway utilized both of the Broncos' first two selections in the draft on wide receivers to help surround second-year QB Drew Lock with better talent at the skill positions. The Broncos already had an emerging top-10 WR in Courtland Sutton, as well as 2019 first-round TE Noah Fant to give Lock some options in the passing game.

Despite already having two young, emerging talents, Denver decided to double-dip, adding Alabama’s Jerry Jeudy at pick No. 15 and Penn State’s KJ Hamler at 46.

There's been plenty of hand-wringing and criticism in regards to going WR with back-to-back picks. Denver has short- and long-term concerns at offensive tackle and passed on Boise State's Ezra Cleveland and Houston's Josh Jones in Round 2. Denver also has questions in regards to talent and depth at linebacker and cornerback.

The Broncos weren't going to become a team without any holes in just one draft, and there is no such thing as the perfect roster, but some of the narratives forming against selecting one or both of Jeudy and Hamler are, putting it nicely, erroneous.

One of these claims surrounds the talking point that taking a WR in round one takes away from the emerging Pro Bowler Sutton. Yes, Sutton’s star is rising and with better quarterback, he could emerge beyond being a one-time Pro Bowler in the coming seasons. His athleticism at his size, above-the-rim mentality playing the ball, and underrated yards after catch ability, makes him a unique X-receiver in today’s league.

From a pure count perspective, adding receivers around Sutton does likely limit how many raw stats he can accumulate because there are more mouths to feed, but what should matter most is with the addition of mouths worthy of being fed, Sutton’s efficiency should go up.

On a recent edition of ‘The Broncos Beat’, going back-to-back WR was discussed and it uncovered a plethora of good points.

As NFL Analyst James Palmer put it this week, adding weapons around Sutton doesn’t take away from his ability, but in reality, makes him that much more difficult to guard. With better talent surrounding him, forcing defenses to ‘pick their poison’ should in fact open up more high-quality opportunities for Sutton to impact the game.

Yes, Sutton had a phenomenal sophomore season, but after the trade of Emmanuel Sanders, it was easy to see that the only pass weapon opposing teams respected was Sutton and those defenses would do whatever it took to take him out of the game, effectively neutering the Broncos’ offense and capping their output.

“When I cover these games I talk to offensive, defensive coordinators, players on both teams going into each game. Every game down the stretch defensive players were just telling me that ‘if we just take Courtland Sutton out of the game, we are beating the Denver Broncos.’ That was the game plan for every team I talked to down the stretch. So what does this (adding Jerry Jeudy and KJ Hamler) do now?

This makes Sutton’s life so much easier when you have to game-plan and think about other guys on the field. That makes (Sutton) so much more dynamic. The Broncos saw something extra in (Sutton) after the Emmanuel Sanders trade. They saw him take it up a notch when he was ‘the guy’. Now he has some help elsewhere. I think he is going to be the guy that flourishes the most out of this group because rookie wide receivers are going to have a little bit of an issue with the way this offseason is, being effective right off the bat in their rookie seasons.”

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What it Means

If your end goal is to win a PPR fantasy football league, then perhaps adding weapons like Jeudy and Hamler around Sutton may limit his overall upside. Lock now has equitable options to throw the ball to on any given play and instead of having to force the ball to Sutton.

There is a reason that despite creating solid separation in his routes, Sutton was the second-to-last receiver in the NFL in average separation at the throw out of the 143 WRs who ran at least 100 routes per NFL Next Gen Stats. Opposing defenses allocated resources to stop Sutton but due to the lack of weaponry around him, Denver still had to throw it to him despite not being open.

With the addition of Jeudy and Hamler to go with Sutton, Lock and the Broncos’ offense can now dictate matchups and pick on opponents' defensive weaknesses given what personnel the unit lines up in. The narrative that adding talent at WR takes away from Sutton carries about as much weight as saying the additions of Aqib Talib and Bradly Roby to the 2015 defense made Chris Harris, Jr. less effective.

Going beyond thinking about the box score is what it takes to understand the synergy at play here for the Broncos’ offensive weaponry.

Speaking about synergy on offense and dictating matchups, perhaps one of the most intriguing storylines coming out of the Broncos’ draft haul is just how emphatic Head Coach Vic Fangio wanted — nay, demanding — in adding Hamler and his incredible speed. As Cecil Lammey and Chris Trapasso put it in that same ‘The Broncos Beat’ conversation:

Lammey: “He knows what speed does, right? As a defensive coordinator and just a defensive mind. Wonderful football mind from Coach Fangio. He knows how much speed impacts what you can or can’t do defensively. So you may have a plan for Courtland Sutton. You may even have a plan for Jerry Jeudy… How are you going to stop that speed? That’s really complicated for a defensive mind. That’s why Coach Fangio emphasized so how this team needed to get a guy like Hamler.”

Trapasso: KJ Hamler will have games as a rookie where he might not even have a catch, but he is impacting the game with clearing routes down the field. A deep over route to Jerry Jeudy is going to be there because safeties are going to have to game plan to stop (Hamler). We never got how fast KJ Hamler was; didn’t run at the Combine, didn’t have a Pro Day. He looks like a sub-4.4s guy on film. He had 11 catches of over 20 yards last season with five touchdowns. Teams are going to have to respect him from a speed perspective. He doesn’t even have to catch any passes to make an impact.”

If watching the likes of the best offenses in the NFL last season tells any story, it's that speed kills. The two fastest offenses in the NFL in 2019 ended up being the Kansas City Chiefs and the San Francisco 49ers.

That not only holds true in the AFC West, where the Las Vegas Raiders added Henry Ruggs III and the Chiefs already possess the most explosive play-maker in the NFL in Tyreek Hill, but the entirety of the best teams in the entire conference.

Team building thought for those in the AFC: KC, BAL and HOU have young QB's surrounded by track teams. You better get faster on defense if you want to compete for the next decade.
— Daniel Jeremiah (@MoveTheSticks) January 29, 2020

Just as Elway, despite having been a quarterback for his Hall-of-Fame playing career, has been far better at evaluating and drafting defensive talent to date, Fangio’s defensive background has given him a keen eye in understanding what is needed in breaking down today’s defenses and creating mismatches; speed that simply cannot be ignored and must be accounted for in coverage.

Despite the rumors that the Broncos were enamored with Ruggs and his speed heading into the draft, coming out of it it sounded like Elway loved Jeudy and Oklahoma's CeeDee Lamb as their tier-one WRs with TCU's Jalen Reagor and Hamler as their tier two receivers.

In the end, did Elway and the Broncos make the right decision doubling down on WR in Jeudy and Hamler to go with Sutton and Fant and give Lock a trove of multidimensional weapons who win in different ways?

Would the Broncos have been smarter shifting their strategy to focus on their offensive tackle woes or adding more upside and athleticism to their back seven at linebacker and cornerback? How will all these new pieces be utilized together? Only time will tell and no one knows for sure at this moment.

What is known is that Elway, Fangio, and the Broncos came into the 2020 draft looking to add pass-catching weapons to create more favorable matchups for Sutton and give their young quarterback the best means to succeed. The Broncos wanted to leave the 2020 draft as a more explosive and dynamic offense and they did just that.

Follow Nick on Twitter @NickKendellMHH and @MileHighHuddle.

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