Why Caleb Lohner Is Emerging as Broncos Breakout Candidate

Arguably, the biggest pleasant surprise of the Denver Broncos' offseason has been tight end Caleb Lohner and the waves he made at rookie minicamp earlier this month.

Lohner was a seventh-round pick last year out of Utah, who spent his rookie season on the practice squad. A former basketball star in college, the 6-foot-7 tight end had just one season of football at Utah, where he totaled 57 snaps, before getting drafted to Denver.

Thus, Lohner hit the Broncos' roster about as raw and inexperienced as an actual draft pick could ever be. However, head coach Sean Payton loved Lohner's rare combination of size and athleticism, so the Broncos took the flyer and invested some coaching into him.

Out of the Blue

Fast forward to rookie minicamp earlier this month, and Payton raised everyone's eyebrows by offering up, "I'll tell you who stood out: Caleb. He looks entirely different in this camp."

Placed within the wider context of the logjam the Broncos have at tight end, Lohner's potential emergence will be an interesting storyline to monitor this summer. Along with the four veteran incumbents, Evan Engram, Adam Trautman, Nate Adkins, and Lucas Krull, Lohner will be competing with a pair of 2026 draft picks, Justin Joly and Dallen Bentley.

Even with Engram in the fold last year, the Broncos fielded one of the worst tight end rooms in the NFL, based on multiple metrics. Engram's inability to block limited the number of snaps the Broncos could give him on the field, which minimized his impact as a pass-catcher, while Trautman's in-line blocking and below-average receiving skills downfield simply failed to move the needle.

The Broncos re-signed Trautman in March, giving him a sizable raise, but this team is looking for someone on the tight end depth chart to rise and make themselves undeniable. Joly is a top candidate to watch, but we have to consider Lohner a growing possibility now.

Lohner has been behind the developmental curve simply because of his football inexperience. But the traits he brought to the table had Payton thinking of Jimmy Graham in his prime days back in New Orleans.

"In fairness to him, remember [he] was a basketball prospect that had limited snaps of a year," Payton said of Lohner on May 9. "So one year into the program, and how he’s moving, what he’s doing, everything looks entirely different. That learning curve and growth curve was greater for someone who had far less experience maybe than others, if that makes sense. It’s entirely noticeable, and he’s in great shape. You see his athleticism."

A Lost Puppy

Denver Broncos rookie tight end Caleb Lohner catches a pass at rookie minicamp on Friday, May 9, at Broncos Park, Powered by CommonSpirit. | Ben Swanson/DenverBroncos.com

When training camp rolled around last summer, Lohner looked a bit lost, to be frank. He failed to separate or distinguish himself in any way when the preseason games rolled around, which is why he was waived at the final roster cuts.

But Payton wasn't willing to give up the ghost quite yet on his tight end project, so Lohner was re-signed to the practice squad, where he went on to continue learning from the coaches and contribute quite a lot on the scout team. By season's end, NFL teams came sniffing around the Broncos' practice squad, looking to sign away Lohner. He declined to leave Denver, though.

Lohner has potential in spades. But entering his second training camp, Payton is looking for Lohner to show some bite and provide some kind of evidence of NFL staying power.

Payton sprouts off the Bill Parcells coaching tree. Much of Payton's philosophical core comes from the Pro Football Hall of Famer, and one Parcells idiom still comes to mind on the Lohner subject.

"I would say the one thing that you don’t know is… Bill [Parcells] used to say, ‘If they don’t bite when they’re puppies, they’re probably never going to bite,'" Payton said. "There’s a physical aspect to the way he plays. Even on look [scout] team last season, he’d play an outside linebacker rushing our tackles. He’s 6-foot-7, 265 pounds, and he’s not afraid of the contact. So it’s been good to see him in Year 2. You knew there was going to be a developmental upside, but that was encouraging.”

It's one thing to show out in the non-contact setting of a rookie minicamp. The same holds true for the OTAs coming up in June. When the pads go on in training camp later this summer, that's when the onus will be on Lohner to truly display how far he's come since his rookie year.

Questions to Answer

Is he still swimming? Can he handle contact? Does he have a better command of leverage, both in a blocking and route-running sense? Is he making plays?

How Lohner answers these questions will determine whether his 2026 offseason buzz was smoke or fire. If it ends up being fire, and there's some actual there there, he could be a bona fide breakout candidate in 2026, especially with what he could bring to the table as a red-zone weapon.

But you know the ol' saying: "If 'ifs and buts' were candy and nuts, we all would have a Merry Christmas." Still, if Payton is excited about Lohner, it's hard not to get one's hopes up a little.

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