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#9 – Patrick Surtain Jr., CB, Alabama
2021 NFL Draft – Day 1
The 2021 Broncos Rookie Class
Drafted Players
- #9: Patrick Surtain Jr., CB, Alabama
- #35 (from Atlanta): Javonte Williams, RB, North Carolina
- #98 (from New Orleans): Quinn Meinerz, G, Wisconsin-Whitewater
- #105 (from New Orleans): Baron Browning, LB, Ohio State
- #152: Caden Sterns, S, Texas
- #164 (from Chicago via NY Giants): Jamar Johnson, S, Indiana
- #219 (from Atlanta): Seth Williams, WR, Auburn
- #237: Kary Vincent Jr., CB, LSU
- #239 (from New York Giants): Jonathon Cooper, EDGE, Ohio State
- #253 (from Cleveland): Marquiss Spencer, IDL, Mississippi State
Undrafted Free Agents
- Nolan Laufenberg, G, Air Force (per Mike Klis)
- Adam Prentice, FB, Colorado State (per Zac Stevens)
- Drew Himmelman, T, Illinois State (per Benjamin Allbright)
- Branden Mack, WR, Temple (per Mike Klis)
- Mac McCain, CB, North Carolina A&T (per Aaron Wilson)
- Curtis Robinson, LB, Stanford (per Justin M)
- Shaun Beyer, TE, Iowa (per Chad Leistikow)
- Warren Jackson, WR, Colorado State (per himself)
- Andre Mintze, EDGE, Vanderbilt (per Tom Pelissero)
Getting Defensive
This draft is likely to be an outlier from a defensive standpoint. Only three times since 1970 has the first defensive player off the board lasted past the fifth pick.
1995 – Kevin Carter DE – 6th overall
1999 – Champ Bailey CB – 7th overall
2005 – Adam Jones CB – 6th overall
That the first defensive player might not come off the board until pick 7-10 doesn’t mean this draft is devoid of talent on that side of the ball. Fortunately, this draft appears to be strong in areas we want to address.
Continue reading Getting DefensiveBroncos To Trade For Teddy Bridgewater
Per Tom Pelissero and Adam Schefter:
And per Mike Klis:
Putting these reports together, it appears that the Broncos and Panthers agreed to split Bridgewater’s guaranteed salary of $10 million between them, with the Panthers taking the lion’s share of that cost, while Bridgewater agreed to an $6.5 million pay cut in 2021 in exchange for gaining the ability to become a free agent in 2022. Because Bridgewater’s contract was shortened, he will not be eligible to become a compensatory free agent in Denver’s favor next offseason.
As for my opinion, I am quite surprised that the Panthers were willing to eat $7 million in salary for only a 6th round pick, and that Bridgewater, if I’m understanding this correctly, was willing to take a pay cut to go to a team not entirely of his choosing. Meanwhile, for the Broncos they have finally succeeded at getting serious veteran competition for Drew Lock, and they are doing so at an excellent price of only $4.5 million and a 6th round pick.
The above has been corrected to include the additional $1.5 million in salary that the Broncos will take on, per Mike Klis’s second tweet at 12:44 PM MT.
Biomechanical Draft Guide 2021 Part 2
(the following is a significant update to part 1 of this series)
Sometimes methodological breakthroughs happen at inopportune times. Like, for example, the day after one has published one’s findings using older methodology. In this case, on Saturday (the day after part one of this series went up), a breakthrough was made seemingly finally enabling reliable measure of the most lateral anterior thoracic pathway. Although it’s only been a few days since then, rigorous testing seems to back up the reliability of this method, with measures correlating strongly with expected results (although more testing is obviously needed).
As such, I went back and applied this measure to the current crop of lateral anterior oriented quarterbacks. And the results were somewhat surprising.
Offensive Thoughts
Unlike last year, when everybody knew we were drafting wide receivers early, there are unlimited possibilities for the Broncos in this draft. So, I won’t be focusing on any particular position groups this year and will just offer up some comments about a lot of players I like and a few I hope we avoid. The plan is to cover offense today and defense tomorrow.
Continue reading Offensive ThoughtsBiomechanical Draft Guide 2021 Part 1: Quarterbacks
(to read the intro to this series, click here)
After studying tape of QBs drafted from 2014-2020, the one universal trend that emerged (albeit from a necessarily small sample size) is that QBs showing more than one area of full thoracic efficiency became star QBs. The full list of such QBs (in rough order of thoracic efficiency) is Josh Allen, Patrick Mahomes, Justin Herbert, and Deshaun Watson. Josh Allen took a few years to overcome accuracy issues (noted when he was drafted as posterior cervical thoracic overlap, generally correlated with issues targeting specific depths of field), but in the end every QB who showed more than one area of full thoracic efficiency when drafted eventually became an NFL star (or shows such promise, in the case of Justin Herbert).
So if there’s one QB prediction that I feel most confident making for the upcoming draft, it’s that
Continue reading Biomechanical Draft Guide 2021 Part 1: Quarterbacks
Intro to Draft Guide 2021
This year’s draft guide will be focusing primarily on QBs, since this is a lauded draft class at QB, and my methodology for analyzing QBs has been heavily revamped over the past couple months (there will also be a second part to this guide, discussing standout options at other positions). The primary basis by which these QBs will be judged will be by measuring areas of full efficiency. After revisiting college film of QBs drafted 2014-2020, clear trends emerged– almost every QB who showed at least one area of full efficiency in their thoracic areas was able to eventually find success as a starting QB. QBs who showed more than one area of full thoracic efficiency universally became stars.