ENGLEWOOD, Colo. — Think of all that hot air now evaporated from sports talk radio airwaves and Broncos-oriented podcasts. How many trees timbered to fill so many pages in the newspaper? Shudder to consider how many times the gray-haired Broncos reporter was brought to local living room television screens.
And for what? No trades.
The Broncos, who are currently in a mixed state where their overall 3-5 record is offset by back-to-back wins against Green Bay and Kansas City heading into this week’s bye, had offers for some of their key players as the NFL trading deadline approached Tuesday afternoon. But none of the offers weren’t considered substantial enough for the Broncos to consider, according to a source.
And so the deadline came and went without any deals made by the Broncos.
Officially, the Broncos did make one trade 25 days ago when it sent outside linebacker Randy Gregory to the San Francisco 49ers. But that was more of a directed release as the Broncos had to eat the remaining $10.9 million of Gregory’s salary while getting a nominal, one-round compensation in return. The Broncos sent Gregory and their 7th, or last, round in the 2024 draft, to San Francisco in exchanged for its 6th, or second-to-last, round in the draft next April.
While several Broncos players were good enough to draw interest from other teams in recent days, it’s easy to assume Denver wasn’t going to deal unless they got a high-round pick in return. The team had surrendered three first-round picks, over the 2022 and ‘23 drafts, and three second-round picks, over the 2022, ’23 and ‘24 drafts, as part of high-profile trades that brought quarterback Russell Wilson and head coach Sean Payton to Denver.
Here are the Broncos’ six picks in next year’s draft:
1st rd: Own pick
2nd: None
3rd: One pick (Sean Payton trade with Saints)
4th: One pick (Bradley Chubb trade with Dolphins)
5th: Two picks (own, Jacob Martin trade with Jets)
6th: One pick (Randy Gregory trade with 49ers)
7th: None
After their bye this weekend, the Broncos play Monday, Nov. 13 at Buffalo before returning for home games against the Minnesota Vikings on Sunday, Nov. 19 and Nov. 26 against the Cleveland Browns.
December begins with three consecutive road games at Houston, at the Los Angeles Chargers and at Detroit. Then its home Christmas Eve against the Patriots and New Year’s Eve against the Chargers before finishing up Jan. 7 at Las Vegas.
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