Special: 2026 Post Draft Thoughts

Special episode following the 2026 NFL Draft, the boys go over;

-Broncos Prospects they're high on

-How the rest of the NFL did 

-A few NFL Futures bets

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Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Welcome back to Generous post-draft special here. Uh until we kick it off here in about three months, honestly, with uh college football and NFL almost right around the corner, start of August is when we're looking, but wanted to do a little special like we said we would at the end of season one, just going over Broncos picks and kind of the draft in general. All that more in this week's episode, on this week's special. Jeff, I'll let you kind of take it off. What do you think about the Broncos draft class?

SPEAKER_01 0:28

I think overall I like their picks. For the most part, they drafted for need, which I definitely appreciate because on this roster, I don't think we have too many holes. We definitely needed some weapons, which we addressed that with the the waddle trade. Yeah. And then after that, you know, adding a couple more weapons around Bo, getting a little bit of defense or uh sorry, depth on the offensive line, and then um defensively, you know, addressing the linebacker position a little bit and defensive line since we lost JFM is is essentially what they needed to do. And I think for the most part they did it, they did a good job. I I question a couple of their moves, you know, that you and I were texting all weekend long about everything going on. I question a couple of their moves. I I I thought they could have handled this or that a little bit better. And and who knows, maybe they tried to move up or move back, or you know, and it just didn't quite work out because somebody, who knows, wanted too much or they didn't think they got they were gonna get enough, whatever it might be for whatever reason. So, all in all, I think, like I said, I I would give their draft. I mean, you know, for what we had, you know, we didn't have a whole lot of draft picks. So I think for what we had, I would give them a B to maybe a B plus, just depending on, you know, we're gonna have to see how these guys work out at the end of the year. But right now, I'll go with a solid B.

SPEAKER_00 1:54

Yeah. I mean, I I think we talked about it, right? I I think draft grades are you can never grade a draft class until I think really like three, four years down the road, right? You know, Nick Benito his after his first year kind of looked like a bust. I mean, we took him at like in the third round, I thought, like pick 67 or something. Um, you know, and every you know, everyone questioned that, but you know, here we are three-ish years later, and uh that was a great pickup. So it's always tough to tell where someone's gonna end up and um what their actual value will be until we see them on the field. I I kind of agree, you know, you throw the waddle mix into it because that's really who our first round pick was was getting Jalen Waddle. At the end of the first day at a first round, um, I kind of saw who was there, and I was like, I mean, our options were to trade back, which you know, we might have been able to land like maybe a Denzel Boston or something. You know, you I think Jalen Waddle is a day one producer for us. Uh, and anyone around the you know, pick where were we at? Like, let's say like 25 if we moved up to, you know, maybe pick 50 may not be a day one producer like Jalen Waddle. I was hoping we would get like, you know, we talked about Anthony Hill Jr., we talked about Eli Stowers and Max Clare a little bit. I wanted I thought Eli Stovers was gonna be there. I think the Broncos just let the draft and the players come to them. Um, and if that was one of their guys, apparently Jonah Coleman was one of their guys from the get-go. I will say that they do a pretty good job of hiding who they want and not having a ton of buzz. I guess, you know, he said that they really didn't, you know, they had the meeting with them and everything, but I think between my the two players that I'm kind of the most excited to see, I'll make it three, is Jonah Coleman, Justin Jolly, and uh, or Jolie. And Red Murdoch, dude, I I think that kid could be an animal. His stats where he was at Buffalo was unreal. I mean, he set set the NCLAA record for 17 force fumbles in his career. Not so great in the past game, but he's a physical linebacker, and I think he just fell because he went to Buffalo, right? He doesn't have that, you know, blue chip. He's not from a blue chip conference. We'll see how that translates in the NFL, but he's a big dude. I mean, I'd love to see him, you know, obviously make the roster, and same with um York as well. I mean, those are two linebackers I think are very good. But we'll see. I mean, when you're drafted in the seventh round, you're essentially an undrafted free agent and you have to fight to make that roster spot. And there's only what, three that are open from the three that we le had leave us. So you're gonna have to basically kick someone out who was there last year, which I guess if you think about it, that fills one spot for um Dre Greenlaw because Lavelle Bailey made the 52-man roster. Was he did he make it out during the playoffs?

SPEAKER_01 4:48

He can't remember if he made it for the 53 man, but I don't know. I I don't put a whole lot of uh stock into how many open spots we think they have because of you know of signed contracts, because you know, unlike NBA or MLB, the majority of these contracts we can get out of them because they're you know, unless you're a bigger name, you almost have no guaranteed money. So for the most part, you just have to beat these, you know, these kids are just gonna have to beat beat them out in training camp. You know, if you probably only have, I would say it's probably closer to 40 that you're already probably going to keep, and then you have the other third I would say it's closer to 13 that you could cut or release players and add any of the younger players that you like in camp.

SPEAKER_00 5:36

Yeah. I think I think if I had to say, like obviously, there's probably four players, maybe like uh three or four players who were drafted or making their roster just because of where they were drafted. Obviously, Jonah Coleman, Tyler Onyandin. I'm gonna have to learn how to pronounce his name, Cage Casey and Justin, maybe Justin Jolie, just because he was a fifth round pick. But you know, you're one through four, you're making the roster. That's a high higher draft pick.

SPEAKER_01 6:02

These seventh rounders, you're gonna have to prove yourself, but um seventh rounders rounders for the most part, you're just trying to earn a spot on special teams. Yeah, probably. Like if you want to make a roster and you're a late round pick or any one of the undrafted free agents, you want to make one of these NFL teams. You're probably gonna have to prove it on special teams first, unless you're a specialty player, like a kickoff returner, punt returner, yeah, punter kicker, whatever it might be.

SPEAKER_00 6:32

Yeah, and I mean I I think um Jonah Coleman, I I'm really excited about him to see what he does. I mean, he's a guy, it it seems like you watched a couple of his games last year, you said, right? He keeps his he gets fights for extra yards.

SPEAKER_01 6:46

Fights for extra yards, runs hard. I think he's he's the kind of guy that we are looking to uh for to be the essentially like if if something happens with uh with JK, he's essentially going to take over that JK role because he's gonna be more of a short yardage, kind of more of a bell cow-ish type back.

SPEAKER_00 7:07

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 7:08

Where RJ is still gonna be, you know, our our explosive change of pace, possibly in there on on passing downs, uh stuff like that. Look for him to catch balls out of the backfield.

SPEAKER_00 7:20

I mean, they I'm looking at the Broncos depth chart right now. Obviously, it's not like set in stone, but they have him listed as the third back right now. And I I think, you know, hopefully JK, I mean, we re-signed JK to that two-year deal of the offseason. Obviously, he's gonna hopefully be healthy throughout the entire season, but you know, if I'm if I'm Sean Payton and he's a little banged up, let's just run with the young guys and RJ Harvey and General Coleman. I mean, I I like that combo.

SPEAKER_01 7:45

Yeah, I mean it it it's a great way for us to get younger at the position. Um, because again, JK now is 27, going on 28. So we need to address something to get a little bit younger at the position.

SPEAKER_00 8:02

I'm always in the uh grouping of draft or running back every year just because it's such a short-term position. And honestly, in today's NFL, it's such a more important position, too. I mean, uh NFL offenses are oddly everything's cyclical. You know, we used to be in kind of that like air raid kind of, and now it's kind of going back to like, you know, 13-man personnel, and we're gonna run it down your throat. And that's kind of where the NFL is starting to evolve to. Um, and that was our our struggle towards the end of the year when JK went down. It was tough for us to run the ball. Um, and I think Jonah Coleman adds that extra depth. I mean, besides, you know, JK Dobbins, no one else could really break tackles. RJ Harvey hopefully will get a little bit better at it, and probably hopefully reads his gaps, right? But we'll see. I mean, I I think it's a it was a good pickup for us.

SPEAKER_01 8:53

Yeah, plus it running backs and running backs and your corners, running backs and cornerbacks are great players to fill out your special, your special teams players.

SPEAKER_00 9:02

I don't think he's gonna play uh you think Jonah Coleman will play special teams?

SPEAKER_01 9:05

May.

SPEAKER_00 9:05

I don't know.

SPEAKER_01 9:06

I mean you only have so many roster spots, and we're not gonna carry I don't think we're gonna carry four running backs.

SPEAKER_00 9:11

Yeah, so it's probably j honestly, it's probably Jaleel gone. He'll probably make our practice squad, but I I think it's Jaleel gone. This kid's coming in ready to work. He called his shot too. Did you see that? Oh yeah. He was on the they had like the little mock draft stand thing, and he said the with the uh 60 second pick. Jonah Coleman's drafted by the Denver Broncos. That was pretty freaking cool to see. Why wouldn't you want to come to Denver? We should have been in we should have been in the freaking Super Bowl. I don't know. We'll see. I'm I'm excited to see. I mean, when's training camp start?

SPEAKER_01 9:43

Well, rookies are gonna be in minicamp, like rookie camp, mini camp here in I think it's like two weeks.

SPEAKER_00 9:51

Yep. Broncos training camp. Trying to see, because they got the new stadium now, so I don't think they've officially announced it, but it'll be in July, obviously, as it is almost every year, July to August. Definitely gotta go. Because they got the new facility, which I drove by it the other day, and that looks phenomenal. Um OTAs and everything else is a little bit later, and I think that's just for Bo to get a little bit more healthy.

SPEAKER_01 10:16

Another fantastic reason to have the Penners as your owner.

SPEAKER_00 10:19

Yeah, you get a freaking balling ass practice facility in the first when they break around on that, like a year or two ago.

SPEAKER_01 10:26

Yeah, and they've been they've been working round the clock to get that done. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 10:31

You know, going into the rest of the draft for the rest of the teams, any uh other teams kind of shock you or kind of impressed me with their draft? I talked about one.

SPEAKER_01 10:41

Yeah, who do I think had a good draft? Um shockingly, I thought I thought Cleveland had a pretty good draft. Yeah, I don't know what their plan is at quarterback, but I think they have the same they have the same intentions as a couple other teams is tank for Arch Manning. They have no problem winning four, five, six, seven games at the most and being and having a top ten pick next year. Because everybody's thinking that there's gonna be a minimum of three quarterbacks probably taken in the first 12 picks.

SPEAKER_00 11:15

Yeah, you got Arch, you got Dante Moore. What other quarterbacks are coming out that are gonna be good? Nathan Chambliss, we'll see how he does.

SPEAKER_01 11:25

The kid for uh Ole Miss that gets a seventh year in college or whatever the hell, Chambly.

SPEAKER_00 11:31

Dude. Yeah, Chambliss or something. Yeah, I mean, we'll see. I mean, it's I do I do agree. You know, we talked about it. Garrett Nusmeyer should have gone out last time. I mean, I thought there were some okay quarterbacks in this draft. Better than last week or last year, but dude, freaking Nussmeyer would have been a first round draft pick, and he was taking he's the last quarterback off the board. He probably would have been the first, maybe the second last year.

SPEAKER_01 11:57

Yeah, if you're if you're that kid, you're probably sick to your stomach. Top ten pick, the top ten pick the year before, maybe top twenty at worst, to seventh round.

SPEAKER_00 12:08

Dude, you know, he didn't have like all the I mean, okay, uh his season last year wasn't good, but dude, the year before he had a great season. I I really don't know what the whole drop-off was. I mean, LSU sucked last.

SPEAKER_01 12:23

Well, there's reports now coming out that Brian Kelly completely torpedoed him to NFL Scouts.

SPEAKER_00 12:29

Really? What a fucking piece of shit. I don't like Brian Kelly. What do you think about the old Ty Simpson taking 13th overall?

SPEAKER_01 12:35

I think I if I'm the Rams, if I'm the Rams, I don't love it. Because you're in a this is a win now mode. This is you're you're definitely in a win now mode. This is probably Stafford's last year. I think it is. I'm gonna try I'm gonna take a shot. My I'm gonna shoot my shot, and this is Stafford's last year. They they either win it this year with Stafford or or he retires. His wife the last couple of years has really made comments about almost pressuring him to just wanting him to retire.

SPEAKER_00 13:06

I mean, he's kind of at that point, man. I mean, uh he got you know what, if he would have started like played his whole career at LA, it'd probably be a different story, but he got beat to shit when he was a lion.

SPEAKER_01 13:17

So he had some rough years on his body.

SPEAKER_00 13:20

Yeah, I don't know. It's interesting. Well, uh, I mean, again, time will tell on this. They may look like geniuses for taking him there in the future, or you know, if that's their next franchise quarterback and he it he it turns out well for him, it works out, then yeah, great, great move by them.

SPEAKER_01 13:36

But you know, you're looking at like the good thing is is he hasn't played a lot of football, Ty Simpson. And if you truly think he has the raw NFL skills, but he just needs development, that's a great landing spot for him if if that's what you think. Because unless Stafford gets hurt this year, he's not gonna play this year. So he gets a redshirt, he gets a redshirt year in the league just to sit behind Stafford, just to sit in a room with you know Mc with McVeigh and Stafford and who are great offensive minds and just learn and develop.

SPEAKER_00 14:11

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 14:11

I mean, every quarterback that's went that's gotten in a room with McVeigh has looked great afterwards. Yeah, I mean he revived bakery.

SPEAKER_00 14:20

You know, surprisingly, I'll g I'll give it this. I did talk about this. Um, I thought the Cowboys had a pretty decent draft. Um, all high picks. I mean, they only had one pick out of the fourth round, and that was their seventh round pick. But, you know, they got Caleb Downs, which I think is a good pickup for them. Malachi Lawrence, who I liked a lot too, and then you go edge offensive tackle, cornerback, edge, wide receiver. They only drafted two offensive players. I I'll give them that. They they had a pretty good draft. They had Caleb Downs, who um is a baller, and I'm surprised he lasted that long there. But um who was the other team that I was looking at that I thought had a pretty dang good draft.

SPEAKER_01 15:07

Well, I already told you earlier, Dan don't listen to the show regularly anyway, but yeah, I hate to say it all. I might regret it, but Tennessee had a I thought Tennessee had a very solid draft as well.

SPEAKER_00 15:19

Yeah. The Carnell Tate I thought was a little confusing. I thought you you should have taken you could have taken uh like Reuben Bain there or Sonny Styles or Arvell Reese and then gotten like Denzel Boston in at the tail end, like if you wanted to trade back up, because they traded back up to the first to get Keldrick Falk. Um you know, but other than that, I mean they got Nick Singleton, who I was high on.

SPEAKER_01 15:45

I still think he's I think they I'll I'll go to the grave with this. I still think they purposely moved ahead of Denver to take Anthony Hill Jr.

SPEAKER_00 15:54

Yeah, probably.

SPEAKER_01 15:55

That was Buffalo that Yeah, so so you know Buffalo had zero problems with uh making that move.

SPEAKER_00 16:04

Yeah. Miami's draft is a little confusing, but they're in a little bit of a rebuild. They had a lot of draft picks up because I sold the farm for the you know they had our first round and uh one of our thirds too. But I don't know. We'll see. I think they're they're looking to tank for the future too.

SPEAKER_01 16:24

Yeah, you got them, the Jets, the Browns, probably. You got three or four teams that are they're looking to draft a quarterback for sure next year.

SPEAKER_00 16:33

Arizona. Dude, I mean we've already talked about it, right? Like Jeremiah Love is our first round draft pick. I don't care what Dan says, we're not getting Cornell Tate. I didn't think the I'm a little nervous his first year with Arizona taking him, but I still think he'll produce. Um I don't know. I think uh Jeremiah Love may get his first couple years, a year or two wasted there, which kind of sucks. I don't know. Any other players look where are you at in your uh in the draft? You're the second pick? I'm the third. Third. Okay, so you probably don't want to say you're eyeballing just yet. Um but any players you're you're kind of keeping an eye on on who you think you might be looking at?

SPEAKER_01 17:15

I need a quarterback, but I don't know if I can bring myself to cheer for a raider.

SPEAKER_00 17:21

Yeah, that's fair.

SPEAKER_01 17:23

I I don't know.

SPEAKER_00 17:24

I don't know. I don't know how I I don't not I've been Ben saying this. I'm not high on Fernando Mendoza. I could be wrong, but I'm not high on him at all. I don't know. I'm just thinking like later rounds in the fan rookie drafts, Denzel Boston might be there, Jonah Coleman might be there. I think Kenyon Sadiq's gonna go early, same with Stowers, probably Max Claire too. No one else at quarterback, I really Ty Simpson might not be a bad if he's there in the fourth round to take him. You never know with those guys, though.

SPEAKER_01 17:55

Yeah, I mean you're drafting him on the premise that you're just gonna stash him.

SPEAKER_00 17:59

Yeah. But I don't know, a couple guys here and there. All right. Anything else you want to cover on the draft for the Broncos or anything like that?

SPEAKER_01 18:06

I don't think so. I think I'm good.

SPEAKER_00 18:08

Any uh future bets you're looking at?

SPEAKER_01 18:10

No, not too much yet. I looked, I've been looking at the offensive uh rookie of the year odds.

SPEAKER_00 18:16

Jeremiah love plus 320.

SPEAKER_01 18:18

That's probably that might be the best value you get. Is plus 320. If he gets as much usage as as we think he's going to get, and with it being such a quarterback class.

SPEAKER_00 18:31

Yeah, I think Fernando Mendoza will play, but it won't be until the Raiders are probably 0-6.

SPEAKER_01 18:37

Exactly. I mean, and as as long as love can stay healthy, um, and it typically for the most part, it always takes wide receivers, like they're gonna get some run, but typically you're they're not get you know what I mean, they're not putting up they're not putting up video game numbers yet.

SPEAKER_00 18:52

Yeah. You know who I do like for comeback player of the year is Patrick Mahomes at plus one fifty right now.

SPEAKER_01 18:59

I could see that. That's uh that's some pretty good odds. Plus, the league loves them some Mahomes.

SPEAKER_00 19:04

Yeah. Love, Stafford, Press, Prescott, all above him. Don't oh, here you go. You can jump in on this early. 27 NFL draft, number one overall pick. Arch Manning is plus 165 right now. You could jump in on it early and put Julian Say in, and he's plus 1200.

SPEAKER_01 19:33

I don't know. I'm a little bit nervous about taking under any underclassman because uh if he doesn't go into the draft, would it void the bet? I don't know. You'd probably have to ask. We'd probably have to ask, I mean, you'd probably have to email FanDuel.

SPEAKER_00 19:46

Yeah. Jeremiah Smith is plus six hundred. And then Drew Mestimaker, which actually might be a sneaky number one overall. The quarterback for Oklahoma plus twelve hundred now.

SPEAKER_01 19:59

All these kids now are staying in college because they're almost they're essentially making the same amount in NIL money. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 20:13

And then Dan has his Tennessee Titans at plus 900 to win their division.

SPEAKER_01 20:18

They're not winning their division. Telling you right now, Houston Houston's they're uh they're no joke.

SPEAKER_00 20:24

So if you look at FanDuel based off of favorites, right? If you just say, hey, who are the top seven favorites to make it? They have Bills, Ravens, Patriots, Chiefs, Chargers, Broncos, and Texans to make the playoffs for the AFC this year. And they have the Broncos at like a sixth seed. And then the Rams are the favorite to win the to make it to the Super Bowl for the NFC. Oh. It's gonna be interesting. I mean, we already kind of talked about our schedule, the Broncos. I think 11, 12 wins is probably more accurate. Our home games are here's the thing is our hardest games are at home, right? You have the obviously the Chiefs, then you have the Bills, the Rams, the Seahawks, and the Jags at home. Your tough road games are Chiefs, Patriots, I'd say probably this well, we'll see what the Steelers do, and depending on when we play them in the season, and then the Niners. But we also do need to go we also do go to uh Carolina. I might go to that game, actually, depending on when that is. My mom lives like an hour away from Charlotte, so I might actually go to that Charlotte, that uh Broncos Panthers game, depending on when it is. Might be cheaper tickets too. Might be able to go see be able to go sit on the 50 yard line behind the Oreo bench for half the cost of one of the divisional playoff games that we went to. I don't know. Do you think there's uh a little bit of lack of faith in the Broncos this early on?

SPEAKER_01 21:47

I don't know if it's lack of faith or you know, a lot of times it's just so hard to just back to back just be as good as you were the year before. You know what I mean?

SPEAKER_00 21:58

Like and honestly, you can we sat here for 18 weeks and complained about how games went and we thought they could be better but they still won every single game. That's the crazy thing to me is they went 14 and 3 but we felt like maybe they were more of like an 11 and 16.

SPEAKER_01 22:19

Right. We hit we had a lot of things go our way last year. We definitely won a couple of games that we whatever for whatever reason it might have been we probably shouldn't have won. Like you know statistically how many times are you going to come back from what was it you know 27 points down in the fourth quarter with six minutes left against the Giants or whatever it was. You know what I mean? Those things just don't happen. I mean so we had some bounces go our way some games go our way that typically as time goes on you know typically the next year you might not get the breaks or the bounces or games the year before we we lost so many games by one score and this year we were winning so many games by one score but um I don't know I mean we the players we lost I think our biggest loss was JFM and that was it.

SPEAKER_00 23:10

I mean I don't think that uh Dre Greenlaw was that big of a loss for us. He wasn't that he was impactful but not that impactful in my opinion. I mean he missed more games than I think he only played like half the season or at least it felt that way and then who's the safety that we lost um he was a backup. Why am I forgetting his name? PJ Lock we lost PJ Locke JFM that's it and then we added Jalen Waddell. So like our team didn't get drastically different. I think offensively we got better defensively you could argue we took a little bit of a step back losing JFM and Dre Greenlaw just because there's a little bo it's a little younger on the defensive side of the ball. Again I still I still feel pretty good about where we ended up at. And you know the offseason's not over we could still sign a couple free agents. There's a couple veteran linebackers still available I think we might see depending on what happens with Von Miller we might see one of his him retire this year. He said he wants to play one more season and then retire and he wants this last season to be with Denver I don't think that's I don't think Denver signs him. I could see him retire this season with us if not next but yeah a little we're coming up to that point where you know you're gonna see rookie minicamp and they're gonna evaluate the rookies and then like okay let's sign some veterans. So I think that's coming up here shortly where we start looking at some still some free agents that are available. There's a couple linebacker names I wouldn't be mind I wouldn't mind. You know they're a little bit on the older side but I think they'd cover us for a year at least but that's all I got man what do you anything you guys else you got? Nope just excited for excited for football to start man I know after I finish the after the round all the rounds wrapped up I was like alright I'm ready for football season already. Um what do you think you want to do a uh like a training camp special? Like do one day of a training camp special? Because that'll be we can do that July or like maybe right before you know maybe a week or two before we actually kick everything off. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 25:09

What is the college football let's see let's see if we can get go to training camp once or twice. Got and then maybe we can do uh maybe we can do an episode after we go to camp once or twice.

SPEAKER_00 25:24

Yeah. Because college football will kick off Labor Day weekend so it'll be the 5th of September is really that kickoff I mean there'll be like a game or two of week zero um and then the week before. Yeah I'm I agree. Yeah we go to training camp once or twice and then do an episode but well thank you degenerates for listening in uh as we wrap up our post draft kind of thoughts and whatnot go Avs go Nuggets uh go Rockies too they're absolutely crushing it we were joking the other day that the uh Nuggets are the most disappointing team in Denver sports right now because the Rockies are actually exceeding expectations but I think we get another chip in Denver this year between one of the two and I don't know we'll see what the if the Nuggets can figure their shit out but abs are rolling right now. Um again this is the Mile High Jenner's club. I'm Andrew I'm Jeff thank you for listening