So far the early portion of the off-season for Broncos Country has been painful, as we collectively build our hopes up for a potential superstar in Deshaun Watson to save Denver from their quarterback malaise, only for those hopes to be dashed by a report saying such a move is a long shot.

Though, maybe it’s not as much of a long shot as we once thought, considering what Jeremy Fowler reported on ESPN’s “Get Up”. According to Fowler, Denver is on a short list of teams that the young superstar quarterback is interested in.

“Deshaun Watson has a list of teams he is ‘intrigued’ by,” Fowler said on the ESPN morning show. “Y’know he’s not pigeon-holing anything, but he’s got a list. I didn’t get all the teams, but I was told that the Denver Broncos, San Francisco 49ers are two of them.”

Obviously, that’s fantastic news but it’s also a necessity as Watson’s no-trade clause will allow him to reject any trade that would send him to a team he’s not interested in. This report means that at the very least, Denver is in the running.

With that said, we have no idea how large of a field they’re running in. The only information we have is that the Broncos and 49ers are on the list, but it’s hard to know how impactful that is without knowing how long said list is.

If the list is three teams long, that is incredible news for the Broncos and every member of Broncos Country should be running into the street right now to scream and shout with excitement. If the list is 30 teams long, then it means almost nothing that Denver is on it.

Those are too hyperbolic examples, but they illustrate the importance of the list’s length, though one would expect such a thing to be fairly trivial.

The other important part of Fowler’s report was that it removed a once-perceived front-runner from the race.

“I also asked the source abut the Jets and the Dolphins,” Fowler reported “I was told the Jets — eh, probably not, maybe more so the Dolphins as far as viability.”