The Denver Broncos made it clear on Saturday that if you weren’t living up to expectations, they weren’t going to pay you just to sit on the bench.
Mark Sanchez came into training camp as the heavy favorite to land the starting job, but he never distanced himself from the second-year seventh-rounder with one snap of NFL experience. Today, he’s gone.
Ronnie Hillman led the Super Bowl champions in rushing last season, but after failing to prove he could contribute in other ways than simply providing pure speed, he’s gone, too.
Now, the the Broncos have a few extra millions in their bankroll, and there’s a good chance they use it. But for now, the roster is set, the depth chart has been announced and the organization is ready to defend their crown.
Here are five takeaways from the Denver Broncos’ first regular season depth chart.
They’re returning nine of 11 starters on defense
We’ve known this for awhile now, but it bears repeating: This defense is going to be great, once again.
It’s not easy for one of the best defenses of all time to run it back with nearly the same exact group, especially not after a Super Bowl victory. The only starters not returning from last year’s unit are Malik Jackson and Danny Trevathan, and they’re being replaced by the very capable Jared Crick and Todd Davis.
The Broncos are back to keeping undrafted free agents
For years, the Broncos seemed to have a knack for finding diamonds in the rough, with at least one undrafted free agent making their final roster every year for 11 straight seasons.
A year ago, that streak came to an end, but a new one has started in 2016, as Kyle Peko, a rookie out of Oregon State, was named to the final roster on Saturday.
Their were reports originally that Peko had been released on Friday, but Elway apparently changed his mind Saturday morning.
“We’re in a different situation this year, I will tell you, just because we play Thursday night,” Elway said on his decision to keep Peko. “Things were done a little bit differently this year because I wanted to get Gary through the process because he likes to talk to everybody so we wanted to get through that process as quickly as we could so he can get on to Carolina. We had one that we changed our mind on in the 24-hour period. Once we spoke with him. He was very happy.”
The Broncos love their young receivers
All preseason, we kept asking ourselves this question: Bennie Fowler, Cody Latimer or Jordan Taylor?
In the end, the answer was all of them.
The Broncos kept six receivers, and my guess is that part of the reason why is because they felt they wouldn’t be able to sneak any of them, particularly Taylor, back onto the practice squad.
Michael Schofield is the starter, for now
Scofield was not a fan-favorite in 2015, and that’s putting it lightly.
Most fans would have done just about anything to find a Schofield replacement — it didn’t seem that difficult — and yet here we are, with Schofield set to start Week 1. Either that means the former Michigan Wolverine has improved dramatically over the last six months or the Broncos simply don’t have a better option.
Let’s hope it’s not the latter.
This won’t be the last depth chart we see this week
Just because you survived cutdown day, doesn’t mean you’re not getting cut.
Roughly 700 players were released by their teams over the last two days — some of which quite surprisingly — which means there are upwards of 700 newly released free agents on the open market. And when one of those free agents come off the market, another has to go back on — it’s a zero-sum game.
And with all the money the Broncos saved by cutting Britton Colquitt, Mark Sanchez and Ronnie Hillman, they have the wallet to make a power play — over $10 million in cap space, according to Spotrac.
Look for them to target guys like OG Geoff Schwartz, C John Sullivan or OG Josh Sitton.
