While the 2018 season was a painful one for Denver Bronco fans, it did offer a glimmer of hope by showing the great wealth of young talent Denver has coming down the pipeline for future seasons.
Last year’s draft class — from top five pick Bradley Chubb to undrafted free agent Phillip Lindsay — was stellar for the Broncos, but their accumulation of high-upside players goes well beyond the 2018 draft class. Now, they have one of the brighter futures in the league.
Here are some of the players on the offensive side of the ball that could make their first Pro Bowl in 2019.
Courtland Sutton
No receiver in the league is more primed to have a breakout season in 2019 than Courtland Sutton. By the time the regular season arrives, he will have a full offseason as the number two wide receiver, an upgrade at quarterback, and a huge schematic upgrade to aid him.
With Rich Scangarello calling the plays, the Broncos will move away from former offensive coordinator Bill Musgrave‘s offense which favored completions over everything. That style of dink-and-dunk offense is perfect for players like Wes Welker or Julian Edelman, but for a player like Sutton — who excels at tearing the top off a defense and then going over the top to snag a fifty-fifty ball — it was a bad fit. The opposite can be said about Scangarello’s offense which leans on the run to set up deep bombs for the receivers. Given Sutton’s gifts, the Broncos couldn’t pick a better offensive scheme.
The same applies to newly acquired quarterback Joe Flacco, who fits the scheme flawlessly. Few quarterbacks in the league throw a prettier deep ball, as Flacco can masterfully throw it over the safety to where only the receiver can get it. Broncos fans may already know that if they watched the 2012 playoffs.
Broncos Country will be reliving that Joe Flacco to Jacoby Jones bomb throughout the entire season; though this time, they will be cheering for it.
Royce Freeman
The second member from the vaunted 2018 draft class to make this list is Royce Freeman, who is expected to step into a workhorse role in 2019 despite Lindsay’s terrific rookie campaign.
Lindsay’s season-ending wrist injury stirred back up fears of durability due to his smaller frame and violent running style. While the former Buffalo should still get plenty of work in the backfield as a matchup nightmare, it’s widely believed that Royce Freeman will get the majority of carries.
Similarly to Sutton, not only should a promotion in terms of role lead to a breakout season, but the schematic change should be a massive factor as well. Dating back to the early 2000’s, Mike Shanahan‘s zone-blocking scheme — which the Broncos will be using this season — has given running backs from Matt Breida to Tatum Bell career years with ease.
It would be surprising if Freeman didn’t follow-up Lindsay’s breakout season with one of his own. iIf it lands him as a member of the Pro Bowl, the Broncos will have the league’s best backfield with Mark Ingram out of New Orleans.
Noah Fant
1,377 yards.
That’s how many receiving yards fellow former-Hawkeye George Kittle had in Rich Scangarello’s offense just a season ago. That mark shattered the former record held by Rob Gronkowski by 50 yards. While it would be foolish to predict that kind of a season from Noah Fant in his rookie year, he could certainly have a Pro-Bowl-caliber showing in the same offense.
Now, Fant is easily the biggest longshot out of these three as tight ends rarely start in their first year in the league, but he still has good chance because he is in the perfect situation to succeed.
As is the case with Freeman and Sutton, the offensive scheme should help feed him the ball and boost his numbers, as can be seen with Kittle last season. Fant should also get plenty of help from Flacco who has consistently fed the ball to his tight ends throughout his career. In every year since 2010 where Flacco has started the majority of games, he has found his tight end for at least 75 receptions. In his last two full seasons as a starter, he completed more passes than ever to his tight ends, eclipsing 100 completions in both 2016 and 2017.
Seeing as Fant is significantly more physically gifted than any other tight end Flacco has had before –and he’s improving by the day at camp — if he is able to find the rookie at this clip, Fant could have the best rookie season for a tight end ever.