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2018 53-Man Roster Projections and Discussion


Broncofan

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2 hours ago, germ-x said:

Honestly it’s goofy as hell to have kept that many ILBs in today’s league while running a base 3/4. 

I think it really has more to do with ST's, specifically the new rule changes, than anything else. Eliminating the running start on kickoffs changes the dynamic of that ST unit dramatically. 

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And I highly suspect both Wilkinson and S. Jones could have easily been stashed on the PS.  BUT We’ll see.  Great thing about football is time will tell.  We’ll get to see their record this year.  Get to see what players end up where. Get to see how their careers unfold. Get to see how the team progresses over the next few years.  

And final comment. What a complete disaster of a Draft last year.  Kudos to Elway for having the stones to admit it and cut his losses. And it looks like this year’s class will be much, much improved. But let’s hope this class will be the norm and not last year’s class, because drafting like that is the fast path to perpetual 5-12 and worse.

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1 hour ago, BroncoBruin said:

I'd hope they're able to find someone on the wire who's a more reliable swing tackle option than Billy Turner or Elijah Wilkinson. For some reason, the team seems to LOvE Billy Turner.

Especially since Turner's been a NFL guard ever since a very public failed trial as a guard 2 years ago (3 sacks, 2 pressures, and slow as molasses on an island).   And it matches the development (or lack thereof) we've seen from him in DEN.   I actually was hoping Kouandjio or a WW T would make the squad over Turner as a backup.   Wilkinson at least has some development left with physical tools that gives hope he could be average at T.   Turner was a mediocre G so far, how he's being seen as our 3rd T is baffling.   

Between Lynch being kept, and seeing Turner as our main backup T, it does raise Q's in our internal decision-making consistency.   QB is crucial, but we've seen Lynch's growth curve be flat as a Midwest plain (and no, 3rd-string D vs. ARI playing vanilla doesn't mean the light just came on).    We know that EDGE, CB and trenches are the other key parts where it's hard to find talent, but we keep Lynch over Holland/Langley.   We give chance after chance to Lynch, but won't to guys with more ceiling and hope for development and only 1 offseason.  

The ST argument works for Jones, but it's hard to see Bierra being a guy who wouldn't have made the PS any harder than Holland (6th round ILB vs. UDFA EDGE).   It really comes down to Elway thinking a 6th ILB would be more important to our roster than 5th EDGE - in Elway's own words, he didn't want to be picking 5th again anytime soon.  But  that's also a penny-wise, pound-foolish decision when you're that far down the roster.   

Keeping Carter/Langley and even D-Henderson last year made a ton of sense, because we knew RB/CB and Hybrid S/LB were areas we were going to need future replacements at, and their ceiling was worth it.   Even though none of them made the squad this year (Carter on IR), the thinking was right - no back-end roster guy was changing our fate this year.  Bierra isn't a guy who's changing our fate this year, either, and his positional prioirity (ILB is the version of RB on D, along with pure 0-tech, you have to be special to matter) - much like David Williams, Bierra is more likely to be able to be stashed on the PS than Holland (and game film certainly didn't create any more buzz there, either).    Again, it's not like Holland is a lock to be a future star or even a surefire difference-maker - but it's far more likely he's a 2019 impact guy on our team than either.  And the league values EDGE way more.   Even if he doesn't get claimed today, the issue is that the probability EDGE can be stashed year-long with that college pedigree, pre-draft ranking and demand as a UDFA is just so low.   Given we don't have any IR-return candidates on the 53-man roster right now, it's not like this is a hope-for-1-week-on-PS decision, and then call him up soon - it's to keep him on the PS indefinitely.  The likelihood is just so low given what we know.  Maybe we'll find out there was a different off-the-field concern later, who knows.  It's just very puzzling the inconsistency in process Elway's using (Lynch vs. other draft projects, most of all).

 

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Neither the 6th ILB or 5th EDGE would ever be active on game days ideally. They've demonstrated how much they like AJ Johnson so I get stashing him. But with Bierria vs. Holland, you're betting on Bierria as a long term prospect over Holland. I mean, I guess it re-enforces what they did in the draft, but it seems short-sighted to me. You have Jewell and AJ Johnson as future ILB prospects. At OLB, good chance Barrett and Ray are both gone and the team will need not one but two replacement depth pieces next year.

Bottom line, picking the dime-a-dozen rookie at a dime-a-dozen position with diminishing value every year which already has future prospects in place, over Holland, makes no sense to me. 

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Seriously, after what was a pretty solid offseason that helped me regain some measure of confidence in this front office and coaching staff, yesterday happens. We keep 9 offensive lineman? 6 inside linebackers? Are Joe Jones and Alexander Johnson really more valuable to this team than Jeff Holland would have been? How many drinks did Matt Russell have?

SMH. 

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