Good morning, Broncos Country.
The Denver Broncos preseason finale against the Minnesota Vikings is this Friday. For many players on the roster, their spots are safe and secure. Most of those veterans will likely be on the sidelines against the Vikings. They have nothing to prove and the Broncos certainly don’t need to risk an injury to a key starter.
With respect to a handful of others, their performance against the Vikings will mean everything. It’s their last chance that could make or break their shot at earning a spot on this
year’s Denver Broncos squad. After the game, Head Coach Sean Payton and the rest of the Broncos’ coaching staff will have some tough decisions to make. They will have until 6:00 PM (EST) on Sunday, August 30th to finalize their 53-man roster for the 2026 season.
A bit of a curveball in the roster shakedown hit the media waves yesterday. Payton announced that Taylor Rapp had been released to address things on the home front. When he was signed, it was expected he would have the third safety role on lock. For now, he won’t be on the team’s roster to begin the season, though it was mentioned Rapp’s return to the team was likely.
That opens up the door for one of Denver’s depth players to make the team. If not one of them, it could be someone off waivers from another team. Yesterday after practice, Payton spoke about some of the ways the team is formulating their plan to round out their roster prior to the deadline.
Based on his statements, perusing the waiver wire will certainly be in play to build the best team possible for the upcoming season.
“Once you find one or two, you’re addicted to trying to find them. It doesn’t have to be that type of player, it’s just whoever. It’s just someone that, in the perfect world, it’s that other team’s top practice squad player and so that’s the goal,” stated Payton.
The Broncos will have ample collegiate and professional tape, as well as grades from their player personnel department to help navigate the process. While the team has a loaded roster at a lot of positions, there is no doubt they could use some help rounding out depth at several positions.
Denver will also be using analytics to try and come up with a model that shows what types of players and what positions are most likely to be claimed off waivers. He admitted to reporters yesterday that will have a big impact on who will makes their team, as opposed to risking losing them by placing them on the 16-man practice squad.
“I think that gets weighed in a lot. I’ll turn to the analytics and a lot of it is what kind of tape the opponents are seeing and that gets weighed in a lot. Who do we feel like is more likely to get claimed? Certain positions are more likely to get claimed. So that’s always a challenge,” added Payton.
What do you think, Broncos Country? What are some of the toughest decisions the Broncos will have to make as cutdown day looms? Is there a certain position or two you feel Denver will kick the tires on a waiver wire claim as opposed to a player who has been battling it out through the offseason? Let me know in the comments section.
As always, thank you for reading. Here is today’s slate of articles for Horse Tracks.
