The Denver Broncos added some serious competition to the backfield this offseason when they drafted Audric Estime and then signed Blake Watson as a college free agent. Those two rookies joined a running back room that already included Javonte Williams, Samaje Perine, Jaleel McLaughlin and Tyler Badie.
With six running backs on the 90-man offseason roster, the Broncos will have to make some tough decisions when roster cuts begin in August.
Nothing was resolved in the spring because those practices don’t involve any contact. Once training camp begins and the pads come on, coach Sean Payton will have a better idea of how the running backs stack up.
“I can point to an example, it’s one of the harder positions to evaluate in this kind of setting,” Payton said on June 12. “You get to see the passing game, but there have been two or three instances in my past where I thought what a back was going to be was entirely different when we got into pads. Even in Dallas with Marion Barber — the late Marion Barber — and Julius Jones. It’s one of those positions that really gets a little bit clearer when you see them in pads running and blocking.
“I can recall a free agent tryout we had that I thought was going to be more of a ‘scat back’ and then became a much more physical runner than we ever expected. Alvin Kamara was a different player than we thought we were getting when we drafted him. We drafted a guy who was the No. 2 back at Tennessee. We saw ‘Joker’ traits and then the first handoff in the first preseason game, he goes 52 yards for a touchdown. All of a sudden, we may want to run him off-tackle. That is hard to see here but it is easier to see when you get into training camp and the preseason.”
Our way-too-early 53-man roster projection has Watson and Badie as the odd men out in Denver’s backfield. Both would be strong candidates for the practice squad if they don’t end up on the active roster.
That’s just a projection, though. The competition will sort itself out in the coming weeks when the Broncos break out the pads.