The Denver Broncos have formed what appears to be an improved roster for a team that made the playoffs as a Wild Card last year, and is looking for bigger things in 2025. But in the NFL, a full 53-man roster (and sometimes more) is going to be required to win a Super Bowl.
Training camp and preseason games are there for that reason, to help a team decide which players to go into the season with. The Broncos have a lot of players who are already locked into a roster spot, but there is plenty of time for others to show that they belong on the team.
Several players will begin camp squarely on the roster bubble but with a chance to play their way onto the roster. These four players fit that description perfectly.
Tyler Badie, RB
Broncos fans were raving about Tyler Badie last season and wanted to see more of him, as his small sample size was quite exciting. But a scary back injury in Week 4 against the New York Jets shut him down for most of the rest of the season.
Badie still has his supporters in Broncos Country, but the offseason additions of RJ Harvey and J.K. Dobbins give him little chance to make this year’s team. I believe the Broncos will keep four running backs on the 53-man roster, but he still has Audric Estime and Jaleel McLaughlin in front of him. He’ll have to outplay one of them to stick around.
Clay Webb, OL
The undrafted guard out of Jacksonville State, Clay Webb, has a great chance to make it three years in a row that the Broncos have kept an undrafted offensive lineman on the final roster.
After getting through an anti-bullying lawsuit, Webb comes to Denver as a former top-50 prospect nationally as a versatile athlete who can play either guard or center.
Caleb Lohner, TE
It’s easy to look into Caleb Lohner’s background and see that he was primarily a basketball player in college who had only four catches on the football field… total.
Sean Payton likes to throw the media some curveballs when discussing the talent on his roster, but all signs point to him being very high on Lohner, who was the ultimate dart-throw pick in the seventh round of the draft. Fans are excited because they remember what Payton did with a certain basketball player named Jimmy Graham in New Orleans. It’s absurd to compare Lohner to Graham right now, but the Broncos like this prospect a lot.
Levelle Bailey, LB
The Broncos could gamble and keep only four inside linebackers on the roster, but with the injury history of Drew Sanders, coupled with the recent, devastating injuries both Dre Greenlaw and Alex Singleton have gone through, it might be wise to keep an extra hand.
Levelle Bailey will have his hands full dealing with competition from undrafted rookies Karene Reid, Jordan Turner and JB Brown, but if you didn’t see Bailey in training camp and preseason last summer, he was really good.
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