The Denver Broncos bet on their wide receiver depth when they traded Devaughn Vele last week.
Yes, getting back a fourth-round pick and a seventh-round pick for a former seventh-rounder is good value.
But with the apologies to the draft nerds out there, we shouldn’t be thinking about April of 2026. We should be thinking about right now.
Head coach Sean Payton has publicly stated he thinks the Broncos can win the Super Bowl this season. So why are he and GM George Paton removing a guy from Denver’s roster who was third on the team in catches (41) and yards (475) last year?
When the goal is to develop sophomore QB Bo Nix, taking away weapons doesn’t exactly add up. We’ve waited all spring and summer for real football, and now some fans are more excited about a fourth-round pick eight months from now than Vele?
That’s silly.
Look, if the Broncos were still bad, I get looking toward the future. However, they’re not, and a championship window is finally open again. Vele could’ve perhaps helped with achieving that objective. Now, he’ll have to play on a bad New Orleans Saints team and watch Denver from afar.
The reason he’s in that position is obvious. Clearly, Payton and Paton have extreme faith in Troy Franklin to make a big jump in his second season and rookie Pat Bryant to burst onto the scene.
Hopefully that’s the way it goes down.
Both Franklin and Bryant had excellent training camps and looked solid in the preseason. But if it doesn’t work out, you can bet Broncos Country will be keeping a close eye on what Devaughn Vele does in “The Big Easy.”
Franklin was awful a year ago, there’s no other way to slice it. And Bryant was picked in the third-round while most scouts believed he was a fifth-round (or even later) talent.
Either Payton is going to look like a genius, or he might look foolish. If Franklin experiences the same struggles this year, dropping the football and not being on the same page with Nix, fans are going to be wondering why in the world the Broncos traded Vele.
And if the game is too fast for Bryant initially, it would’ve been nice to let him sit back and develop. Instead, the former Illinois product has to produce right away, or dumping Vele for future draft picks won’t appear to make a ton of sense.
This is just who Payton is. He’s supremely confident in his evaluation of players and thinks Franklin and Bryant are ready to replace the production of Devaughn Vele and then some.
Plus, to Payton’s credit, this clearly wasn’t an easy decision. He said last week about 10 percent of the trades he’s made are really hard, and Vele fell into that category.
“All the things we look for, discipline, structure, smart, tough, talented, that’s why this one was difficult,” Payton told reporters. “He was fantastic when we visited with him. He’s gonna be a real good player for them. And so those are the tough ones. Most of the times they’re easier, but we wish him well.”
Let’s just hope that come the middle of the season, if Franklin and Bryant aren’t holding up their ends of the bargain, that Denver doesn’t regret the move.
It felt a little too cute. Like they wanted to show how deep they were, fleecing the Saints in the process for future draft capital.
Maybe it’ll turn out to be brilliant.
Or maybe, it won’t, and Devaughn Vele could’ve been valuable receiver depth for the 2025 Broncos.
Only time will tell, but just remember, 2026 and 2027 draft picks don’t help anyone hoist a trophy this season.