Broncos HC Sean Payton Admits 'Tough' Roster Cuts Looming
With NFL cutdown day now eight days away, an unenviable task looms for Denver Broncos head coach Sean Payton: whittling down one of the league's deepest 90-player rosters to its final, 53-man form ahead of the 2025 regular season.
Payton makes no bones about inevitably losing talent that, in an ideal world, would be retained. But glass-half-full: it's a good problem to have for a playoff-contending organization.
“I think there’re going to be a number of tough decisions, but I’d rather be in that position than the position we were in two years ago at this time," he told reporters following Saturday's preseason victory over the Cardinals. "I think that the talent level has gradually gotten better. These guys, they’re all competing, and we say this to them, and it’s serious. We’re rooting for all of them. We’re rooting for their best, and because I think there’s going to be some players that end up on other teams’ rosters playing. That’s part of the deal.”
Payton's toughest decision(s) will be at the running back position, with six players — JK Dobbins, RJ Harvey, Tyler Badie, Jaleel McLaughlin, Blake Watson, Audric Estime — competing for a maximum of four spots on the 53. Dobbins and Harvey are locks, and Badie and McLaughlin seem to have an inside edge over Watson and Estime through two weeks of preseason play.
Yet it remains entirely TBD.
“All of them I thought, played well, which I don’t know if it clears up," Payton conceded in Saturday's post-game press conference. "I thought we got into the defense. We got downhill into the defense a number of times. RJ’s touchdown. Yes, I thought for the most part, and I thought it as the game went more on our down and distances, our third downs were much more favorable than theirs, and I’m sure it had a lot to do with the conversion rate as well.”
Staying on offense, Payton must also determine the pecking order at wide receiver. How many are they keeping? Who's WR2? Will they be able to sneak summer star Courtney Jackson on the practice squad? If not, could someone be moved to hang onto Jackson? Might that be Devaughn Vele?
More questions than answers pervade the matter.
Beyond that, among other micro-competitions, the Broncos will need to shuffle the backup interior offensive line depth chart after guard Nick Gargiulo's season-ending injury; appoint the direct reserve inside linebacker behind Dre Greenlaw and Alex Singleton; and pick between Lucas Krull, Caden Prieskorn, and Caleb Lohner as the third tight end behind Evan Engram and Adam Trautman.
Again, however, an embarrassment of riches certainly beats the alternative.
“I think to really get into that, it has been the procurement, whether in the draft, post-draft, we’ve done a nice job with bringing in players, signing free agents, and then true NFL free agents that are veterans," Payton said. "The combination of the last two years of us bringing in the right type of players and having the vision for the players and I think to the scouts, to [General Manager] George [Paton], to everyone who’s been involved in that process, having a clear vision for each position and it’s never going to be… You try to bat whatever, it’s not going to be perfect, but we’ve hit on a number of decisions and that’s encouraging.”
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