Experience fuels Broncos Draft confidence & strategy

Good morning, Broncos Country!

Less than one week from the NFL Draft. And the Denver Broncos are in familiar territory. George Paton and Sean Payton are accustomed to not having a first-round pick. Unless something truly abnormal happens, that’s the case for this NFL Draft. The Broncos will currently select at the No. 62 pick in the second round. And that pick will be selected by former Denver safety T.J. Ward. “I think our first draft, we had five picks,” Paton said to the media on Thursday for the pre-draft news conference. “Our expectations are the same. They’re high. We think there are good players in this draft. We think there are good players where we’re picking at 62. “We have two picks up in the top of the fourth (round), and we feel good (about) what’s going to be there. We like it. We don’t mind it, and we know we still have flexibility with the seven picks to move up or move back and get more picks. We have experience with this. We’ve gotten good players with lesser picks, so we feel good.” Given the success Paton and Payton have had with their second-round picks, you understand why Paton feels that way. “We’re going to go through our process,” Paton said to the media. “Our process has worked, and it continues to evolve. I think it’s better. I feel more prepared for this draft than I was for last year’s and the prior draft. We’ve done well in that realm. It doesn’t mean anything. We still go through our process. We feel like we have six players we’re kind of focused on that could be there at (pick) 62. We feel good about those players. We’re going to keep working through them. “We’ve been down in the dungeons since the Wednesday after the Owners Meeting, just watching tape, had our meetings, now going through all these different scenarios. We feel good about 62. We feel good about the fourth round as well. That’s harder to predict, obviously. We like our process, we like how it’s worked, and we feel good with where we’re at.” As for the position of those six players whom Paton mentioned, here’s a . When Payton was asked about the versatility of mid-round offensive linemen, he said this: