After Carolina powder blue, the second most popular color scheme at quarterback Drake Maye’s pro day Thursday just might have been orange and navy.
The North Carolina kid ripped through 70 throws in front of personnel from all 32 NFL teams. It’s hard to imagine any of the clubs had more eyeballs in the building, however, than the Broncos.
Just behind Maye over his left shoulder stood assistant general manager Darren Mougey, offensive coordinator Joe Lombardi and new senior offensive assistant Pete Carmichael Jr.
Elsewhere in the building: general manager George Paton and quarterbacks coach Davis Webb.
Head coach Sean Payton hasn’t made a practice of standing front and center at pro days, but he’s been around others this spring, preparing for private meetings or workouts.
Clear across the country Thursday in Seattle, Denver was also well-represented at the pro day for Washington quarterback Michael Penix Jr.
One day earlier: Baton Rouge, La., for LSU quarterback Jayden Daniels. Last week: a long private workout with Michigan’s J.J. McCarthy the day after he and 17 Wolverines teammates went through their pro day with Paton in attendance.
On Monday at the NFL’s spring ownership meetings, Paton lightheartedly noted he wished his head coach hadn’t divulged the Broncos’ private meeting with McCarthy.
Then the staff was out in full force for Maye.
This is a game of subterfuge, to be sure, but it is also one of substance. Throws against air only matter so much, but when it comes to finding a future franchise quarterback, everything matters.
“It’s a race for information,” Paton said Monday. “We’re all trying to gather it and try to make the best possible decision.”
It is box-checking season. Smoke screen season. Lying season.
Starting Monday, Denver shifts fully into decision-making season.
A month from now, the Broncos will have their guy. Or maybe they won’t.
“You can evaluate the talent, you can evaluate the arm strength, the feet, the athletic ability, the mobility, second chances and off-schedule,” Paton said. “All that stuff you see on tape. It’s the ability to process, which we’ve talked about, and process a lot of information in a short time and make the best decision. That’s the thing we’re all searching for. I think we’re also searching for the ‘it’ factor. Who can raise the level of his teammates?
“That’s really hard to find. Sometimes you don’t know it until you have it. That’s what we’re all searching for.”
Check the boxes
Payton loves this time of year.
Even during the season, his news conferences featured stories about when he went to Tennessee for this pro day or took a group of Ohio State players out to dinner some other year.
“This is his time of year,” Paton said. “He loves the player acquisition process, free agency, draft. He’s into it. … We’ve been on the road. It’s always fun, as you can probably imagine.”
Make no mistake, though: It’s no cakewalk for the players Payton and company are trying to crack the code on.
Most college students can’t wait until the day they have no more midterms and finals to worry about. Football players are no different.
So Payton and the Broncos issue a tough test just to see how they respond.
Take McCarthy, for example. Payton intimated that Denver sent him a bunch of playbook material late in the day before they met. That means the Michigan quarterback finished the project he’d been working on putting together for weeks. Just about the time he can take a deep breath, the next assignment lands on his desk.
Time for a cram session.
“If we send him information at 5 p.m. the prior day and we send them more than we think they’ll have a chance to study, like, we’ve all been in that position,” Payton said. “Now it may not have been in football, but 5 p.m. on a college Thursday, test on Friday and you’ve got more than we have time to study.
“How do they handle that? Where’s the break point the next day? Is there one? Do they handle it really well? Do they really struggle? What time are they at the facility? Have they been preparing? Are they early? All of it.”
Washington quarterback Michael Penix Jr. looks to throw while Broncos passing game coordinator John Morton (back right) looks on during the Huskies’ NFL football pro day Thursday, March 28, 2024, in Seattle. (AP Photo/John Froschauer)
Penix at the NFL combine said Denver’s interview with him was “different” because Payton immediately put on a bunch of bad tape and asked him about mistakes. ESPN reported Thursday after Penix’s pro day that the quarterback has a pre-draft visit set with the Broncos, where more drilling down is certain to follow.
“It’s a big deal when you spend that much time with a player and not only watch them throw but put them through a test and just see how they come through,” Paton said. “It can really help.”
All along, though, there are also the black-and-white items to check off the list. Penix is a good example. Paton scouted at least one of his games this fall. Mougey, vice president of player personnel Cody Rager and others watched him and met with him at the Senior Bowl. Then again at the combine, where he threw but didn’t work out.
In Seattle on Thursday, they added several numbers to the file: 4.5-second range 40-yard dash, 36.5-inch vertical leap, 10-5 broad jump.
So on and so forth. Not just for him but for more than a half-dozen quarterbacks in the class.
Payton also wants close attention paid to how a quarterback acts during his pro day, probably even more so than if he uncorks a wild pass or two like Maye did Thursday.
“How does he interact with his teammates?” Payton said. “There was, god, one pro day I remember where the quarterback’s warming up over here and the receivers are on the other end of the field and I just turned and I said, ‘What do you make of what’s going on right now?’ If you were just a casual observer you wouldn’t think anything of it and then pretty soon you’re like, that’s odd. That’s really odd. You’re looking for all of it. The entirety of it. His interaction. You’re watching his skill set. A lot of them don’t throw at the combine, so you’re watching the ball come out of his hand, what’s it look like?”
Poker face
Information-gathering isn’t the only game in town this time of year.
There’s also high-stakes poker.
Payton summarily shut down a question Monday about whether he thinks Washington is open to dealing the No. 2 pick. He said if the Broncos wanted to trade up, they’d talk to everybody ahead of No. 12 in the draft. If they want to trade down, the same for the teams behind.
New York Giants coach Brian Daboll clammed up when asked about the No. 6 pick. Minnesota coach Kevin O’Connell said he’s well aware Payton and the Broncos are lurking right behind the Vikings at No. 11.
Los Angeles Chargers coach Jim Harbaugh continues to bang the drum that McCarthy is the best quarterback in the class. No surprise considering he coached McCarthy at Michigan. Also, no surprise because his team sits at No. 5 and doesn’t need a quarterback, so why not try to throw a couple of logs on the quarterback fire?
“It is a little early, but I know who’s willing to move,” Paton said. “You kind of know the teams that are typically willing to move. You always want to know how much it is to move up and then the same with how much you get if you move back.
“We’ll have a good lay of the land by the time we get two weeks ahead of the draft.”
It’s one thing to know which teams are willing to move. It’s another to know which players they’re willing to move for and how they truly value their own board — quarterbacks in particular.
So does the full-force showing at Maye’s pro day represent an equivalent level of interest? Does it mean that’s what the Broncos want the league to think? Most of the top offensive coaches and personnel executives there compared to a healthy but not-as-star-studded attendance for Penix? Or is it as simple as Penix threw at the combine and Maye didn’t?
When Payton discussed the McCarthy workout on Monday, was it a slip? Really? An actual mistake regarding the biggest decision this brain trust will make possibly in their respective tenures with Denver? The better bet is on gamesmanship.
“He’s a very nice young man,” said Paton, who oh-by-the-way at the combine noted Denver was set to meet with McCarthy on Tuesday night of that week. “We’ve done private workouts with other players at other positions. We had a good visit.”
To the draft room
Now most of the traveling road show is complete.
The Broncos will have players come into town over the coming weeks for visits. They’ll range from local prospects to under-the-radar guys who weren’t invited to the combine and Denver wants more information on, to the top quarterbacks in the draft.
This week, the whole personnel department gathers in Denver and the final round of draft meetings kicks off.
“They begin Monday in earnest,” Payton said. “The scouts are in; we begin to set that board in its final piece.”
LSU quarterback Jayden Daniels (5) goes through passing drills during LSU’s NCAA football pro day in Baton Rouge, La., Wednesday, March 27, 2024. (AP Photo/Gerald Herbert)
Everything gets thrown on the table. Skills, attitude, smarts, suspicions. Big, loud tools and the quieter parts of the evaluation.
The process is collaborative, but there’s little doubt Payton will have the most influence on the quarterback front.
The group will hear from scouts who have seen each player and from personnel executives like Paton and Mougey.
Rager, who just joined the staff in January, is also a trusted set of eyes in the coach’s mind.
“He has a great eye for talent. He probably, in my opinion, was our best evaluator in New Orleans, relative to college players,” Payton said Monday. “(When) you’re in draft meetings, there’s an old term that you evaluate the evaluators. … Over time, then you begin to build a resume, positively or negatively. So he was one where, probably, if you looked at the middle rounds — if you just did, hey take the second through the sixth rounds in a 10-year stretch there and just look at the data there. I don’t care who it was we (discussed), I would turn to Cody and if he hadn’t seen him, I would want to make sure he saw him.
“So someone who I think is really good, was trained at Alabama under (former coach Nick) Saban. He knows how to read a player. He’s an asset.”
The Broncos will be relying on all of their assets to synthesize the data collected over the past days, weeks, months and years.
“You look at it all. You just don’t want to panic,” Paton said. “You know everyone in front of you, right behind you. If there’s a player you love, Sean talked about being in love with a player, then you do whatever it takes to go get him. But we don’t want to panic. There’s going to be a really good player at 12.
“Unless we have a total consensus love for another player, we’ll stay at 12 or we’ll move back.”
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