Broncos head coach Sean Payton leaves the field on October 8, 2023 in Denver, Colorado. The Denver Broncos lost 31-21 to the New York Jets at Empower Field at Mile High during week 5 of the NFL season. The Broncos have already traded one veteran player this season, but coach Sean Payton says the team isn’t in a big rush to part with more.
Teams called for most of the offseason, too, particularly about wide receivers Jerry Jeudy and Courtland Sutton. Payton and Paton didn’t get a deal they liked for either one and held the line. At 1-4, though, and with a rugged schedule ahead, the math is different at the trade deadline than it is in the summer when nobody’s lost a game yet.
“We’ve got a good handle on this current roster and our vision for the roster a year from now,” Payton said. “That’s the part about improving and getting better. But until you just said it, I wouldn’t have known it was three weeks away. Three weeks seems like an eternity.”The Broncos are close to getting tight end Greg Dulcich back from a hamstring injury that’s cost him the past four games.
Hamstring injuries cost him much of his first offseason last summer — five games at the beginning of the year and two at the end of the season.The Broncos cleared a spot on the 16-man practice squad by waiving wide receiver Michael Bandy. “Had that been a playoff game or we felt like we had to have him, he could have gone,” Payton said of his starter. “But at the risk of possibly having a set-back. And we just thought that was too much.”