Broncos Change Former Third-Round Pick's Position

From the outside looking in, it appears the Denver Broncos have an inside linebacker problem. With Alex Singleton returning from a season mostly lost to a torn ACL and 2024 starters Cody Barton and Justin Strnad poised to hit unrestricted free agency, the Broncos are staring down the barrel of a big hole on the second level of the defense.

The internal view, however, seems to be less panicked. Broncos head coach Sean Payton and GM George Paton held court at the NFL Combine on Tuesday — our first formal opportunity to hear from the shot-callers since their end-of-season pressers six weeks ago — and we learned a few things about the team's plan at linebacker.

First, Payton revealed that third-year linebacker Drew Sanders has been moved back from the outside to the inside, which gives the Broncos an extra incumbent to project at the position.

“Right now, inside—we are talking about Drew—and last year we went into the offseason with the edge idea," Payton said. "Then we have progressed enough to where he is going to work inside. It’s how the season finished, too. We are going to keep him right there.”

The Broncos drafted Sanders in the third round in 2023 to play inside linebacker. However, somewhere between the end of Year 1 and the 2024 offseason, the team opted to move him to the outside linebacker room.

Then Sanders suffered an Achilles tear during last offseason while working out, which cost him all of OTAs, training camp, the preseason, and most of the regular season. Sanders returned to action in Week 15, appearing in four regular-season games and the Broncos' Wildcard playoff loss to the Buffalo Bills.

As Payton intimated, we saw Sanders playing some inside linebacker late last year. Sanders is not only moving back to that position permanently, but as Paton revealed during his Tuesday presser at the Combine, the Broncos see "starter" potential in the former Arkansas Razorback. But that won't preclude the team from bringing in competition.

“We think Sanders can be a starter in this league at linebacker. Now let’s see how it goes," Paton said. "We’re going to keep adding good players. Competition—we just want competition at all of the positions. We’re not anointing anyone starters, but we just want to keep bringing in competition and we’ll get good results.”

If the Broncos had to go to war tomorrow, it would likely be Singleton (health-willing) and Sanders as the starting inside linebacker duo. But the live-bullet games are still many months away, and there are two big tentpole stops on the path leading up to them.

The Broncos will scout the 2025 linebacker class in the NFL draft, and there are some interesting options. Plus, with north of $40 million in salary-cap space, Paton will have the resources to pursue some of the top free-agent linebackers this year, like Philadelphia's Zack Baun and Kansas City's Nick Bolton.

The Broncos see starter potential in Sanders, but he'll have to earn it. We know he has the size (6-foot-5, 233 pounds) and athleticism, but does he have the football wherewithal to excel as an off-the-ball linebacker?

I think so. He more than held his own at inside linebacker in the SEC. It would seem the Broncos agree that Sanders has the tools, it's just a matter of putting them all together.

Sanders arrived in Denver as a raw but explosively athletic player. The two schools he played for — first Alabama, then Arkansas — had vying visions for him.

Sanders went from playing outside at Alabama to playing inside at Arkansas, but that off-ball experience was only one full year. And he still stacked up the sacks as an inside linebacker at Arkansas, finishing with 9.5 in his final year.

As a rookie in 2023, Sanders appeared in all 17 games for Denver and started four toward the end of the season. His rawness and inexperience showed, but so did his knack for being around the ball and making impact plays, as evidenced by his scoop-and-score fumble recovery returned to the house.

The Broncos believe Sanders can be a starter solution at inside linebacker. That won't stop Denver from exploring linebacker reinforcements in free agency and the draft (including re-signing Barton and/or Strnad). The Broncos also have 2024 undrafted rookie Levelle Bailey coming back in 2025.

As a former third-round pick of the Payton era, the Broncos have always had high expectations for Sanders. And 2025 could be the year of his ascendency, if he plays his cards right and can stay out of the injury bug's crosshairs.

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