Sean Payton Lights a Fire Under Broncos' Rookie TE Caleb Lohner

The Broncos drafted Lohner in the seventh round (No. 241 overall) this past spring, despite the former basketball star having played only 57 snaps of Division I football at the University of Utah. He was targeted four times in 12 games as a Ute, and all four were caught for a touchdown.

Lohner's 6-foot-7, 250-pound frame was seemingly made for dunking the basketball, but he always wanted to try his hand at football. He has some impressive physical traits that made the Broncos take a flier on him in the closing round of the draft, but up to this point in his young career, his lack of football experience has unsurprisingly led to a woeful dearth of knowledge, and it's showing.

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Payton's tone would suggest he'd like to see some urgency from Lohner. Through two preseason games, the rookie has one catch for four yards, has looked completely lost as a blocker, and he's been penalized a few times.

It sounds like Lohner may have let those negative plays linger in his head too long in the preseason games. When a player is too focused on the past, even if it's a matter of moments, he can't be fully locked into the present.

However, Lohner is not without some veteran guidance and support. Adam Trautman understands that Lohner is very experienced at football, and that includes the unique type of adversity the game throws at a guy. The rookie may be getting a dose of that football adversity right now, but in Trautman's opinion, that's not the worst thing.

"I mean, it's not even that he's just a rookie; he's played 50-whatever snaps in college, so it's kind of like, he obviously realizes the mistakes, and he needs to. But also, during the game, we've just got to move on because it's going to affect the next play, and the next play, and if you do that, you might build some bad snaps," Trautman said of Lohner on Tuesday. "And he had a really good stretch of plays after—I think it was the false start when we were going in, and then he came back and had two really good plays. So, it's just adversity and how much he's faced of that in football. Who knows? But he's getting a feel of it now, and that's a good thing."

Much to Live Up to For a Seventh-Round Pick

Payton had visions of Jimmy Graham dancing in his head when the Lohner pick was made, but that wasn't exactly an apples-to-apples comparison. Like Lohner, Graham only played one year of college football at the University of Miami (FL), after years of playing basketball, but he was a bit more involved with his offense.

Graham was also a very special, even rare player, so beware any comparisons, let alone a seventh-round pick. That didn't stop

When the Broncos' undrafted rookie Caden Prieskorn is wildly out-producing Lohner, even though the shades separating a college free agent from the 241st overall pick in the draft are negligible, it puts things in perspective. Prieskorn is older (25) for a rookie, but he played a lot of football in college at Ole Miss and Memphis.

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If there's anything helping Lohner's outlook currently, it's that fellow tight end Nate Adkins is injured, and veteran incumbent Lucas Krull hasn't exactly set the world on fire. Still, if Lohner doesn't get a move on and show his coaches something this week in practice and in Saturday's preseason finale, including some mental resilience, landing on the practice squad might be the best-case scenario for Denver's seventh-round pick.