With the NFL regular season less than two weeks away, the offseason rankings grind is almost done. ESPN’s latest Top 100, a projection of the league’s best players for the 2026 season, gave the Broncos five names. It also left out a couple of players who have a pretty strong case to be there.
That list is voted on and compiled by 12 ESPN writers and analysts, which makes it a different exercise from NFL Network’s Top 100 Players, where only the players vote. Denver had six players on NFLN’s list, the most it has had in years. ESPN, though, came up short on at least two Broncos who should have made the cut.
Bo Nix is the clearest miss. He was No. 59 on NFL Network’s Top 100, marking his second straight year on the list after only two seasons as a pro. Last season, he finished eighth in passing yards and 10th in passing touchdowns, helped Denver win 14 games, claim the division title, and lock up the AFC’s No. 1 playoff seed.
He also beat out ESPN’s No. 2 player, Josh Allen, in the divisional round, guiding the Broncos to a 33-30 overtime win over the Buffalo Bills. That loss was so damaging in Buffalo that head coach Sean McDermott was fired after nine years with the team.
For Nix, the résumé keeps getting louder. Still, the national media hasn’t fully caught up to what the Broncos believe they have at quarterback. Sean Payton even went on social media recently to push back on another shallow take about Nix, making the point that the tape tells the real story.
Courtland Sutton is another obvious omission. He landed at No. 68 on NFL Network’s list, but ESPN left him off entirely. Sutton just put together his second straight 1,000-yard season and earned the second Pro Bowl nod of his career.
He’s already shown he can produce in messy circumstances, too. In 2019, his first Pro Bowl year, he piled up nearly 1,200 yards and six touchdowns while dealing with three different starting quarterbacks in the post-Super Bowl 50 carousel. Now that Nix has steadied the position, Sutton is back in the 1,000-yard club, and that should have been enough to get him on ESPN’s board.
The Broncos’ trade for Waddle was a major move, costing a first- and third-round pick. That kind of price says a lot about how the league views him, even if ESPN’s list didn’t.
Waddle didn’t make NFL Network’s Top 100 this time, either, though he had been on it three times before. In Miami last season, he posted 910 receiving yards and six touchdowns, but the quarterback play around him dragged down his profile.
That part figures to look different in Denver. With Nix throwing and offensive coordinator Davis Webb helping scheme him open, Waddle is positioned to get back over 1,000 yards and, eventually, back on NFL Network’s list.
Talanoa Hufanga also had a strong enough season to warrant inclusion. In his first year with Denver, he recorded 106 tackles, 67 of them solo, along with six tackles for loss, two sacks, a forced fumble and a career-high 11 pass break-ups. He was snubbed in Pro Bowl voting, but the Associated Press named him a second-team All-Pro.
There’s a case that his season could have been even bigger. Hufanga dropped nearly 10 interceptions, and if he had hauled in even half of them, he might have been in the Defensive Player of the Year conversation.
He’s spent the offseason working to sharpen his hands, and the Broncos have emphasized taking the ball away more in training camp. If that translates, Hufanga could cash in on those chances in 2026.
ESPN included five safeties on its list. Hufanga is better than at least two of them.
In Other News...
Broncos Bring Back A Familiar Name As Roster Churn Continues
Roster movement kept rolling in Denver as the Broncos filled out their practice squad with 17 players, a group that included a familiar face in fullback Adam Prentice. It is the kind of late-summer housekeeping that often goes unnoticed outside the building, but it matters for a team trying to keep depth in place while sorting through the final edges of the roster.
Prentices path back to Denver gives the move a little extra familiarity. He first joined the Broncos as an undrafted free agent, later spent time with the New Orleans Saints, and then returned to Denver, where he appeared in all 17 games in 2025. For a club still cycling through personnel, keeping a player who already knows the system and the environment can be useful as the season approaches. [Read more 🡒]
Broncos Just Put More Pressure On One Young Pass Rusher
The Broncos chose to keep seven defensive linemen on their 53-man roster, and that decision says plenty about how they view Saivion Jones. The 2025 third-round pick has not moved as quickly as some might have expected, but Denver still carried him through roster cuts, betting on the long-term upside that made him worth the investment in the first place.
Jones now joins a group that includes Eyioma Uwazurike, Tyler Onyedim and Jordan Jackson as the Broncos work to reshape the interior of the line after losing veteran John Franklin-Myers. He is likely to sit low on the depth chart for now, but the fact that he made the team gives Denver another chance to keep developing a young pass rusher it clearly does not want to give up on yet. [Read more 🡒]
Broncos Kept A Fan Favorite Rookie In The Mix At Key Spot
After trimming to their initial 53-man roster, the Broncos made one more quiet move to keep a young defender in the fold by signing rookie inside linebacker Red Murdock to the practice squad. The seventh-round pick did enough during the offseason and preseason to stay on the teams radar, even if he did not crack the active roster on cutdown day.
Murdock now gets to keep developing within the same system rather than starting over somewhere else, and Denver gets a chance to keep evaluating a player who flashed enough to remain part of the conversation. With the roster settled and a few rookies already making their way onto the team, the practice squad spot gives the Broncos another look at a player they clearly were not ready to let go completely. [Read more 🡒]