The Broncos finished up the final day by making 5 selections, but not the 5 they started with. They did make a trade to get into a better position to make their picks.
The Broncos made their second trade of the draft, this time moving back into the fourth round to select Portland State tight end Julius Thomas, a former college basketball star who played only one year of college football. To get Thomas, the Broncos sent fifth- and sixth-round picks to the Green Bay Packers and in return got their fourth and seventh round picks.
The players that the Broncos selected were as follows. In the fourth the Broncos selected another Safety, Quinton Carter. Here is some quotes from EFX on drafting the two Safeties:
On where he sees S Rahim Moore and S Quinton Carter
Fox: "I don't like really defining the players before they get here. If you were looking at it, generally speaking, you would probably say that (Rahim) Moore is probably more the free (safety) and (Quinton) Carter is more the strong (safety). I hate to pigeonhole them at this point; they will kind of define what they can do. They have some veteran guys to learn from and that will speed the process. We needed some youth there and we think we picked two very good ones."
On Brian Dawkins' future
Fox: "I don't think we have so many that it would affect Brian Dawkins, let me put it that way. I don't think this affects anybody. We will be the team we will be when we get to practice and they will do that. This is in no way jeopardizing our thoughts on any of the guys we have. We just needed some youth and depth and they were the best guys available."
The Broncos followed up these picks with these three. They took two Tight Ends and another LB to fill out the linebacker corps and special teams. With the fourth pick in the draft they got from trading with Green Bay they took Tight End Julius Thomas. They followed that up with picks of Mike Mohamed LB in the sixth and Virgil Green TE with a seventh. Here are some points from EFX on these guys:
On TE Julius Thomas"(TE) Julius Thomas was the player at Portland State that played basketball for four years, and he tried out for football this year. He's a guys that's 6-5, 250 (pounds) who is very athletic and has very good ball skills from playing basketball. His athleticism in and out of breaks was great, and his football knowledge-Clancy Barone worked him out at Portland State, and he had very good football knowledge for a one-year player. He's got a big athletic upside, and if he can gain some weight and lift weights, he could be a 6-5, 260 (pound) guy that can run in a couple years here. We're excited about him."
Fox: "One of the other things, too, with Clancy Barone-he was part of the developmental process with (San Diego TE Antonio) Gates. When he was at San Diego, Clancy was there. We did do a private workout. Clancy was involved in that and was very impressed, and that was also part of that decision."
On TE Virgil Green
Xanders: "Virgil Green was the second tight end. He's in the same mold; he's a little bit shorter. He's 6-3, 245 (pounds), but he's very fast. He had a great combine; he had a 42-inch vertical. He's tough. He's physical. He has that athletic upside, and he may have some versatility."
On the team's plans for the tight ends
Fox: "I think there is no question that (Julius) Thomas is what we call a wide tight end, an end-line tight end. He has a bigger frame-most of your top tight ends do have bigger frames. I think it helps the quarterback. It is the closest receiver for the quarterback to throw to. Developing that, we have (TE Richard) Quinn in place already. He is that type of body and I think he can grow a lot like (TE Antonio) Gates did in San Diego. Yet, they are built well enough and powerful enough to learn how to block. Every tight end ever been brought in this league-the No. 1 adjustment coming out of college into pro football is the blocking. We think we have an outstanding coaching staff that can help that process. As far as (TE) Virgil (Green) goes, he more of an ‘F' tight end, a ‘move' tight end. He has great vertical speed-he tested off the charts at the combine as far as the physical aspects. He can stretch the field, yet he is still a physical guy who can line up in the backfield from a wing alignment and has a physical-enough presence to block."
On whether the team set out to draft linebackers
Xanders: "We think we are going to add competition at every position group and we are happy with those draft picks. We really think they can help our football team. So, we are going to have a plan for success for each one of these guys-including the tight ends, the linebackers and the safeties. We feel really good about those guys that we brought in."
Fox: "We are making a switch from a 3-4 to a 4-3. So, we need more speed at linebacker. One of the main criteria of this draft was to get faster on defense. That is something that we felt like was a deficiency and I think we accomplished that in a pretty big way."
The Final pick in the draft was a Defensive End in the seventh round by the name of Jeremy Beal, Beal was considered one of the top defensive end prospects in this years NFL Draft. A 3-year starter for the Sooners, Jeremy earned 2010 Big 12 Defensive Player of the Year honors while finishing 2nd in OU history with 29 career Sacks, and 2nd in school history with 56.5 tackles for loss. He also caused 10 Fumbles and broke up 14 passes in his career, intercepting one. The reason he dropped so far in the draft was because of his poor timing at the combine. But like Doom his production speaks for itself, he should be a good pick.
That is it for the draft, I think we got a solid group of picks. The results for the competition should be up tomorrow. ~ Aussie.
