04-04-24 Parker Gabriel with Broncos Country Tonight

Episode Transcript

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There was the Killay Common Spirital Hotlahad him bring on Parker Gabriel the Denver

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post or how's it going, Buddygood? Now you gets doing doing pretty
well? You got the news todaySam Mustafer signing with the Denver Broncos.
A veteran center. I say,veterans bet aun the league a little bit,
has a few starts, uh thatgives some experience, I think to
that position, big big guy uholder brother of PJ. Musteriffer was the

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under at the defensive tackle here lastyear on the practice squad for a while.
Does this signing say anything about thisoffensive line? I think mostly just
that Sean Payton's never been a guywho is going to rely entirely on young
players. And so the fact thatthe you know, that position is one
where even if Alex Forsyth or LukeWattenberg ends up starting there, you know

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you got a guy who started fortygames and it's not all that different than
last year. You know, theyhad Kyle Fuller in camp. It was
different because Lloyd Cushenberry had played andstarted, but they didn't know a lot
about him. They had pow Fullythere for a while. Eventually, you
know, he got released I thinkat the roster cutdown. So I'm not
saying that Sam Mustifer is gonna getcut or whatever, but like it's just
competition for that spot, and it'ssort of the I don't know, moneyball

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way that they've approached the agency sofar. You know, three linemen that
are all kind of just post rookiecontracts and then see what they've got over
summer. Do you think the factthat Muscifer and Mike mcglitchy, who were
teammates and Notre Dame, that theycan somehow rekindle what they had in college

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and bring that kind of vibe andthat nastiness to the Broncos offensive line.
Yeah, that's a good question,Nick. I mean, I think it's
it's a version of that. Ithink part of it is that they probably
just trust the evaluation of Harry Heatstand, who is like a long time the
long time you know, the greatoffensive line coach at Notre Dame, was

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there maybe in twenty twenty two again, came out of retirement and then retired
again. Now they have Joe Rudolph, but you know, Sean Payton knows
all those guys that have been aroundthe Upper Midwest for a long time Northwestern
Notre Dame, you know streets thatactually obviously was sort of in that in
that mix, and so you know, they they they've picked guys about this

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age and free agency so far aftertheir first contract. And when you have
some familiarity, whether it's McGlinchey himselfor you know, the guys that coached
him in college and with the Bears, you know, that makes it easy
to make a call and say,hey, you know, what are we
getting? And then and then youhave a better idea on that when the
guy gets in your buildings. Haven'tbeen major players in free agency for obvious

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reason. But are there any ofthese signings that they have made so far
that stood out to you? Imean, I really like the Josh Reynolds
feel, especially where it ended upfrom from a guarantee standpoint. You know,
it's basically a two year, ninemillion dollar contract to get a guy
who like not only has ability inthe receiving game, but you know he

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has some he's got some nasty tohim as a run blocker and just in
you know, digging out safety's blockingon the edge and all that, and
like that's what they were looking forlast year in free agency when they were
in on allon Wizard and I don'tknow, maybe they certainly looks now like
they dodge a bullet. You neverknow exactly how it plays out a year

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ago, if if if Lizard endsup in Denver instead of with the Jets
or whatever. But like, butReynolds just sort of has that, and
you know, for all of thethings that the Broncos other receivers do well.
I mean, Brandon Johnson's a willingblocker. You know, MEM's tried,
but he's not very big. Ithasn't been a strength of Courtland Sutton's
game recently. And so like justthat element of like some tough, some

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nasty, some veteran. Then maybeget st Patrick back, you know,
healthy this year too. Like thatthat one among a bunch of sort of
like you know, like you say, sort of modest feels that one.
And then I'm interested to see whatMatt Eric hasn't. I don't know if
it's a lot or a little orwhat. But when you got a guy
that is that big and has thatframe and he's gonna maybe be your swing

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tackle, there's something that's a littlebit more dynamic about that than you know,
a true, just sort of veteranguy like camp Clemming. Well,
the Broncos are at that stage ofthe draft process where they're now able to
bring in their top thirty prospects forvisits, and Michael Pennix was one of
those types of guys that they broughtin. When when you think about these

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top thirty visits, what do youmake of it? Do you do you
really think that teams when they bringthese guys in, they're truly looking to
bring those players in, They're lookingto draft those players, or this is
just hey man, they're searching forinformation as much as they can. Yeah,
it's always a little bit of everything. Like if you take the thirty,
I mean there's probably I don't knowexactly what the numbers would be any

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given year. I know, likelast year there were definitely a handful of
guys that they ended up either draftingor signing, you know, at the
draft as free agents that they hadin on visits. And so clearly like
sometimes you're doing it because you're interestedin a player and you need to know
more about him. Sometimes obviously notthe case with Michael Pennix, but like

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sometimes God doesn't get invited to thecombine and you want more medicals or whatever,
maybe they use the penis visit toyou know, get a little bit
more medical information, although the reportsfrom the combine were pretty solid on that
front. And then like the ruleson this time of year, especially as
it precames the quarterbacks is like justyou know, it's it's there's not much

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that you can really actually trust andso and then the other thing with Penis,
like if you want to be justsort of practical about it, is
he and Drake May had their prodays on the same day, and so
John Morton, the passing game coordinatorand some scouts were up in Seattle for
Penix, but most of the Broncosoffensive staff and everybody else was in North

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Carolina for Drake May. And soit's a chance for everybody else to have
extended time with Michael Pennix where thatthat just obviously wasn't possible since he worked
out on the same day as anotherone of the quarterbacks a couple of weeks
ago. Well, well, we'retalking about quarterbacks in the draft. Let's
let's pivot to that. What uh, I guess that's a two part one.
What do you think the Broncos willdo, and too, what do

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you think they should do? Yeah, I mean, you know, you
guys know this. I mean,Seaun's has never been a trade down guy.
And so, like I thought itwas interesting in Orlando when he sort
of said, I mean, it'sreally he went on, it's really easy
to say, oh, let's justtrade down and get another pick and all
that, but like you know,it's not always that easy. And I

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mean, I think it'd be interestingto see them try that because at some
point, at some point, theteams in the top let's say, I
don't know, thirteen, like there'sgonna there's a finite number that are going
to take quarterbacks. It might bea big number, but at some point,
like it's our for me to believethat five are going to be off

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the board. Four might be,but it's hard for me to believe five
are going to be off the boardwhen twelve rolls around, and it's a
little bit hard for me to believethat all six of them are going in
the first round. So, likea lot of it has to do with
how you see, you know,bow Nix versus Michael Pennix Junior, and
then also what the gap is fromthose two to Spencer Rattler. But like,

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I think they will trade up ifthe right guy makes it past three,
and I'd be I mean, that'sthat's obviously if you have that sort
of condition, how a guy doit? But I'd be very interested in
the trade down scenario just to see, you know, the type of player
that you could get maybe later inthe first round, while also figuring the

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quarterback thing out Parking. That's interestingbecause obviously when we talk about quarterbacks and
the Broncos or in desperate need ofone, and Ben and I have heard
from so many fans who want theteam to move up. But I heard
you say a word in the phrasethat you put together, was the right
quarterback? What does the right quarterbacklook like? For a guy like Champagne,

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we already know that he doesn't wanta guy who's going to play outside
the structure, So what does thatreally look like? Jade Daniels, I
mean, okay, no, butlike, but like it seems to me,
and this is this is speculation.It's just a lot of weeks of

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thinking about very little work wise otherthan the draft, but like it just
seems like it some way if quarterbacksdon't go one, two, three,
like if one of them gets tonumber four, and you know you can't.
I don't think you can discount JJMcCarthy in this situation either. But
like, you know, let's saythat, let's say Minnesota trades up to
three and their guy just for thisconversation is Drake May, Right, So

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then you've got you know, threeoff the board and McCarthy's sitting there.
Okay, you know, if youfeel strong about him, go get him.
He's young, he's athletic, he'sgot a lot of growth ahead of
him. But it just I don'tknow, they're so familiar with LSU from
the time in Louisiana. Jade Danielsis so dynamic down the field. He

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can run, but he's not arunner like that just to me, like,
I don't know, I could beway off, but like it just
seems like if he was the guythat that somehow got a top three.
I don't think he will, butif he did, that just strikes me
as Okay, we weren't sure thiswas going to happen, but it did,
and now we're going to take advantageof it. I think, and
I've said this for several weeks now, I think they want to move up

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to get their guy. I'm notsure that it's feasible, even though he
said it was down there and youknow, at the orders hidings, I
think it's more likely that they tradeback and multiply picks, and that you
know, in an arrow where theyjust don't have that much draft capital.
They got a lot of picks,but they're all late and this draft is
really the firste hundred and forty picksor so. Everything after that is just
kind of falls off a cliff.We got an interesting question on the text,

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and I'll just ask it to you. Besides quarterback, what's the next
position in the Broncos need. Yeah, I've thought about this, Like there's
a bunch of options they've spoken reallyhighly of, like what they think Riley
Moss is going to be. Theytraded a third round pick in this year's
draft to move up like twenty spots. I think to draft him last year,

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But like, I don't know,you guys, tell me who's who's
the starter opposite Pazertan right now?To him? Well, I mean,
I'm all for them going for acorner, but the fan base melts down
anytime I suggest that on Twitter.Yeah, well, they can melt on
this time because I said it.They have a bunch of young edge rushers

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who are nice players, but liketime moves really fast in the NFL,
Jonathan Cooper and Darren Browning are bothentering the last year of their rookie contracts.
They could use like a guy atedge, like if you think if
you think that you know, layoutto Latsu or Dallas Turner if he's there
at twelve, Like if you thinkone of those guys is your sort of

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number one, your bell cow forseveral years, wouldn't be mad about that
it Frankly, they could use anumber one receiver if one of those guys
fell down. I mean there's alot of ways they could go. The
one thing I'll say, and youknow, Sean Payton has invested so much
in the offensive line, Like JoeWalt's not making it to twelve, but
if joelt made it to twelve,like that would probably give him a lot

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to think about. And if youthink you can solve the tackle equation long
term, especially with Careful's going intothe last year's contract, I feel like
if it wasn't quarterback, they'd wantto take a tackle. And then again
you'd have the same conversation about likeis a guy there that you just don't
feel like you can say no toat number twelve or even like you know,
a couple of picks back further thanthat. So when you look at

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this upcoming season and no matter whatthe Broncos do in taking a quarterback,
which I think that they will,whether they move up and move back,
there's been a lot of conversation thatthis team should take on a different approach,
approach that other teams have taken onin the past. We saw the
Colts and the suck for Luck wholecampaign they've been able to land Andrew Luck.
I mean, were you on thiswhole idea that the Broncos in twenty

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twenty four this season should be oneof those tank type seasons. Yeah,
I mean, you just it's sortof hard to do almost in the NFL
because there's so much parody. Imean, you know, the Patriots almost
messed it up last year in Denver, and so it's like when you go
through all that work to be intentionallybad and then you know, are you

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bad enough? Like I don't.I just don't think, especially with Sean
Payton. I mean, even ifyou are like, look, this year
is going to be what it's goingto be. We're going to take our
medicine. The Rams did that lastyear. They ended up in the playoffs,
and so you know, if you'reSean Payton, you're like, you
understand the reality of the situation.You have a lot of dead money,
you have a young team, you'vehad some contracts, You've replaced expensive guys

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with less expensive guys. But like, do you really think, like in
week seven, he's gonna be sittingthere looking at whoever it is that's next
and being like I don't care ifwe win. No, of course not,
Like it's just it's very hard froma human standpoint to do that.
And not only that, but likeyou do not want, especially if you're
getting younger of this year, youdon't want your guys to like say,
well, this year doesn't come andthat's not gonna help you in twenty twenty

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five. So like that's where,like that's where front offices typically drive this,
because it's all about the roster thatyou put together in the off season
and with the say like George Peytonhas you know, not had the smoothest
ride here and so obviously he doesn'twant them to be very bad, and
Sean just like won't go for it. So you know, like I just

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it's easy to say, but Ijust don't see it. I don't think
they're gonna be very good. Butlike, I don't think it's going to
be an intentional like you know,tank for Sugar type of thing. Quick
Parker. Last one for me,what is one thing the Broncos need to
come away with in this draft oryou want them to come away with in
this draft? Oh, that's agood question. I mean the obvious one

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is quarterback. Obviously, I'd bevery interested if they picked the running back
somewhere where it makes it very clearthey think are running back's really good.
Like I don't know if that's aseventy six. But like even in the
fifth round, because you know they'vegot a room fold, there hasn't been

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any change there. They still gotDavonte Williams and Samaje p Ran and Julia
McLoughlin. But again, you're talkingabout the final year of contracts for Javonte,
who has something to prove. Ithink after last year, first year
back off of major knee injury,it's the last year of Smaj's deal.
Then you've got Joliel in there too. Like, I don't know, I
just think like a dynamic every downrunning back would be a very interesting addition

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to this offense. And there's someguys in this draft, the kids from
Tennessee, Jayalen Wright, Marshaun Lutt, usc Ray Davis from Kentucky. Like,
there's some guys who are going tobe around, you know, pushing
date three that are pretty sweet.Yeah. Well, Parker, hey,
we appreciate it has been too longand now we have to get you on
again here soon for the draft.Yeah, no doubt any kind I guess

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absolutely take care of Parker Gabriel.Then we post