05-03-24 Parker Gabriel with Broncos Country Tonight

Episode Transcript

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Start out to the Katway commasperil onthe hotline. Bring on a good buddy,

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Parker, Gabriel Parker, are youdoing? I'm doing good? Hey,
guys doing now? You know I'mover here caveetching uniform stuff on a
Friday. So that's about how itgoes. One week ago. One week
ago we had the NFL Draft.Denver Broncos got ostensibly their quarterback of the
future, bow Knicks, taking himat twelve. Opting not to trade back.
Probably smart in hindsight, given thefact that we now know the Raiders

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and Rams were interested in that.What did you think of the bow Knicks
pick for the Denver Broncos? Yeah? You know. Then it's one of
those things where it's like when youif you would have asked me a week
before the draft, hey, whatdo you think about? You know people?
Did you write about it constantly?What do you think about taking a
quarterback at twelve? Who are theygoing to take? What quarterback are they
going to take? And what Ikept saying was, given the number of

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teams involved that need a quarterback,it's just really hard to say who is
going to be available, what theoptions are, how far up you know,
can you get how far back couldyou theoretically get And that's sort of
like you know, maybe maybe ninetimes out of ten at twelve they take
Bone Nicks or whatever. But likeyou also couldn't have foreseen exactly how the

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board was gonna fall, and itactually then went relatively normally into Atlanta.
And when you listen to Sean Paytonand George Peyton talk about it afterwards,
that changed their plans. You know, you end up with the three teams
set eleven, twelve, thirteen ofMinnesota, Denver, and Vegas. And
there's only two quarterbacks for those threeteams. And so you know, I
think you're right where in hindsight youlook at it and you say, yeah,

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I mean they did what they hadto do, and to get a
quarterback, they took phone Nix rightwhere he was. They like him.
And in an alternate universe where youknow, all three of McCarthy, Pennix
and Knicks on the board at tensort have gone differently, who knows,
maybe, but the way it fell, you can't blame him for taking the

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guy, you know where they tookhim. And obviously they had done a
lot of homework to get to thatpoint and feel good about taking it there.
Yeah, I mean, before Iget on to the rest of this
draft class, I do want todive a little bit deeper into the Michael
Pennock situation, because what did youthink when when that name came across?
Because for me, I was like, what, I mean, you'd heard

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whispers, there's been a few little, tiny little glimmers of you know that
out there, But the Atlanta foucuhas spent one hundred million dollars on Kirk
Cousins and then go out and draftthe second oldest quarterback in the first round
at that point in time. Nowthat would be broken by Bonix a few
picks later, but the second oldestquarterback in the first round ever behind Brandon
Wheaton. Yeah, it was amazing. I mean it's kind of funny.

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It's one of those things where Ican't remember who it was. I mean,
just read so much of the draftpre draft stuff, and you're and
you're talking to as many people asyou can obviously and all of that.
I think maybe it was Ian Rappidpoor, Like somebody at some point said like,
hey, Atlantica, that real interestin Michael Pennox at at A And
I just remember thinking like, oh, this is one of those situations where

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it's like a little too clearly,just like the draft pasturing stuff. And
as it turned out, and andthe you know, the bat the supporting
evidence was basically like, well,you know, they flew out to Seattle
just to watch his workout, aslike, I mean, that doesn't really
sound like a recipe for taking aguy at eight when you've already committed at
least two years to the quarterback youhave. But okay, you know,

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it's the season where everybody says everythingthey can about you know, every draft
prospect and then of course lo andbehold like that's actually the good intel and
he comes off the board of eightand you're sitting there going wow, I
mean you know that that and whenyou listen to you know, what the
Broncos said, I mean I thinkthat shipped them up too, just in
terms of, you know, theywere they were comfortable and then suddenly they
weren't comfortable about how the quarterback boardlooked. Talking with Parker Gabriel had Parker

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J. Gabriel on Twitter covers theDenver Broncos for the diver post in the
second round, they go out andget Ellis, the pass rusher out of
Utah, highly productive guy, obviouslyhad a little bit of an injury,
a little injury issue there a secondday two, third round, sorry,
and wind up getting somebody with Broncosconnections, obviously, and to be fair,

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the Yellis family might be the McCaffrey'sof defense when it comes to the
NFL, given how many of theprogenies through out of the league. I
asked him if he had a sisterout there who was a rocket scientist.
That was a disappointment given the numberof people they have in the NFL,
and he said, no, there'sshe's a safety for the Jets. So
I guess they took that all instride. But for me, the interesting
thing I think was looking at GeorgePeyton at the press conference after Day two,

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and he might have been the mostjovial and relaxed that I've seen him
in the last gosh, I don'tknow how many years. And I asked
him about was that because he wasgoing to be playing with a full deck
going forward, that the Russell Wilson, Sean Payton draft picks were behind him
at that point and he kind ofgave it an acknowledgment of that. The
question is whether or not he's goingto be able to stick around and be

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the general manager. But I thinkthat's been a heck of a working relationship
with Seawan and George Payton, Yeah, definitely. I mean it's it's very
interesting. Like you know, thething about our position, right, it's
like you'll you'll meet really, Imean, he talks to people and all
that, but it's not like you'reyou're sitting there when they're walking up and
down the hallway and talking to eachother every day and they're pouring over Tave

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and all that stuff. So likeyou know, you're you're obviously you know,
you don't have full information about aboutexactly how they work together. But
the interesting it's interesting still to watchhow that their working relationship in public has
unfolded, and you know, yousee George sort of like each time they're
out there, it's a little bitmore relaxed talking about Sean. Uh,

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he does this funny thing now wherelike pretty much every time they talk,
he he sort of you know,ribbed Sean in his own good natured way,
and so you know, they reallydo you know, I think they
have a good working relationship. Andthe thing about one of the things about
Sean is, you know, forall of the all of the turnover and
and you know, for how intenthe is and all that. Like part

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of the reason why they had suchstability in New Orleans because he had such
a good working relationship with Mickey Loomis. They were there, literally, you
know, the entire time that Seanwas there, Mickey was there. They're
probably like a little bit more philosophicallyaligned specifically as it pertains to the draft
and like how you use capital andall of that than he and Georgia are.
But even still, I mean,as a coach that recognizes that for

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as good a talent evaluator as hemight be, for as you know,
particular as he might be an evaluatingplayers, you still have to have,
you know, scouts and executives thatcan execute what you want. And I
mean, I think he's probably youknow, decided along the way that George
is pretty good scout and a reallygood evaluator, and that they sort of
speak the same They talk about thisall the time their football guys, you
know, and they they it seemslike they speak a very similar football language.

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Well that they do talk with ParkerGabriel from the Dever Post, what
is your optimism level on the DenverBroncos now as opposed to before this draft?
I'm sorry to say that, Isaid, what is your optimism now
towards the Denver Broncos this season asopposed to before the draft? Yeah,
that's a good question. I mean, I don't I'm not sure. I

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have a lot higher expectations than Ihad previously. But they're going to be
really interesting. And I think oneof the things that you, you know,
you maybe worried a little bit aboutor you wondered about, is like,
what is going to be the compellingstoryline this year? And that has
just very clearly turned into you know, Sean Payton. I think it's like

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you break it down and you wonder, and you wonder, and you wonder,
and now he's got a quarterback,and like, you know, could
it be that that Boe Nix isa nice player for a couple of years
and then you know you're in themarket for a different quarterback or whatever.
I mean, yeah, that's possible, but it's functionally speaking, I mean,
this is the guy that is goingto be the lynch pin to Sean

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Payton sort of second act as thehead coach, and in that way,
he's a big part of you know, if you're talking about legacy and the
Hall of Fame, or trying towin a second Super Bowl, be the
first coach to win a Super Bowltwo different teams and all of that,
Like phone Nicks is going to playa central role in that. And just

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because all of that, you know, doesn't necessarily unfold in the fall of
twenty twenty four, I mean,it's still the starting point for that conversation,
and that makes it just such aninteresting pairing. It's going to be
interesting. It's the first time he'sever you know, counted on a risky
quarterback or even a young quarterback reallyfor anything. And so all of these,

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all of these things add up tojust make the Broncos a compelling team,
even if when you look at themon paper you say, I don't
really know what to expect right nowas we sit here in early May for
the season lost and it's the fervorof the draft was probably I think the
most significant move they made, whichwas the acquisition of Jonathan Franklin Myers,
someone I've log admired as a footballplayer. I think he's phenomenal, phenomenal

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player and phenomenal person. It presentssome interesting questions as to what DJ Jones
role is, what the nose tackleposition is going to look like for the
Denver Broncos. But Franklin Myers isa disruptive interior gap penetrator, and I
love that move. It was justsort of drowned out against the furor of
getting the quarterback and pairing him upwith with Franklin. Yeah, it's kind
of funny because you know, lastyear they swung the Day three trade for

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Adam Troutman and you know, JohnFranklin Myers better better player than Adam Trumman's
but like, you know, similarlyimpactful. I mean, you wouldn't have
you wouldn't have thought at this timelast year that that Troutman would have played
you know, seventy seventy SATs orwhatever you digitous injury. But you know
you can find, Yeah, draftcapital gets you know, valued sort of

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you know strangely sometimes Pertanton pro players. And then when you come to a
guy that you know, he haddesigning bonus money that the Jets were stuck
with, and so you know,the Broncos got him a set actually for
pennies on the dollar, both interms of draft capital, and then you
know what he was basically willing totake on a two year deal, and
so you know, he did itdisrupt this player, a guy who I

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think has had you know, fiftyfour or more pressures each of the past
four years, hasn't missed any timesthan healthy. I mean, he's a
he's a bona fide NFL starter thatyou got for a six round pick two
years from now. And so justfrom that standpoint, like, that's good
value no matter what. And thento do it in a position group that
I think he could argue needed itthe boat outside of quarterback. I mean,

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it's a it's a great move forDenver, even if you know,
even if he doesn't play exactly tolike to the level that he did previously
or whatever. Like, it's goodvalue no matter what. And then on
top of that, like he justhave sort of an interesting group. Now
he add Melton Road to the runstopper. He had Angela Blackson as a
run stopper. He's got with SharkLawrence on a futures contract. And now

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you've got to Franklin Myers and suddenlylike are DJ Jones and Zach Allen.
That's an entirely new group and theyneeded it for you know, they had
two good players and a bad unitlast year basically, and so to do
as much work as they did upruns that saying they're going to be it's

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not going to probably be the groupthat John Franklin Myers came from the Jets
last year. But they've got someathleticism, they've got some skill, and
they've got more versatility out there thanthey have any point in the last couple
of years that they do. Talkwith Parker Gabriel from the Denver Post,
the Day three headliner was probably Franklin, the wide receiver from Oregon and the
Broncos trading out to Ganham, butthere were several other notable picks there,

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including the corner from Missouri, kindof a ballhawk, and then my favorite,
the offensive lineman from South Carolina whoyou know, I don't know if
you've seen the headshot photos or not, but this is a man who's all
business on the fields, but it'sdefinitely a party in the back. He
was a transfer from Yale, doublemajor in polysi and economics. You know
you're talking about a guy who whojust I thought as high wattage personality,

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even if he doesn't make this squad. What was your favorite pick on day
three? And then I wanted toget to real quick the curious case of
bj West after that. Yeah,so, first of all, Nick Gardulo,
the offensive liman you're talking about.When I saw the headshot, I
thought that he sort of looked likea say, update bones version of Greg

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Dulsine. I went with hill BillyBell Kuiper. Yeah, okay that,
Yeah, that's a good look too. I thought, you know, of
the day three picks, like likeyou said, I mean, I think
you know Franklin, you're surprised he'sthere starts Saturday. Not surprised that they
traded up to go get him,you know, Audrick estimate. It just

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is like, given what Sean Paytonhad liked and running back in the past,
man, I know, you know, Sean Payton loves Alvin Kamara and
loves that versatility, but he's youknow, mark Ingram like he's gone for
bigger backs. He likes bigger backs. He likes backs that have that,
you know, the mask and canrun between the tackles. And so you

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know that to me, I thinkthat's really interesting. You know, time
flies, right, I mean,it's maintain that Javonte Williams is going into
the last year of his rookie deal. But he is, uh and you
know you've got you know, hopefullyhe's sort of back stronger, a full
another full year of the injury andall that. But like that's a room
where when you when you look atit, okay, smash if you Ryan's

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got one year left on the field. Joelan mcwoughlin is a nice player.
He can he can, he canreally excel in space as the key and
every down back we're probably not atthis point at least, And so that
that's the spot where you look atit and you say, if you're only
keeping three, who is estimate bumpout and does he take roll from?

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And if might be you know it'snot gonna bump out all obviously, but
he might take roll away from sortof all three of those guys if he
picks it up quickly. So tome, that's a really intriguing one.
I called running back a sneaky positionof need, and so I didn't actually
think they take one even as earlyas they did in the fifth round.
So yeah, fifth rown. Soit's a super interesting thing to me think

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he sits what they want to do. And you know when you get eyes
on the training camp, we're gonnabe like, that's a running back and
so you know that's to me,like, that's that's an interesting one.
He is on the opposite side then, of the positional side spectrum from d J West