INDIANAPOLIS — When George Paton said the Broncos were going to meet all the top quarterbacks here at the NFL Combine, he apparently did indeed mean all of them.
According to multiple league sources, the Broncos held formal interviews this week with not just the previously reported likes of J.J. McCarthy, Bo Nix and Michael Penix Jr., but the 'Big Three' of Caleb Williams, Jayden Daniels and Drake Maye.
The Broncos also held a formal interview this week with Spencer Rattler and were scheduled to get in front of Tulane's Michael Pratt. In all, the Broncos conducted formal interviews, 18 minutes in length, with 45 draftable prospects this week at the NFL Combine. Quarterbacks took up their share of interview slots.
Although the Broncos are picking 12th in the NFL Draft and Williams, Daniels and Maye are expected to be all gone within the, well, first three picks, you never know. What happens if one of those quarterbacks falls to say, the No. 7 Titans who don’t need a quarterback because they nabbed Will Levis with the first pick of the second round last year?
Put it this way: Williams, Daniels and Maye didn’t say no to the Broncos’ formal interview request. Sometimes top picks don’t bother talking to teams not selecting in the top 10. But you never know how draft trades will work.
The Broncos are close enough to the top for Paton and Broncos head coach Sean Payton to do their due diligence.
The Broncos are expected to part ways with current quarterback Russell Wilson within the next two weeks so they don’t execute an early trigger guarantee on his 2025 payout of $37 million.
The 6-foot-1, 22-year-old Williams, who followed coach Lincoln Riley from Oklahoma to USC, won the Heisman Trophy as a sophomore in 2022 and had another good season as a junior in 2023. A season that under new NIL rules allowed him to star in Wendy’s commercials.
It was Daniels, 23, who won the Heisman Trophy in 2023. After three years at Arizona State, the tall and slender Daniels (6-4, 210) played two years at LSU. Last year as a fifth-year senior, Daniels threw 40 touchdown passes against just 4 interceptions. He passed for 3,812 yards and rushed for 1,134.
Maye, 21, is the NFL quarterback prototype at 6-4, 230. A two-year starter at North Carolina, Maye combined for nearly 8,000 yards passing the past two years with 62 touchdown passes against 16 interceptions. He also can scoot as he rushed for 1,147 yards combined the past two seasons.
Rattler, 23, spent three seasons at Oklahoma, where he lost his starting job to Williams, then transferred to play two more years at South Carolina.
Bo Nix, 24, played three seasons at Auburn, then two at Oregon where this past season he threw for 4,058 yards and 45 touchdowns against just 3 interceptions.
The left-handed Penix, who will turn 24 in May, played four seasons at Indiana, where he suffered two ACL injuries, then two more at Washington. He threw for more than 9,000 yards in his two seasons at Washington.
The only quarterback of the top 7 who didn’t transfer was J.J. McCarthy, who just turned 21. He didn’t put up the glitzy passing stats as the other first-round prospects but he was still 27-1 the past two years with 22 touchdowns against 5 interceptions as a sophomore and 22 interceptions against 4 interceptions as a junior as he led Michigan to the national championship.
“He’s a good player, just like seven or eight other quarterbacks,’’ Paton said at his NFL Combine news conference Tuesday of McCarthy.
And the Broncos met with all of them.
“You just want to get around them as much as you can,’’ Paton said Tuesday. “I was fortunate to see a lot of these quarterbacks during the fall. That’s one step of the process. Then you have the All-Star games and then you have the Combine, and then you have Pro Days and maybe private workouts. So as much as you can get around them and see what makes them tick.
“Sean talked about leadership. What’s the day-to-day like? What do their teammates feel about them? You can evaluate the arm strength, the accuracy, the athleticism, being able to process is a little more difficult. But I think the more you can get around them, the better decisions you’ll make.”
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