Broncos GM George Paton Hints at Possible Trade-Back Plans as 2025 NFL Draft Approaches!

The Denver Broncos are in an advantageous position in the NFL draft. Sitting with the No. 20 overall pick, the Broncos can stand pat and hold good odds of landing a difference-maker on either side of the ball.

The Broncos are also in that zone where teams behind them might be looking to trade up, depending on whether certain positions and players fall a bit in the first round. That means a trade-back is very much on the table for the Broncos, but you could say that about any team, really.

However, when you throw in GM George Paton's sly comment at the annual NFL meetings in Palm Beach, FL, on Monday, it adds a little bit more intrigue to the possibility of the Broncos moving down in Round 1. But, when it comes to Paton's partner — head coach Sean Payton — the impulse is to select a player or trade up, not move back, which is why the Broncos GM will hold his cards until draft day.

“I don’t hit Sean for the trade back until like the day of (Laughs)," Paton said of Payton. "It’s just no use. We talk about it as we approach it. We start draft meetings [on] Wednesday. That’s about eight days of draft meetings, and we’ll have group studies. The week of the draft, we’ll start hitting those scenarios pretty hard.”

The Broncos have been busily hosting one top-30 draft visit after another. The NFL calls them 'top-30' visits because each team is only allotted 30 such meetings at its facility.

That means a team like the Broncos has to be very judicious in how it uses its 30 meetings. Many of them are used to get a better read on prospects that the Broncos haven't been able to quite meet with properly, whether at the Shrine Game, Senior Bowl, the NFL Combine, or pro days.

In some cases, these are prospects the Broncos have already met with plenty, but very much like, and wish to spend some additional time with them at team headquarters to solidify whatever the read is. Then there's the tin-foil hat thing — that some of these visits are smokescreens — which I don't subscribe to.

Following the theme of the offseason, a lot of the prospects the Broncos have hosted on top-30 visits are running backs and tight ends. And even a couple of tight ends whose Denver roots exempt them from the top-30 calculus and qualify them as "local" visits.

Running backs and tight ends. Weapons. The Broncos aren't done building the nest around Bo Nix, and don't think for a second that Evan Engram's arrival has fully checked off the 'joker' box at Dove Valley.

“I don’t think the search is ever over," Paton said of the 'joker' position. "I do think we have a ‘joker.' We have a mismatch tight end that we really like. But again, we’re always looking for the best players.”

Will the Broncos trade up for a coveted joker prospect like Boise State running back Ashton Jeanty? Or stand pat at 20 and take the best player available?

Perhaps if Paton has his druthers, the Broncos will trade back to stockpile picks in a class that is both rich and deep at running back and tight end. Fans don't have too much longer to wait to find out.

The 2025 NFL draft kicks off on Thursday, April 24, at Lambeau Field in Green Bay, Wisconsin.