Should the Broncos roll the dice in this year’s NFL Supplemental Draft?

Good morning, Broncos Country.

It’s been a hot minute since the NFL has had a supplemental draft. In fact, the last time they held one was in 2019. That’s when the Arizona Cardinals gave up a future fifth-round draft pick to select Jalen Thompson out of Washington State.

That worked out well for him and the Cardinals, who extended Thompson last year on a three-year, $40 million dollar contract with $24.5 million dollars guaranteed. I think it’s safe to say a future fifth-round pick was worth the roll of the dice for them in hindsight.

There have been some good players chosen in the NFL’s Supplemental Draft over the years, but situations like the aforementioned are few and far between. That’s just one of the main reasons why teams are extremely hesitant to mortgage future draft capital when they do take place.

This year’s supplemental draft features to players, former Purdue wide receiver Milton Wright and former Tennessee turned Jackson State product Malachi Wideman.

Wright didn’t suit up for the Boilermakers in 2022 due to academic ineligibility, but had a great season in 2021 with 57 receptions for 732 yards and 7 touchdowns. At 6’3 and 200 pounds, the former four-start recruit is a big target whose good on the outside and was a quality safety valve and deep ball playmaker for Aiden O’Connell. His play on the field and overall talent certainly are draftable, but teams will have to dig deep and find out why he couldn’t keep his grades up at Purdue.

Wideman was also a highly-touted four-start recruit who originally signed on with the Tennessee Volunteers, but transferred after his true freshman season after only seeing time in six games. In 2021, he headed to Jackson State to be coached by Deion Sanders and caught 34 passes for 540 yards, and 12 touchdowns. Though he didn’t impress at all this past season, playing in just six games with just 3 receptions for 49 yards and one touchdown. At 6’5 and 190 pounds, Wideman has elite physical traits and enormous catch radius, but needs a lot of refinement in other areas of his game to be a viable weapon in the pros. It’ll be a steep jump from the SWAC to NFL, so I really can’t see a team taking him.

The Denver Broncos already have a deep wide receiver corps with 12 men signed onto the roster, so it would be a bit of a surprise to see them take a flier on one of these guys in the supplemental draft. But who knows? Sean Payton loves picking receivers and perhaps he and the rest of the Broncos brass have done some diligence on these guys.

What do you guys think? Are either Wright or Wideman worth a roll of the dice in the supplemental draft? Sounds off in the comments section and let me know what you think.

As always—thanks for reading. Here are several stories for today’s installment of Horse Tracks.

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