5 Broncos Takeaways From NFL's Annual League Meeting

This past week, Sean Payton, George Paton, and the Walton-Penner Ownership Group traveled down to Arizona for the NFL's Annual League Meeting, allowing us our first chance since the combine to ask them about the Denver Broncos' offseason.

So, what were the biggest Broncos developments to come from their media availability?

1. Broncos Were Thorough in Pursuit of Jaylen Waddle

The Denver Broncos might have executed the heist of the offseason by stealing Jaylen Waddle away from the Miami Dolphins.

"He's one of the most explosive playmakers in the league, first and foremost," Broncos general manager George Paton said to describe Waddle. "Great makeup, great competitor. He'll fit in well with our room. . . He just helps the room, opens up the run game, and will open [plays] up for the other receivers."

Head coach Sean Payton echoed Paton's vision for Waddle during his media availability, while also sharing some of the background research Denver did that made them even more infatuated with the prospect of a trade for the star receiver.

"With regards to [Jaylen Waddle], he's explosive," Sean Payton emphasized. "I think, if you asked me, the single biggest thing that I think he does well is he's extremely fast and he stops fast. He can sink his hips in transition, and then the other thing that came up time and time again was how competitive he is. I'm very close with Teddy Bridgewater; we're very close with Coach [Nick] Saban; we're close with a lot of people who have had the chance to work with him, and I think whenever you get into [pursuing] a big-name free agent or a trade of this magnitude, 'all the other stuff' is important to research. When it comes to Waddle's 'all the other stuff' it was '10', '10', '10', '10', '10'."

Payton raises a good point. The Broncos might not have sold the farm for Waddle, but this was still a pricey acquisition, so it's important they did their research on the person as well as the player.

Both Payton and Paton paint the effort to trade for Waddle as an all-hands-on-deck effort.

"We had an interest at the trade deadline, I think everyone knows that," Paton opened, to describe the team's negotiation for Waddle. "It didn't get very far then, but we still liked the player a lot. . . At the combine, we still hadn't talked yet, but when we got back from the combine, we reached out to [Dolphins GM] Jon-Eric [Sullivan], and then it kinda started from there. Obviously, we did a lot of work on him -- all the coaches did, scouts [too]. We did a lot of work at the trade deadline. We felt like we knew the player well and we knew the person even better, and so we feel really good about the trade."

In fact, according to Paton, even the team's star quarterback, Bo Nix, got involved in the push for Waddle.

"Bo [Nix], I think [he] thinks he's kinda a quasi-GM sometimes, and sometimes he's right, sometimes he's wrong," Paton joked, about Nix's desire for Denver to acquire Waddle. "I think he's right on this guy. This guy's pretty special."

2. Bringing J.K. Dobbins Back Was a Top Priority

Through the first half of the season, J.K. Dobbins was the MVP of the Broncos offense, and maybe even the team in general. As the pass game struggled to find a rhythm, Dobbins led Denver's attack. Through the season's first nine weeks -- the entirety of Dobbins' pre-injury 2025 campaign -- he had the NFL's fourth-most rushing yards, with 695, on a highly efficient 5.0 yards per carry average.

Despite that tremendous performance, Dobbins completely exited the frame for the second half of the campaign, after the injury bug rose up and bit him again, this time saddling him with a Lisfranc foot injury.

With that in mind, plenty of analysts wondered whether the Broncos would bring Dobbins back or choose to pursue a different option in free agency's loaded class of backs.

According to Sean Payton, re-signing Dobbins was always at the front of his mind.

"There were certain priorities," Payton told the media, regarding Denver's offseason approach. "Dobbins was a priority, ahead of all others. Now, that'll anger people. We know he's been injured; we understand, and the injuries haven't been soft-tissue-driven. But he's someone who's one of those compound multipliers. Like, he brings 10 others with him in a positive light. Our success last year -- he's got some fingerprints on that."

If the Broncos can get a full season out of Dobbins, or anything close to it, and pair it with the version of Bo Nix they got for the second half of last season, this offense will be a handful for their opponents.

3. Bo Nix's Ankle Recovery Is Ahead of Schedule

When Broncos Country received the heartbreaking news about Bo Nix's ankle injury, after what should have been a rousing victory over the Buffalo Bills, the first concern was how the team would fare in its Super Bowl chase without Nix, but the second was how his injury could impact the 2026 season and beyond.

So far, the updates seem to be outstandingly positive, thankfully for Broncos Country.

In an interview with 9News' Mike Klis, Paton shared the latest on Nix's ankle.

"He's ahead of schedule," Paton told Klis. "He's running, he's jumping. Really proud of how he's attacked rehab. He's done a great job. He'll be ready for OTAs."

The confidence surrounding Nix's recovery was further bolstered by a report from Jordan Schultz on Wednesday, which stated that Nix has fully recovered from ankle surgery and is remarkably further along in his offseason conditioning than he typically is.

While there was never much concern about Nix's recovery impacting his availability for the 2026 season, getting him on the field for all of Denver's offseason activities will maximize his opportunities to build a connection with Jaylen Waddle.