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As the Denver Broncos look to leap from 'sweet story' to 'legitimate contender' and further Bo Nix's development, much of Broncos Country is zeroing in on the 2025 NFL Draft's top offensive prospects to see how they could help upgrade Denver's attack.
With that aim in mind, here are three offensive prospects who have a solid chance of being available with the 20th pick and would immediately have a game-changing impact on the Broncos' offense.
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1. Omarion Hampton
If the Denver Broncos are somehow lucky enough to have Hampton fall to their pick, he would be the rare no-brainer first-round running back selection.
Hampton's game is the physical embodiment of violence at the position. A rocket-powered sledgehammer, Hampton is truly built for the position, with his 5-foot-11, 221-pound frame, and a 4.42 40-yard dash, which ranks in the 90th percentile at RB. Plus, he knows how to weaponize the force he's able to generate as a runner -- punishing opponents and sapping them of some of their love for football with every attempted tackle. In 2024, he forced the third-most missed tackles of any back in this draft (73), and the lion's share are broken tackles.
The Broncos' run game last season ranked 15th in success rate behind a quality offensive line, but they struggled to ever gain more than four or five yards on a given carry. Denver's backs were only gaining the yards blocked. Hampton's punishing style will turn those four-yard gains into seven-yard gains while also being able to flip the field on any carry, with an explosive carry rate over 9 percent.
Sean Payton's lead back will play a large role in the passing game, and Hampton is one of this draft's few backs who is up to that task from day one, both as a blocker and receiver.
In his final season, the UNC product had 43 blocking snaps in true pass sets (defined as dropbacks with four-plus rushers that don't feature play action, screens, or dropbacks shorter than two seconds), which was the 15th-most among all FBS running backs. On those plays, his quarterback was untouched and pressured just twice.
As a receiver, Hampton will never be the route-runner that Jeanty or TreVeyon Henderson are, but he still greatly outproduced both in 2024, with 371 receiving yards, 92 more than Henderson and more than double Jeanty's total. Despite the route-tree limitations, Hampton has quality hands for the position, and once he has the ball in space, he is a nightmare to deal with.
That said, like anyone, Hampton isn't a perfect prospect. He accelerates well for the position, demonstrated by his 87th-percentile 10-yard split, but he struggles to stop on a dime and quickly re-direct his momentum, which is also why he doesn't have the same route-running ability as his aforementioned peers.
He can scan the line for a crease, find it, and launch through the hole, but he's rarely going to break ankles in open space. Also, if his runway is disrupted in the backfield, he becomes an easier tackle.
The moment he arrived at Broncos Park, he could turn Denver's rushing attack from milquetoast to devastating.
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2. Emeka Egbuka
Broncos Country has been clamoring for receiver help all offseason, and selecting Ohio State receiver Emeka Egbuka 20th overall would be an excellent way to answer their prayers.
Egbuka isn't flashy, making him easy to overlook as the draft gets closer, but he also has an incredibly well-rounded game, with very few blemishes that would score below a B or a B-, making it hard to see him failing at the next level.
His game is also one that you can easily envision Sean Payton falling in love with. Egbuka regularly demonstrates a high football IQ with his high-end understanding of where to settle when facing zone defenses and how to manipulate defenders' leverage in man coverage to create easy separation.
The underrated Buckeye is also the best pound-for-pound blocker in the receiver class, and one of the best blockers period, with everyone superior to him in that category having a serious height and weight advantage.
He fights hard for every target and plays bigger than his 6-foot-1, 201 frame. His contested catch rate of 59.1% is notably just 0.9 points worse and 0.8 points better than jump-ball specialists and fellow draftmates Tetairoa McMillan and Jayden Higgins.
The biggest flaw in his game is that he's subpar after the catch, averaging just 5.9 yards after the catch per reception in 2024. That said, he has enough physical strength and speed to improve that aspect of the game, so there's hope it won't be a persistent limitation.
The other popular knock on his game is that he won't ever develop into a team's No. 1 pass-catching option, but the reasons supporting that view don't quite add up.
He was never the go-to guy at Ohio State, but he was sharing the field with either Marvin Harrison Jr. or Jeremiah Smith, unanimously viewed as two of the most amazing college receivers we've seen. Back in 2020, some worried Justin Jefferson couldn't be 'the guy' in an NFL passing attack when he wasn't during his time at LSU, but that looks foolish in hindsight, considering he was playing alongside Ja'Marr Chase.
Supposed athletic limitations are the other point argued against Egbuka developing into a premier receiver. Now, there's some truth to that, as he doesn't have any jaw-dropping physical traits, but he shouldn't be viewed as a poor athlete because of that. Egbuka's Relative Athletic Score ranks in the 92nd percentile for his position, so he is plenty athletic enough to be a high-end receiver.
Even if Egbuka doesn't exceed the consensus opinion regarding his ceiling as a No. 2 option, he could immediately take over and upgrade a starting spot in the Broncos' receiver rotation.
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3. TreVeyon Henderson
If Sean Payton's 'Joker' desire isn't quenched by signing Evan Engram, Denver could look to kill two birds with one stone, providing an answer for the enigmatic role and at running back, by selecting TreVeyon Henderson.
In the passing game, Henderson's per-snap impact could only be rivaled by Ashton Jeanty.
Henderson will be an above-average pass-blocker for his position the moment he enters the league, and there are few running backs in the draft who can also say that. He is a strong route-runner for the position, has soft hands when targeted, and, being one of the fastest running backs in this year's draft, he can score a touchdown from anywhere on the field once he gets the ball in space.
Henderson's soul-crushing explosivity carries into the run game too. 14.5% of his carries in 2024 gained at least 15 yards, which is by far the best rate in the class. When he finds a lane, he is as good as gone. Henderson has the wheels to burn defensive backs, and the creativity and lateral burst to make defenders look like a foolish bull to his matador, with a swift sidestep.
The high highs are tremendously exciting, but Henderson does have some warts to his game.
Although he's an incredibly dangerous runner, if he doesn't have a very well-defined lane, he can often get lost trying to find it or run into the back of his offensive line. Broncos Country might be familiar with that problem after the past few seasons of Javonte Williams. His receiving talent helps mitigate that deficiency some though, as it creates an easy avenue to manufacture touches in space.
Also, we have only seen him stay healthy through an entire season once, when he had just 10.7 touches per game, as a complementary piece. While it's true that Sean Payton rotates his backs, he puts a lot on his lead back, if he believes in them. In four of his last five seasons in New Orleans, Payton had a running back finish among the top-10 players in touches.
His ability to score from anywhere is tantalizing, but his capped usage limits how impactful he can be. Despite having the best explosive carry rate in the class, he ranked eighth in the total amount of explosive carries he created. If he's not frequently on the field, it cancels out that high rate of explosive carries, to an extent.
As a receiver, Hampton isn't quite as dynamic on a per-play basis as Henderson is, yet he still totaled the third-most receiving yards of any running back in this draft class last season, with 373 yards to Henderson's 281. The trade-off, from a production standpoint, is that Henderson averages one extra yard per reception, but with 30 targets on the season, those few extra yards aren't enough to bridge that gap.
Henderson's an excellent fit for the offense, his best moments stack up with any other back in this class, and he would immediately upgrade Denver's passing attack. He wouldn't solve the run-game problems on his own, though, which lands him third on this list.