Was the Broncos 2023 draft class really the league’s worst?

The Broncos 2023 draft class featured a Pro Bowler in wide receiver Marvin Mims Jr., who earned his selection for his work as a punt returner.

It wasn’t enough to keep the Broncos from the bottom spot in a recent evaluation of last year’s draft classes by NFL.com.

The question is simple: Could a class that featured an accomplished rookie in Mims — despite having just five picks — truly be the worst in the NFL?

“That was just what they did as rookies,” said NFL.com’s Chad Reuter, who helped compile the evaluation along with Eric Edholm. “It’s not the long-term grade for these guys.”

And one other factor came into play.

You can probably guess what it is.

“The other thing that goes into that is they gave up their two top picks for Russell Wilson, who is now going to be gone,” Reuter explained on Monday’s edition of Orange and Blue Today. “So, you have to consider that as part of their draft. As for Year One, I don’t know how you give them a passing grade here.”

It’s hard to argue otherwise when considering the Wilson trade, which shredded the Broncos’ draft capital for the 2022 and 2023 classes. Only a midseason trade of Von Miller in 2021 and a trade up — five picks, to be exact — last year allowed the Broncos to pick before Round 3.

Not until this year could the Broncos begin to recover.

BY THE NUMBERS OF THE BRONCOS 2023 DRAFT CLASS

A look at where the Broncos 2023 draft class stands in Pro Football Reference’s weighted approximate value metric is illuminating.

Similar to wins above replacement in baseball, weighted AV distills a player’s performance down to a number, relative to the quality of players at their position.

This — along with using the Fitzgerald-Spielberger draft-pick value chart, which is based on draft results since 2011 — allows for a measurement based on the Broncos’ draft capital.

Last year, the Broncos ranked 31st in draft capital according to the Fitzgerald-Spielberger chart. Only Miami — with a league-low four draft picks — had less.

WIth that in mind, this is how the draft class looked across the board.

• Total weighted AV: 8
  • Rank: T-28th of 32
• Weighted AV per pick: 1.6
  • Rank: 24th of 32
• Weighted AV relative to pick value: 1 point of AV for every 384.8 points draft value
  • Rank: 24th of 32

The team immediately below Denver — the Carolina Panthers — had 14 points of weighted AV from its draft class, including 6 from No. 1 overall pick Bryce Young. But the value of the top pick also drags the Panthers’ overall value down.

Now, one area in which the Broncos came up short regarding weighted AV was in measuring each of their 2023 picks relative to the five picks immediately before and after Denver’s selection.

Only with Mims did the Broncos exceed the average of picks made within five spots of Denver’s own, with Mims’ AV of 5 nearly doubling the average of players selected in his range last year.

• WR Marvin Mims Jr.: 5 AV points, 2.54 points above average in 5-pick radius
• LB Drew Sanders: 2 AV points, 0.18 points below average in 5-pick radius
• CB Riley Moss: 1 AV point, 2.64 points below average in 5-pick radius
• S JL Skinner: 0 AV points, 0.91 points below average in 5-pick radius
• C Alex Forsyth: 0 AV points, 0.29 points below average in 5-pick radius

Sanders, Moss and Forsyth are seen as potential starters by general manager George Paton. So there is a very real chance this exercise might look grossly different in a year.

But that being said, Mims’ performance alone is enough to ensure that the 2023 draft class itself — independent of the Wilson trade — wasn’t the NFL’s worst last year.

It wasn’t great. Or even average. But it wasn’t dead last.