The Broncos should have seen the Justin Joly claim coming from a mile away

Whenever an NFL team is making roster cuts, they understand that there’s a calculated risk. Release a player you like, hope he clears waivers and bring him back on the practice squad, where he can continue to develop without occupying one of the 53 active roster spots.

It’s a common strategy. It’s also one that backfires spectacularly when the rest of the league has been paying attention. The Denver Broncos just learned that lesson the hard way.

On a recent edition of “Dover and Cecil” on 104.3 The Fan, Cecil Lammey broke down the loss of tight end Justin Joly, the fifth-round pick out of North Carolina State who the Broncos released on Sunday as part of their final roster cuts.

The hope inside the building was that Joly would pass through waivers unclaimed and circle back to Denver’s practice squad. That hope lasted about as long as it took the Miami Dolphins to file the paperwork.

Lammey wasn’t surprised. He was frustrated that the Broncos apparently were.

“They should’ve known Miami was gonna pounce,” Lammey said.

He then widened the lens to explain why the expectation that Joly would clear waivers was flawed from the start.

“They should’ve known that multiple teams would have an interest in Justin Joly. Because it would be there for a talented tight end that, you know, shouldn’t have been a fifth-round pick. Probably should’ve been a fourth-, third-round pick,” Lammey said.

That assessment makes the decision even harder to defend. If the Broncos’ evaluation of Joly suggested he was a player with higher-round talent, a player who flashed an 88-yard touchdown reception in his final preseason appearance, why would they assume the rest of the league wouldn’t feel the same way? Talented tight ends with upside don’t grow on trees. Every team in the NFL is looking for one. And the Dolphins, who apparently spent the waiver wire like it was a clearance sale, made sure they got theirs.

Lammey highlighted just how aggressively Miami operated.

“And what’s funny, I guess, Miami claimed seven players. Zero of their players got claimed,” Lammey said.

That being said, the Dolphins are a team with nothing to prove this year. They have the luxury of taking flyers on every player that catches their eye. The Broncos on the other hand, don’t have that luxury. Denver is in a ‘win now’ timeline, and if they didn’t see immediate impact in Justin Joly, they didn’t need to keep him around.

The tight end room remains the most glaring hole on an otherwise loaded roster. The Broncos spent the entire offseason acknowledging the position as an area of need. They drafted Joly to begin addressing it. And now, through a decision that prioritized roster flexibility over roster security, the one developmental piece they added is catching passes in Miami.

Denver will move forward. The season opener against Kansas City is still the priority. But the sting of losing Joly to the waiver wire, at a position the Broncos desperately needed to develop, is going to linger. And Cecil Lammey wants to make sure everyone understands that the outcome wasn’t bad luck. It was predictable.

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