You can’t get much closer to a Super Bowl than the Broncos did last year. Losing by 3 points in the Conference Championship game while your starting quarterback watches from the sidelines … you can’t really get closer than that. There are two ways 2026 can go, then. Either the team has Bo Nix back on the field and can take the next step that it came just short of a year ago. Or last year was the team’s chance, the Broncos slip a bit (or a lot) in 2026, and they always look back on last year’s game against the Patriots with a huge sense of “what if.” Or they get exactly as far again and then have to go with Jarrett Stidham another time. I guess that’s possible. How wild would that be?
2026 Sleepers, Busts & Bold Predictions: Denver Broncos
Sleeper: Justin Joly, TE
Evan Engram last year put up 102.8 PPR points. That was two things: It was the most point a Denver tight end has scored since Noah Fant left. And it was also TE29 last year. In other words, the Broncos have cycled through tight ends in recent years (Engram, Greg Dulcich, Albert Okwuegbunam, Adam Trautman and others) and haven’t found anyone even kind of good enough. Joly might not be that either. There’s a reason he fell to the fifth round of this year’s draft. But he was the Senior Bowl TE MVP and one of the favorites of our Tyler Orginski in the draft buildup, and the Day 3 slide was a bit of a surprise. Check out what Orginski said before the draft:
Joly isn’t a fantasy draft target outside of dynasty leagues (and even then he’s a late pick). But keep a close eye on him early. Because it won’t even take much of a pop for him to be the best Denver tight end in a long time, and if he can impress early, he could be a very nice waiver claim in the back half.
Bust: Courtland Sutton, WR
Only eight receivers have more PPR points in the last two years than Sutton’s 460.0. He’s outscored George Pickens, Zay Flowers, A.J. Brown, Nico Collins and more. In 2024, that was in part because he was the only relevant receiver on the team — Devaughn Vele was second among the WRs in targets, and Troy Franklin and Marvin Mims Jr. hadn’t gotten going. Last year, Sutton was still the clear WR1, but he went from having 80 more targets than second-place Vele to only 20 more than second-place Franklin. In other words, he’s probably still the WR1 but not overwhelmingly so. And now, with Jaylen Waddle in town, Sutton might slide to the WR2, and with a lot more mouths to feed than normal. His ceiling is firmly capped now.
Bold Prediction: The Broncos Don’t Have a Top-40 RB
RJ Harvey finished as the RB20 in PPR leagues last year. J.K. Dobbins was the RB18 through Week 10 before getting hurt. And yet this year, there isn’t a Broncos running back I’d want to touch at all. Why? Because I like them all. Harvey will be the primary receiving threat out of the backfield. Last year, he turned that into 58 targets, 47 receptions, 356 yards and 5 touchdowns. I’ll take the under on those numbers, but not by much. He will catch passes. Dobbins will, at least at the start of the season, get the bulk of the carries. Last year, he averaged 15.3 carries per game. Harvey averaged 5.0 when Dobbins played, 12.8 when he was out. He’s going to be the early-down back. And then there’s Washington rookie Jonah Coleman, the team’s fourth-round pick in the draft. He’s 5-foot-8 and 220 pounds, and that low center of gravity is all but certain to lock him into the goal-line role in this offense even if nothing else comes of it. Add it all up, and if I’m picking one back that I have to use in Denver in 2026, it’s Harvey because of the receiving, but ultimately, I think they all cannibalize one another to the point that none is a fantasy factor this year.
