Broncos Mailbag: How will Evan Engram produce in Sean Payton’s offense?

Denver Post Broncos writer Parker Gabriel posts his Broncos Mailbag weekly during the season and periodically during the offseason Click here to submit a question As it stands so far which Denver position groups get you warm and fuzzy and which ones give you agita Ed Helinski Auburn N Y Hey Ed thanks for writing in and getting us going this week One more small step toward the season this week as Denver gets on the field for its first set of organized gang exercises That makes it as good a time as any during the offseason to tackle this question There s no reason to feel anything but good about what the Broncos have going at the line of scrimmage on both sides of the ball They ve stayed remarkably healthy in both groups over the past two years but let s give a slight edge to the defensive line For all the talk about the free-agent additions of safety Talanoa Hufanga inside linebacker Dre Greenlaw and tight end Evan Engram the Broncos got one of their the majority critical pieces of offseason business done the day before the free agency negotiating window opened in March That of subject was getting D J Jones re-signed on a three-year million deal Denver made a couple of substantial changes last year that unleashed the group as a whole They made Jamar Cain the defensive line coach and added Malcom Roach via free agency and John Franklin-Myers via bargain This offseason was about retention in getting Jones back and also about future planning by drafting Sai Vion Jones in the third round of the draft They ve got enviable depth with Zach Allen as a nearly every-down force Roach and Jones as high-end run defenders and Franklin-Myers as one of the most of consistent and allegedly underrated pass-rushing big men in football Jordan Jackson took a nice step forward last year as the fifth guy in the rotation Now the Broncos add an athletic versatile guy in Sai Vion Jones who is built like Franklin-Myers Big long arms powerful and with the expected to play a couple of different spots That s before you get to guys like picks Eyioma Uwazurike and Matt Henningsen and a handful of others on the roster What the group looks like beyond this year remains to be seen with Allen Roach and Franklin-Myers all entering contract years Allen would seem like a safe bet for an extension but it s going to be tough to get all three back That s a matter for another day however This group s got talent balance depth chemistry and now a shot of youth Related Articles Broncos elect late great WR Demaryius Thomas to Ring of Fame in first year of eligibility Renck vs Keeler Peyton Manning or Sean Payton Who makes better Olympic flag football coach Why Broncos rookie Jeremy Crawshaw s punting coach in Australia thinks he s about to get much better Renck Bo Nix behind Drake Maye Bryce Young Broncos QB will prove a lot of people wrong in Year Broncos Journal What would extension values look like for Zach Allen Nik Bonitto Courtland Sutton Agita good word The Broncos have definitely spent the offseason attacking weaknesses and look at this point like they ve got a balanced relatively deep roster It d be easy to still say running back or tight end but I ll buck the trend here a bit and say outside linebacker with an obvious caveat They re good as constructed But if either Nik Bonitto or Jonathon Cooper misses time with an injury how big would the drop be Part of that question is about the fact that you ve got two really good players at the top of the room And perhaps Jonah Elliss or Dondrea Tillman would make a big jump if needed But if you re going through the list and ranking where an injury would hurt depth the greater part that d be pretty high up there Parker what can we expect out of Evan Engram in a Sean Payton offense Vince Westminster Well if he stays healthy it s hard to imagine him being anything other than the majority productive receiving tight end the Broncos have had in more than a decade That might sound like hyperbole but it s really more a function of the fact that Denver hasn t had a multitude of bountiful tight end seasons in the passing contest in up-to-date franchise history In fact the last guy to crest yards for the club was Julius Thomas in In Engram s past two healthy seasons he s gone for and yards Even with a campaign limited to nine games by injury Engram s receiving totals his final two years in Jacksonville are catches targets for yards and five touchdowns The Broncos tight end totals under Payton the past two seasons catches for yards and nine touchdowns Payton loves to use the tight end in any number of tactics He ll try to get Engram free up the sideline and in good matchups to work vertically up the seam but there are a lot of possibilities underneath too Even with the limited production from the group over the past two years you ve seen Adam Trautman sit in the middle of the field against zone coverage or running the little underneath crosser Add a little juice after the catch in those scenarios and maybe a -yard gain turns into You d expect Engram to play detached from the formation a lot basically like a big slot That allows him to work a lot of different parts of the field Obviously so a multitude of of the New Orleans highlights are Jimmy Graham Moss-ing somebody in the back of the end zone And the Broncos are banking on Engram to be a red zone threat But a lot of the benefit in having a guy like Engram and a running back who s a threat in the passing battle is the ability to work the first two levels of the defense in the middle of the field Here s part of what Payton commented earlier this spring We ve talked about it for two years now The interior triangle of your passing tournament is the tight end the running back and the third receiver When you re seeing a lot of these coverage shell looks those positions have to thrive He added that just geographically speaking The very logistical answer to your question is Engram is closer to Bo than the receivers sometimes The matchups inside it s hard to play that position if you re not able to attack the interior triangle of several of the looks we re getting defensively How does Audric Estime fit into the running backs room RJ Harvey feels like the frontrunner for RB And Jaleel McLaughlin has been solid his first two years here Is Estime the third guy on the depth chart Mark Arvada Hey Mark yeah good question That ll be one of the foremost position battles to watch through the rest of the offseason plan and training camp Obviously each guy is going to have to produce in order to secure a role but the thing Estime has going for him at least from here is play style He s a big physical back Harvey McLaughlin Tyler Badie and Blake Watson aren t all the same kind of back but Estime s different physically It s really too early to know but on paper you can see a natural pairing between Harvey and Estime and then one of McLaughlin or Badie as the change-of-pace guy When Estime was drafted last spring Payton explained the early vision for him was as an early down back and then they d have to see how the receiving stuff came long We didn t see much of that last year but it s worth remembering that Estime was one of the youngest players in the NFL and certainly one of the youngest running backs He s got a lot of maturation still ahead of him Now if McLaughlin Badie or Watson is just more productive day in and day out during training camp he could get passed up He doesn t have a spot just because he s big and strong The Broncos though believe in his talent They obviously liked what they saw from Badie before the Week back injury too From here again with months before any actual games are played it looks like McLaughlin s got a big fight on his hands to stay in the mix as a regular in the encounter plan But he s overcome a lot and has proven people wrong time and again Not only that but last year he was their best bet on the goal line and in the red zone despite being the smallest of their backs Bottom line It s shaping up to be a fun training camp fight to watch Want more Broncos news Sign up for the Broncos Insider to get all our NFL analysis