ENGLEWOOD, Colo. -- At a time when the transfer portal is as much a part of college football as first-and-10, the Denver Broncos assembled a 2025 NFL draft class that looks like a collection of football homebodies.
"It's not by accident," Broncos coach Sean Payton said. "There might be some coincidence in there, but in the overview, it's not by accident. Not at all."
As third-round wide receiver Pat Bryant -- who played 46 games at Illinois -- put it: "I think maybe they like guys who stayed and worked through things at one place."
The Broncos made seven selections in last month's draft, and the first six played at least 41 games at one school. Three of them -- first-round cornerback Jahdae Barron, third-round edge rusher Sai'vion Jones and sixth-round punter Jeremy Crawshaw -- topped 50 games played at their school, with Barron's 57 at Texas leading the group.
The only exception to Denver's transfer avoidance was seventh-round tight end Caleb Lohner, who played one season of football at Utah after playing basketball at BYU and Baylor.
Payton's vision and makeup of what he wanted from players in the 2025 draft class included leadership, work ethic and mental toughness. Those traits happened to fit best with a bunch of players who were willing to stick it out at their college programs for an extended period.
"You want to have a starter in pick [No.] 1, that's what you always say when you go into the this -- what's the vision we have for this player? Does he fit for us? That sort of thing and it was a big part of Jahdae's make-up," Payton said. "And you move through pick 2, pick 3, pick 4, pick 5 and pick 6 on this board ... it just kept coming up for us."
Many in the league considered the 2025 draft board more impacted by the transfer portal and NIL income than any before. Yet the Broncos were still on the hunt for players who had stayed put.
"I told people who asked me, including [the Broncos], for me it was about the right situation," said second-round rookie running back RJ Harvey, who played 41 games over four seasons at UCF. "I went from Virginia, but I didn't play any games at Virginia at quarterback. ... I got to UCF and went to running back, I made the right move for school and for position for me and my family, and it was a blessing to stay."
As recently as a decade ago, transferring only once would have been a significant red flag. The reasons for the move would have been tracked down with great zeal. But as players in recent seasons have fully embraced the freedom of the transfer portal and coaches have made it a significant part of roster building, the NFL has had to go along for the ride. (Colorado coach Deion Sanders famously told his players "to jump into that portal" in his introductory team meeting.)
Data from the NCAA highlights the transition. It stated that 1,919 undergraduate and 983 graduate football players entered the transfer portal in 2024 -- a significant uptick from 1,427 and 547 in 2022, respectively. According to the figures, 72% of the 2024 portal enrolled at a new football program, 5% returned to their former school and 23% had either not enrolled in a new program by the time the data was released or left the sport.
"[Transfers] are part of the evaluation -- like before -- but the environment around them has changed," Broncos general manager George Paton said. "You get the information as part of the process, you look at it, you talk to the player, but it's something that is so common and you look at it like you do everything else."
The Broncos also had what Payton called a "unique year" when scouting this class, as several Denver assistant coaches had first-hand, day-to-day experiences with many of the players the Broncos eventually selected.
Assistant head coach/defensive passing game coordinator Jim Leonhard spent a year at Illinois when Bryant was there, and defensive line coach Jamar Cain had spent a season as Jones' position coach at LSU. While that dynamic isn't unusual, Payton said it seemed to be more prevalent around the players they really hoped to select in this draft class.
And it resulted in the Broncos getting the type of players Payton wants as part of his program.
"I had a lot of turnover [on the coaching staff], and with some of the new arrivals and with coaches we've had, there was a lot of institutional knowledge with some of these players," Payton said. "The inside info -- who they are, that's important to us. We say tough, smart, good teammates, we say those things, but to find it, to really find it ... that's what you want.
"In this group, we found it in players who had stayed and played where they were for longer than a lot of guys."