The shadow of Josh McDaniels no longer lingers over the Broncos, but his first draft as head coach continues to confound and disappoint them.
With Robert Ayers' recent demotion to the second team, the Broncos' 10-man 2009 draft class includes no current starters. Three years later, just three players from the classremain on the roster: Ayers, fellow first-rounder Knowshon Moreno and fourth-round pick David Bruton.
Most damning of all is that the draft included five picks in the first two rounds, a result of the trade of Jay Cutler and other subsequent swaps that the wheeling-and-dealing McDaniels made. The entire second-round class of CB Alphonso Smith, S Darcel McBath and TE Richard Quinn is gone; Smith was traded in 2010 and McBath and Quinn were cut last year.
The five drafts from 2005-09 offer a reminder of how fallow the Broncos were when John Elway assumed control of football operations in January 2011. Denver made 36 picks in that span, but just seven remain and only three of whom are on the first team: DE Elvis Dumervil, RG Chris Kuper and LT Ryan Clady. By contrast, the 2010-11 drafts contributed seven current starters.
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