After bouncing between outside linebacker and inside linebacker, Drew Sanders should have some stability in 2025.
The Denver Broncos plan to deploy Sanders as an inside linebacker this season.
“[L]ast year we went into the offseason with the EDGE idea,” Broncos coach Sean Payton said at the NFL combine last month. “Then we have progressed enough to where he is going to work inside. It’s how the season finished, too. We are going to keep him right there.”
The Broncos brought in Dre Greenlaw during free agency and he will start at one of the two ILB spots. If he fully recovers from last season’s ACL injury, Alex Singleton will presumably be penciled in to start next to Greenlaw.
There’s going to be a competition, though, and Sanders (and Justin Strnad and perhaps even Levelle Bailey) will get opportunities to compete for a starting role.
“We think Sanders can be a starter in this league at linebacker,” general manager George Paton said at the combine. “Now let’s see how it goes. We’re going to keep adding good players. Competition — we just want competition at all of the positions. We’re not anointing anyone starters, but we just want to keep bringing in competition and we’ll get good results.”
The competition will heat up when the pads come on this summer. Denver had high hopes for Sanders when Paton used a third-round pick on him in the 2023 NFL draft, and if he stays healthy, the 24-year-old linebacker could be a sleeper for a breakout year this fall.
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