AFC Notes: Broncos, Colts, Titans

Broncos

• Due to the fact that T Ja’Wuan James‘ injury happened away from the team, he could end up on the NFI list and Denver could decide not to pay his $10 million salary which had been fully guaranteed.
• Troy Renck reports that it is standard for teams to provide voluntary, untracked workouts for players and that teams have not been responsible for the contracts of players who are injured off-site.

Colts

Colts’ GM Chris Ballard elaborated on the selection of back-to-back pass rushers in the 2021 NFL Draft.

“I think it’s two-fold,” Ballard said, via Mike Wells of ESPN. “One, we knew we wanted to add some more young talent there. Then, that’s just kind of how it fell. When we took [Paye] with our first-round pick … he was the best player on the board at the time and fit us not only from an athletic and performance standpoint but from a character standpoint, which I think you all know that’s a premium for us, who we bring in the building. It’s hard to pass up a guy that you have that high, even with the circumstances with the injury, so it just kind of worked out that way.”

Colts’ owner Jim Irsay is excited to add to his group of pass rushers that already includes DE Kemoko Turay, LB Darius Leonard, CB Kenny Moore, and DT DeForest Buckner.

“You have to bring pressure,” Irsay said. “And I think you have to remember we have other things in the works here, including (Kemoko) Turay, including blitzing Darius or Kenny (Moore II), including DeForest, of course, but adding these edge rushers, these types of guys — and these guys are heavyweights. I mean these guys are strong heavyweight guys with great athletic ability and speed.”

Titans

An NFL executive tells Mike Sando of The Athletic the Titans have made “a lot of mishaps” with regards to their draft picks in recent years. 

“If the corner becomes a good player, God bless them, but his medical was terrible,” the exec said of first-round CB Caleb Farley. “You look at the Isaiah Wilson pick last year. Then you have (Rashad) Weaver in the fourth round this year with an assault case that comes out. Then you go back and look at all the fifth-year options that were declined, and then the one they picked up was for Adoree Jackson, who they cut. There are a lot of mishaps there that it seems like just aren’t being talked about.”

On the positive side, an NFL GM tells Sando that North Dakota State OT Dillon Radunz was a solid pick for Tennessee. 

“We liked the North Dakota State guard they took (Dillon Radunz) in the second round,” the GM said. “He could play right tackle. But we were way more worried about Farley’s back than some of the other injuries for guys in the first couple rounds.”