Dalton Risner Dishes on Broncos Visit, John Elway, Vic Fangio and Why It Would Be “Awesome” to Work with Mike Munchak by Sean Keeler Denver Post April 9, 2019
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Dalton Risner dishes on Broncos visit, John Elway, Vic Fangio and why it would be “awesome” to work with Mike Munchak By Sean Keeler Denver Post April 9, 2019 Mike Munchak was jazzed enough with the game tape. But when Dalton Risner, unprompted, told him what a pleasure it was to talk shop with the No. 8 pick in the 1982 NFL draft, the Broncos’ new offensive line coach knew right away that this was a kid who didn’t skimp on his homework. “I think he was definitely impressed,” Risner, the Wiggins native and former All-American offensive lineman at Kansas State told The Post of his recent visit to Dove Valley. “He didn’t say anything. But he gave me a smile. “With the Broncos staff, I didn’t just say, ‘I’m a fan.’ I could tell you a fact about every one of those coaches. I hope they were impressed with what I did. I think it went great.” The 6-foot-5, 312-pound Risner, who spent Monday meeting with Washington Redskins officials, gushed about his recent tour and interview at the Broncos’ headquarters, and how stoked he was to get an up close look at the team he grew up rooting for on the plains of Morgan County. “Just for me to be able to be at the Broncos’ facility, a team that I watched growing up — I walked by Joe Flacco and the guys in the locker room,” Risner recalled. “And to sit down and talk to (general manager) Mr. (John) Elway and to talk with Coach Munchak and Coach (Vic) Fangio, that whole staff, it was just a blessing. I was beaming ear-to-ear.” Some offensive line coach is going to beaming, too, if they get the chance to choose Risner. The leading draftniks peg the former K-State standout as being taken anywhere from late in the first round to early in the third. NFL.com analyst Charles Davis recently projected the tackle being snapped up by New England at pick No. 32; while the site’s Lance Zierlein tapped the Wiggins native to Oakland at No. 27. NFL.com rates Risner as the third-best tackle prospect available, with a 6.03 grade (out of 10) that projects him as someone who “should be an instant starter” in the league. CBSSports.com lists the Coloradoan as the No. 8 offensive lineman on the board but the 33rd-best pick overall. Risner said he’d love a chance to learn under the tutelage of Munchak, a Pro Football Hall of Fame inductee and a nine-time Pro Bowl selection who joined the Broncos in January as line coach after holding the same position over the previous five seasons with Pittsburgh. “He’s amazing at his job,” Risner said. “He’s a legend among offensive linemen. Not only him, but (assistant offensive line coach) Christopher Kuper … we talked ball, man, it was awesome. “I think it was a blast to show them I understand the game of football and what I bring to the table. It was awesome to look back with those guys and have them break down the good things I did and the bad things I did and where they see me playing in the future.” Risner, who started at both center and tackle at various points in his college career, said Elway, Fangio and Munchak seemed to be impressed with his ability to play any position along the line. Elway last month made Ja’Wuan James the league’s highest-paid right tackle (four years, up to $52 million) by signing him away from Miami. Starting left tackle Garett Bolles, meanwhile, is heading into the third season of a four-year, $11-million rookie contract. Chris Harris Jr. could get a new deal, but it won't be without a bumpy ride By Jeff Legwold ESPN.com April 9, 2019 Denver Broncos cornerback Chris Harris Jr. is now in territory where Von Miller, Peyton Manning and a long list of Denver Broncos players have been before: facing John Elway over money. And Elway, the Broncos' president of football operations/general manager, has developed a reputation as an ice-water-filled supervisor of the team’s checkbook. As former linebacker DeMarcus Ware once said as he was contemplating his retirement or a possible return to the team in 2017: “You can want to come back, you can think you have a number in mind that it would take, you can think how you want it to be, what your role is, but eventually, the Broncos -- John Elway -- has to agree with that too. And that’s the business. ..." The bottom line is, if Elway wants to retain a player for the Broncos, a deal gets done. And all indications are that the Broncos want a deal done with Harris so he can essentially finish his career where it started as an undrafted rookie in 2011. But if the negotiations with the high-profile players who came before him are any indication, it most certainly will be far from a smooth ride. So, Harris has not reported for the Broncos’ voluntary offseason program because he’d like a contract extension, and Elway has said he won’t address it until after the draft. “Once we get through the draft, we’ll see where we are, we’ll see where we are budget-wise," Elway said. "Obviously, Chris has been a good football player for us for a long time. We’ll have to see where that goes. It’s something that we’d like to look at." And there you have the themes that have been in every major negotiation the team has had on Elway’s watch -- with Broncos director of football administration Mike Sullivan -- that Elway routinely says the new deal “has to make sense" and that he always says he needs to “see where we are budget-wide." One of the most familiar missives has been “we want to keep everybody, but there’s only so much money." That’s the situation as the Broncos have moved through their big-ticket business in free agency, including the trade for quarterback Joe Flacco, with his $18.5 million salary for 2019, to go with $105 million worth of contracts to tackle Ja'Wuan James and cornerbacks Kareem Jackson and Bryce Callahan. The Broncos, with family ownership, have always had to time their spending to when the cash came in and then when the cash went out. Even in the free-agency pursuits of Mike Shanahan to Manning’s arrival to Miller’s $114.5 million deal in the summer of 2016. For his part, Harris is about to enter the last year of the five-year, $42.5 million deal he signed in 2015. And by any reasonable analysis of the deal in the NFL marketplace, it has been a bargain for the Broncos given his high performance at a high-demand position. If they needed a reminder, the Broncos were 6-6 this past season after a Dec. 2 win in Cincinnati, but his value was clear after he fractured a leg in that game and the Broncos lost the last four games when Harris didn’t play. Now the Broncos, with a new coaching staff in place, are trying to dig out from playoff misses for the past three seasons, including back-to-back seasons of double-digit losses, so Harris has made it clear his career clock is ticking. “It’s late in my career and I can’t waste any years anymore," Harris said earlier this offseason. “It’s time for me to win. I always wanted to retire here and finish my career here, but I’m ready to see what changes and things we do." It was Elway, however, who looked at Manning, after a 39-touchdown season in 2014 (the second- highest single-season total in franchise history), and asked him to take a pay cut that was far heftier than the $4 million cut Manning eventually agreed to after some terse negotiations. And it was Miller, during his holdout and following his Super Bowl MVP performance, who famously cropped Elway out of a photo during the team’s White House visit. It hasn't always been pretty and there is no guaranteed outcome, but history has shown if the two sides can push through the bumpy ride, they’ll get to where they want to go. If not, Harris will join the list of the team's Super Bowl veterans he has said have “nothing guaranteed for them" as the team tries to climb out of its current struggles. ‘You gotta put in years. Not just one good year’: Broncos’ 2018 class embrace Year 2 expectations By Nicki Jhabvala The Athletic April 9, 2019 Von Miller couldn’t contain his excitement. On the first evening of the 2018 NFL draft, Miller watched from an expansive hotel suite in Las Vegas, listening keenly as the No. 5 pick was announced on the telecast from Dallas. The name “Bradley Chubb” elicited an eruption of cheers on the telecast from Dallas where the draft was held. But a bigger celebration ensued in Vegas, as Miller danced around and squealed with glee. He knew what the selection meant. He knew what having another elite edge rusher alongside him could mean for the Broncos. He knew the potential Chubb possessed as arguably the top defender on the board. What Miller perhaps didn’t know at the time was just how much the Broncos’ 2018 rookie class would contribute, and just how much the expectations would rise after Year One.