The Denver Broncos open their postseason on Saturday by facing a stiff challenge from the Buffalo Bills. Broncos head coach Sean Payton could be looking to pull out all the stops.
On Friday, the team made a couple of curious practice squad elevations to the 53-man roster. One of those was seventh-round pick Caleb Lohner, who has yet to play in a game all season. Lohner doesn't have much football experience in general, as he was a basketball player first.
Lohner played basketball at BYU, Baylor and Utah and it was at Utah where he also spent some time on the football team. He only caught four passes in his playing career, but all four of them were touchdowns. The Broncos saw enough in him to use their seventh-round pick in this year's draft to see if they could mold him into something.
It seemed the process to do that would take much more time, but the Broncos are looking at using him in this huge divisional playoff game. Has Sean Payton been hiding a secret weapon all season?
Lohner is a raw prospect, but his 6-foot-7-inch frame can be a huge weapon in the red zone. Antonio Gates came from the world of college basketball and is now in the Pro Football Hall of Fame and teams have long looked for the next Gates. The closest anyone has come has been Payton, who worked wonders for former tight end Jimmy Graham.
"Sell me with one clip why you would spend a draft pick on a player who didn't even have 60 college snaps"
— Sayre Bedinger (@SayreBedinger) April 30, 2025
The intrigue of Broncos 7th-rounder Caleb Lohner summed up in 20 seconds pic.twitter.com/gB9dRYofam
In New Orleans, Graham, who was a basketball player at the University of Miami, transitioned beautifully to the NFL. He became a monster in Payton's Saints offense and finished his playing career with 719 receptions, the eighth-most for a tight end in league history.
This is not to say that Lohner will end up having the kind of impact that Gates and Graham did, but there is precedent for an athletic basketball player to come in and be a productive tight end, and his head coach has seen and helped cultivate it firsthand.
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It's an interesting move by the Broncos and while Lohner could end up being on the gameday inactive list, he could also get on the field for a few snaps to give the Bills' defense something else to consider.
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