Former Denver Broncos draft busts resurfacing in CFL together

A couple of former high Denver Broncos draft picks are once again on the same team. Unfortunately for the Denver Broncos, they’re now playing in the CFL on the Saskatchewan Roughriders.

Former 2016 first-round pick Paxton Lynch and 2017 third-round pick Carlos Henderson are on the Roughriders roster. Henderson re-signed with the team through the 2022 season back in January,  but Lynch was just recently signed after bouncing around the NFL a bit between the Broncos, Seattle Seahawks, and Pittsburgh Steelers.

Lynch was not on an NFL roster in 2020.

The Denver Broncos picked Lynch and his cannon of an arm out of Memphis in the 2016 NFL Draft, and traded up to do so. At the time, Lynch was clearly behind the consensus top two quarterbacks of that particular draft class — Jared Goff and Carson Wentz — but there was no doubt that the majority of scouts and analysts liked Lynch a lot better than the guy who wound up becoming the best QB of the class, Dak Prescott.

Lynch was the heir apparent to Peyton Manning for the Denver Broncos, though he certainly didn’t seem to be the Broncos’ top option that offseason. John Elway worked pretty hard to try and get Colin Kaepernick to take a pay cut in order to fit under the team’s salary cap, and had even completed a trade with the 49ers that offseason before Kaepernick declined the pay reduction and stayed one more year in San Francisco.

After missing out on Kaepernick, Elway set his sights on the draft, where he held the 31st overall pick. The Broncos outbid the Chiefs and Cowboys to move up five spots to get Paxton Lynch and he was pretty horrible from the start.

Even after showing some promise in some relief work as a rookie for starter Trevor Siemian, Lynch seemingly regressed over the course of the next two years and couldn’t stay healthy at the worst possible times. He didn’t even last the entirety of his rookie contract with the Broncos.

Perhaps the best game Lynch played as a pro was a preseason game against the Denver Broncos as a member of the Seattle Seahawks.

Even so, Lynch couldn’t stick as a project QB for either Seattle or Pittsburgh.

The CFL is probably his last real shot at being a professional football player, and he’s going to have a somewhat familiar face there to throw the ball to.

Carlos Henderson was a third-round pick (82nd overall) in the 2017 NFL Draft and for the life of me, I still can’t figure out how that one didn’t work out.

Henderson was one of the most electric players in college football in 2016 at creating yardage after the catch, a complete outlier at making plays in space.

The Denver Broncos seemed to have a steal on their hands with Henderson, who got hurt in his first NFL preseason.

He never played a single regular season snap for the Denver Broncos or any other team.

Because more than just injuries caused these players to “bust” out of the NFL, it’s hard to really wonder, “What if?” with these guys.

It’s no coincidence that, since picking players like Lynch and Henderson, the Denver Broncos have heavily emphasized high character players in the NFL Draft. That strategy has proven fruitful for them as the Broncos now have one of the more impressive all-around rosters in the NFL, even with QB questions.

Hopefully, Lynch and Henderson are able to get their professional careers on track in the 2021 season and who knows? Maybe one day we’ll see them back in the NFL again.