Here's why trading up to draft a quarterback is very much in play for the Denver Broncos

Saturday, I reported that the Broncos had not made a call to Atlanta about trading up to the No. 4 overall pick. Five days later, Broncos general manager George Paton said that he had not made any calls about moving up in the draft, period.

“We haven’t made any calls yet to move up. We’ve received calls to move back,” Paton said at his pre-draft press conference Thursday inside the Pat Bowlen Fieldhouse.

That doesn’t mean ascending within the top 10 picks is off the table.

“If we feel a player is good enough to go up and get,” Paton said. “There may be players in this draft that are worthy of that.”

Immediately, that turns the spotlight to the quarterback class — a “very strong” group, as Paton described it.

“It just kind of depends what flavor you want. But I do think it’s a strong class,” he said. “There could be five, maybe six, drafted in the first round. So that’s always really strong. It’s a really good class.”

And it could be a class worthy of five in the top 10, as Paton noted, which puts the Broncos in the crosshairs with the No. 9 pick.

There have already been two trades in the first 10 selections. San Francisco moved up to No. 3 by trading with Miami, and then the Dolphins turned around and moved back into the top 10 after getting the 49ers’ No. 12 overall pick.

But in the 49ers’ case, they had a better idea of the quarterbacks available to them than the Broncos do if they decided to trade up to the 4th through 8th slots.

“This is a draft-day trade, because you don’t know if that player is going to be there,” Paton said. “Typically, these happen when they’re on the clock.

“If we were to move up [now],” Paton added a moment later, “we’re not sure that the player we move up for is going to be there.”

Paton knows all about this sort of deal. During his 14-season stint with the Vikings, they were often in pick-accumulation mode — both through trades down and the compensatory pool. That trend hit its apex last year, when the Vikings had a league-leading 15 draft choices.

But they also moved up twice in the first round — although they did so by moving back in from early in Round 2.

During the 2012 draft, the Vikings moved up six slots, turning their No. 35 overall pick early in the second round into the No. 29 pick in Round 1. It cost them a fourth-round pick to do it, and the product of that trade — safety Harrison Smith — became a five-time Pro Bowler.

Two years later, Minnesota turned their No. 40 pick into the last pick of the first round — again for a fourth-round pick. The Vikings used that pick to select quarterback Teddy Bridgewater, who appeared on his way to being the Vikings’ franchise quarterback before he suffered a horrific knee injury during a preseason practice in 2016.

Per the Jimmy Johnson draft-value chart, the Vikings’ 2012 trade involved surrendering 658 points of draft capital for the No. 29 pick, worth 640 points. Two years later, the No. 32 pick received by the Vikings was worth 590 points, coming a the expense of 578 points of draft capital.

Going from the No. 9 to Detroit’s No. 7 pick would require making up a capital gap of 150 points. A deal that had similar balance to those 2012 and 2014 trades would involve the Broncos sending their No. 9 and No. 71 overall picks — total point value of 1585 — to Detroit for the No. 7 and No. 112 picks, which have a total value of 1570.

But the “quarterback premium” — a trend in recent drafts that has seen teams surrender more draft capital than they receive in order to move up and select a passer — could take the No. 112 pick out of play, leaving the Broncos moving up from No. 9 to Detroit’s No. 7 spot for a third-round pick.

Moving up from No. 9 to No. 6 in a deal with Miami would take a bit more. A fair deal in terms of draft value would involve the Broncos’ second-round pick (No. 40 overall) going to Miami, with a third-round pick (No. 81) coming back in exchange. Denver would absorb a 65-point loss in draft capital on the Johnson chart in this deal, but the “quarterback premium” would make such a swap palatable.

These are the types of reasonable, react-to-the-board trade that could happen on draft night if a quarterback the Broncos covet does not go off the board in the first three picks — and if Atlanta and Cincinnati stand pat.

Such chatter will continue as long as the quarterback room remains a question, even though Paton said, “We do like Drew Lock.”

And it took only a moment after the press conference began for Ryan O’Halloran of The Denver Post to get straight to the point.

“One position you haven’t addressed this offseason is quarterback,” O’Halloran asked. “As you’ve dug into Drew Lock’s first two years, do you feel like if you go forward with him in Week 1, he can help you win games?”

Paton’s response included praise of Lock’s offseason work, but was decidedly non-committal about Lock even starting Week 1.

“Yeah, I don’t know about Week 1,” Paton said. “We’re really high on Drew. I like seeing Drew here every morning when I come in. He’s working hard. He’s trending in the right direction. As you know, he has a lot of talent. I think he’s becoming a better pro.

“But we’re going to still look at the quarterback position. I’ve said since I got here, we want to bring in competition, and that’s the goal, and we plan on doing that.”

It is simply a question of what type of competition. But with one week left before the draft, a first-round quarterback — and even one acquired after trading up within the top 10 — is very much in play.

It just might take a week for the details and situation to fall into place.

And considering that Lock doesn’t have the starting job hammered down, the Broncos are firmly in the quarterback derby.