Inside The War Room: Who The Broncos Will Draft After Trading Marshall

No, Dez Bryant still isn't on the Broncos draft board.

Sending Brandon Marshall to Miami took less than 24 hours from the time the monster, Pro Bowler signed his tender.

If you're going to dump off a franchise player that quickly, you certainly have to have a plan in mind.

I've been laughing a little bit about the whole Marshall scenario.  He clearly is a fantastic star in the league, bound for future greatness, but people seem to forget his history.

He was drafted with a fourth round pick and the Broncos got four good seasons out of him for dirt-cheap (kickers were getting paid more than Brandon), then traded him off for two second round picks.

I mean come on people, that's like investing in Microsoft in the 80's.

McDaniels got more out of him than Shanahan would have.  He got an extra season and a couple of second round picks.  Shanahan was planning on cutting Marshall last off-season, and then he was fired.

Cutler was notorious for not getting along with Marshall.

So we got good compensation for a diva, who also happened to be a great player that we paid absolutely nothing.  I'm fine with that.

Perhaps the best news for fans is that we traded him extremely quickly, which would mean in my eyes that we have a draft plan hammered out.

For some reason, even though no one had us picking up Dez Bryant in mock drafts yesterday when we had needs at receiver, everyone has us picking him up now.

I'm here to tell you folks, we just had a big play wide receiver and wasted no time trading him away.

The brass clearly think this team can be successful without that type of player (many teams are).

One of the biggest reasons it would be foolish to invest in a big play guy is our quarterback situation doesn't facilitate big plays.  Orton isn't a deep pass guy; he is an efficient, short pass, system-type player.  We're looking for a couple of guys who compliment that, and I can tell you for certain Dez Bryant isn't one of those guys.

Realistically, we're still looking at guys like Dan Williams and Rolando McClain in the first round.  Chances are we'll spend our first pick on defense.

Then, with the depth of this receiver class, don't be surprised if we seek out familiarity with our second round picks.

Keep in mind we needed a WR before trading Marshall, so now we really need two guys.

I would be shocked if McDaniels didn't target Golden Tate at 43 because of his familiarity at Notre Dame with our current system.  He should have a relatively easy transition into Denver.  That knocks out one guy.

Then, at pick 45, don't be surprised if Xanders goes after Damian Williams.  The guy is widely hyped as the best route runner in this year's draft, and would be a great fit for any offense.

All of the sudden we have exchanged one great receiver for two, system-familiar threats that should have immediate impact.

Don't forget where Brandon Marshall came from; he was a fourth round guy.  Why would we need a first round receiver for success?

This isn't the time to be afraid of what could happen without Marshall.  We're looking for system-specific players in an extremely deep class of receivers.  Expect us to come away big without going after the biggest name in the draft.