As George Paton and Sean Payton settled into their seats Friday night, a truly chaotic day of swaps behind them, Paton grinned and leaned into the mic.

“Yeah, I’d just like to open by congratulating Sean,” the Broncos general manager said. “We had two trade-backs. We almost had three. But that was a good day.”

Payton’s aggressiveness to leap up at any slot of the NFL draft, throughout a 17-year history, has been well-chronicled. Rarely chronicled, however, has been any documented history of moving back. But a flurry of skill-position options came and went before the Broncos’ pick at No. 51 Friday night, and suddenly, Paton set about organizing chaos in a series of trade-backs to stockpile middle-round picks.

“When we made the first trade back,” Payton said at the Broncos’ post-Day 2 presser, “then George makes an announcement to the draft room that that was my first official trade-back.”

“I thought he planned it,” Payton continued. “But it was actually pretty spontaneous. And so, it was — that was funny.”

As time ticked away on Day 2 in Green Bay, the Broncos found a partner for pick-swaps with the Carolina Panthers, ultimately moving back to No. 57. In return, they moved up 11 spots in both the third and fourth rounds, a slight bump up in a class that’s been widely bemoaned for its lack of top-tier options but praised for its sheer depth.

But they weren’t done.

In subsequent minutes, Payton and Denver dangled that No. 57 to Detroit, as the Lions pounced to move up three spots and push the Broncos down to No. 60. And the Broncos ended up landing another prized fourth-rounder for their trouble, sending away a late-rounder in return.

Deep breath. Let’s recap. Denver started the evening with picks No. 51 (second round), No. 85 (third round), No. 122 (fourth round) and No. 208 (sixth round). After making a deal with Panthers and leveraging with Detroit, they ended up with No. 60 (second round), No. 74 (third round), No. 111 (fourth round), and No. 130 (fourth round).

Thusly, the Broncos essentially elected to drop nine spots in the second round and jettison a sixth-rounder to move up in the third and fourth and add another fourth-rounder — a solid value that honed in at the meat of this year’s draft class. They wound up taking UCF running back RJ Harvey at No. 60, who was widely slated as more of a mid-round fit. A source confirmed to The Post that the Broncos’ brass felt comfortable moving back from No. 51 knowing Harvey would be available nine picks later.

“Now in the stretch tomorrow and in the next two rounds, there are a lot of football players that would be, as you went around the league, would have similar grades,” Payton said on Thursday.

As the league folded up their draft rooms Friday, too, the Broncos delivered one final stroke — leveraging that additional fourth-round pick in the Lions deal to jump up to No. 101 in the third round, receiving a fourth-round pick (No. 134) in exchange for the Broncos’ remaining fourth-rounders and a sixth-rounder. They swung on LSU edge Sai’vion Jones, a 6-foot-5 force who gives the Broncos edge depth to a bunch clamoring for contract extensions.

“This guy’s long, he’s strong, plays with really good leverage, and then he’s improving as a rusher,” Paton said of Jones late Friday night.

In total, the Broncos walk away from Day 2 with three selections and two selections remaining on Day 3 — a fourth-round slot at No. 134 and a sixth-round pick at No. 191.

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Originally Published: April 25, 2025 at 7:04 PM MDT