With the 2012 NFL Draft over and not a single game played in either the 2012 college football or NFL season, there's time to start making premature 2013 NFL mock draft, just as SB Nation's Ryan Van Bibber did just two days after draft ended. In Van Bibber's 2013 NFL mock draft, the Denver Broncos are once again a playoff team but fall short of a Lombardi Trophy. Rather, the team holds the No. 26 overall pick in this projection:
26. Denver Broncos, Tyler Eifert, TE, Notre Dame
2012 mock drafts started putting Coby Fleener here, but the Broncos thought otherwise. Eifert gives Manning another weapon.
Van Bibber was riding the Coby Fleener train for the Broncos quite hard in the final days before the 2011 NFL Draft, but this ignores Denver's two tight ends already on the roster: Joel Dreessen and Jacob Tamme. Both are under contract for three years, and while neither might be on the elite level Eifert is supposed to be as a tight end, do we really believe the Broncos would look to a tight end in the first round?
For updates, stay tuned to SB Nation Denver. For more in-depth coverage of the Broncos, check out Mile High Report. For more on the NFL Draft, stick with SB Nation NFL and Mocking the Draft.