'He can play everywhere': Versatile football past fuels Broncos rookie Kris Abrams-Draine (2024)

ENGLEWOOD, Colo. — The longer Ben Blackmon stared at the problem, the more obvious the solution became.

It was 2019 and the football coach at Spanish Fort High School in Alabama believed he had a talented roster. The passing attack was humming during 7-on-7 tournaments over the summer. Expectations grew as the season approached. This was a team capable of competing for a state championship.

Then, the season started, and the ball stopped moving.

“We get through the first two weeks of the season, and we just weren’t performing,” Blackmon said. “We were 0-2 and we had to have some changes. We made some changes across the whole roster and I just said, ‘Right now, Kris has to have the ball in his hands as many times as possible.'”

Kris is Kris Abrams-Draine, the rookie cornerback for the Denver Broncos. He was supposed to catch passes in 2019 as Spanish Fort’s top wide receiver. Instead, Blackmon moved him to quarterback, hopeful that a simple idea — give the team’s best playmaker the ball as many times as possible — could create a spark.

“Coach asked me if I would play quarterback and I said, ‘Yeah.’ We just built an offense from there,” Abrams-Draine said. “It was read-option first, and if I saw an open hole, I’d take it.”

Three months later, Spanish Fort had reached the 6A state championship. Abrams-Draine rushed for nearly 1,800 yards, including a performance during the semifinals — a 27-24 victory over Opelika — in which he rushed for 308 yards and three touchdowns.

“I called an RPO in that game and they covered the RPO and blitzed,” Blackmon said. “Kris had the wits about him to pull the ball from the running back, and instead of throwing it, he just took off running it. He went (67) yards for a touchdown, and that’s what ended up winning the game.”

Barring another Kendall Hinton situation, the Broncos won’t need Abrams-Draine’s quarterbacking services. The 5-foot-11, 178-pound rookie is competing for a spot on Denver’s roster as an outside cornerback, and he’ll need to make contributions on special teams. But the adaptability and competitiveness he demonstrated while making that shift as a high school senior — and again when he switched from wide receiver to corner early in his career at the University of Missouri — are traits the Broncos saw in Abrams-Draine when making him a fifth-round pick in April’s draft. Head coach Sean Payton later said the team had graded him as a third-round player and noted the 22-year-old’s “versatility” as a significant part of the evaluation. For the Broncos, that could mean Abrams-Draine ultimately provides flexibility as an outside corner who could also shift inside.

At Spanish Fort, the scope of possibilities with Abrams-Draine was even wider.

“He can play everywhere. He’s the one kid I’ve coached where I’ve said, ‘The only place he couldn’t play is O-line and D-line,'” Blackmon said. “He could play nickel. He could play corner. He could play safety, receiver. We lined him up at running back, quarterback. That’s just who he is.”

Abrams-Draine also showed flash as a returner, taking a kickoff 100 yards for a touchdown against Tennessee as a redshirt freshman in 2021. That was the same year he moved from receiver to cornerback, and he intercepted three passes during the first season at his new position. He said seeing the game from so many different angles was a huge benefit when he transitioned to the defensive backfield, and they are experiences that are still benefitting as he wades through his first NFL training camp.

“It helped me a lot because I know that when I was at quarterback, I was looking for the easiest throw first,” said Abrams-Draine, who still managed about 800 yards passing at Spanish Fort despite being a run-first QB. “So when it’s third down, I know they’re going to the shortest, fastest route — fade routes and stuff like that. But you can’t react right away, because you have to watch the receiver. I can still be in the offensive mindset, even though I’m still playing defense. I know what types of routes they like to do and stuff like that.”

In 2023, just his third year as a full-time corner, Abrams-Draine became an All-SEC performer. He finished with four interceptions and during one stretch became the first Missouri player since 2016 to have at least one pick in three straight games. Still, the NFL represents a big jump for a player relatively new to his position. Verbiage and responsibilities came at Abrams-Draine fast during the offseason program. He struggled to unleash his fast, physical and competitive style as his brain pored over freshly downloaded buckets of information.

“His spring was a little choppy,” defensive coordinator Vance Joseph said. “He’s a young guy and it’s his first NFL camp. He wasn’t sure from a mental standpoint and a physical standpoint, but he came back confident.”

Abrams-Draine didn’t spend much time relaxing during the six-week break between OTAs and training camp. The spring had been an eye-opening lesson in how sharp he needed to be with his details. He went back over his tape and studied how his alignment impacted his chances to make plays. All the while, new secondary coach Jim Leonhard was injecting confidence into the rookie.

“He taught me that I can play how I play,” Abrams-Draine said. “If I just clean up little things, I can guard anyone in this league, anybody on the team I go against. … He’s taught me a lot in a short amount of time.”

Payton said Abrams-Draine has looked like a different player in training camp, noting the rookie was “noticeably more comfortable” and “decisive” after returning from the break. A confident Abrams-Draine attacks the football. During an intense 11-on-11 short red-zone period Thursday, Abrams-Draine was lined up across fellow rookie DeVaughn Vele on a third-and-goal play. Minutes earlier, Vele made an “incredible” one-handed catch in the back of the end zone — as offensive coordinator Joe Lombardi called it — on a fade pass from Jarrett Stidham. Now, it was rookie quarterback Bo Nix who wanted to target Vele. This time, though, Vele didn’t run the fade route. He dashed inside on a quick slant. Abrams-Draine, having paused just long enough to identify the route, burst toward the ball, deflecting Nix’s pass before it could find its target.

“Obviously, he’s not … a final product, but he’s playing well,” Joseph said. “He’s competing.”

Abrams-Draine is figuring it out on the fly, something he’s had to do on and off the field since that senior season at Spanish Fort. Five months after his team lost by one point in the state title game — a game it may have won had its quarterback not been injured in the fourth quarter — Abrams-Draine’s son was born. Kylan Abrams-Draine is 4 years old now, a constant presence around the field when his dad is playing.

“It’s been awesome, and it really changed me,” Abrams-Draine said of fatherhood. “This is my job, and I have to keep doing the best I can do to provide for my family.”

Highlights from camp’s most competitive period

The Broncos on Thursday conducted an 11-on-11 period inside the 10-yard line, and the session produced some of the biggest highlights of camp so far.

It started with Stidham’s fade pass to Vele, who brought the ball down with one hand against coverage from safety P.J. Locke. It was the biggest highlight of the summer for the 26-year-old rookie wide receiver out of Utah, but his impact has been constant.

OKAY, ROOK!

Devaughn Vele with an unbelievable catch at #BroncosCamp 🤯 pic.twitter.com/PJ0NdMcM3M

— Denver Broncos (@Broncos) August 8, 2024

“From where he was drafted (seventh round), he’s had really good performances for that,” Lombardi said. (He’s) smart. He’s obviously an older player for a rookie, so you hope with that age comes some of that maturity that we’re seeing from him. He’s been everything we’d hoped for.”

Vele needs to keep performing when competition against other teams arrives, beginning with Sunday’s preseason game in Indianapolis. But he hasn’t just been good relative to his draft position in camp. He’s been arguably Denver’s most consistent receiver overall.

Also a consistent player: Stidham. The quarterback continued his turnover-free camp Thursday and was highly efficient during his red-zone spin with the first-team offense. His throw to Vele was one of four touchdowns in as many passes. That included a tight-window throw on third down to Marvin Mims Jr. in the back of the end zone.

It wasn’t solely an offensive show, though. Rookie outside linebacker Jonah Elliss used a wicked speed-rush move to whip past offensive tackle Matt Peart and register a would-be sack on Nix. The defense later sacked Nix as he unsuccessfully tried to navigate an end-of-half scoring drive late in practice. After Elliss’ sack, the defense mobbed the rookie in celebration, just as offensive players had done with Vele. It sparked a spirited — yet tussle-free — back-and-forth between both units throughout the rest of the practice.

“Anytime these guys make a play or can celebrate together, that’s phenomenal in training camp,” outside linebackers coach Michael Wilhoite said. “I think our defense and offense today was at an all-time high in terms of competition. Everybody was ready to celebrate anything great that happened on both sides of the ball.”

(Photo: David Zalubowski / Associated Press)

Nick Kosmider is a staff writer for The Athletic covering the Denver Broncos. He previously covered the Denver Nuggets for The Athletic after spending five years at the Denver Post, where he covered the city’s professional sports scene. His other stops include The Arizona Republic and MLB.com. Follow Nick on Twitter @NickKosmider