In the span of one red-zone snap on Sunday, the weight of the Broncos’ defensive game plan shifted squarely upon the shoulders of a 24-year-old cornerback who’s played the position for about five total years.
Coming out of high school, the 5-foot-11 Kris Abrams-Draine received offers from many of the best programs in the country to play wideout. He wanted to play wideout. He went to Mizzou, eventually, to play wideout.
But one offer from former Auburn coach Gus Malzahn still sticks in his craw, all these years later — the only offer Abrams-Draine had to play defensive back.
I don’t play DB, Abrams-Draine told Malzahn. I play receiver.
“When I look at it,’” Abrams-Draine told The Post this summer, “I was like, ‘Man, he see something in me I didn’t see in myself.’”
Abrams-Draine sees it now. He is a “gamer,” as DPOY Pat Surtain said back in camp. He adapts.
Abrams-Draine switched to CB at Mizzou after one year at WR, and grew into the Broncos’ 2024 fifth-round pick. He was the “furthest behind” of any member of his draft class in Denver, general manager George Paton said last offseason. And Abrams-Draine still managed to emerge with just a few flecks of soot after getting thrown in the fire last season, picking off Justin Herbert in a loss to the Chargers and establishing himself as a building block in a spot start.
So the Broncos trusted him enough on Sunday to chuck him in on third down at their 6-yard line against one of the best wideouts in the NFL — Dallas’ George Pickens — in his second defensive snap of the season.
Then they trusted him enough to play the second half as Denver’s erstwhile CB1, after Surtain was removed from the game with a shoulder injury.
“I think how we played was outstanding when he wasn’t in,” head coach Sean Payton said Monday. “And look, that’s a big deal, especially when a large part of your plan is dealing with rotation, and matchups, and when you’re dealing with (CeeDee Lamb and Pickens).
“And then all of a sudden, that one element goes away, it can be a little bit disruptive,” Payton continued. “But I thought Kris did a great job.”
Payton declined to share any updates on Surtain’s injury on Monday, after the star cornerback was ruled out for the entire second half in the Broncos’ 44-24 blowout of Dallas.
Late in the second half against the Cowboys, Surtain tried to wrap up Pickens and twisted 360 degrees while trying to bring the wideout down around his upper body. As Surtain got up, he grabbed at his chest and rotated his left arm in a circle. He was initially announced as questionable to return in the third quarter, but was quickly downgraded to out.
Abrams-Draine racked up eight tackles in Surtain’s absence, and he’ll have a massive role Sunday against the Texans if Surtain’s injury is bad enough to keep him out extended time. It’s a rough road for a young corner who’s still played all of 160 NFL snaps. But Abrams-Draine has been here before, between last year’s Chargers performance and a remarkable performance this preseason. He made plays on the ball constantly during training camp.
“He practices as well as anyone I’ve seen,” Broncos defensive lineman Zach Allen said Monday. “For a young guy, that’s really impressive.”
Of course, it’d be impossible to expect Abrams-Draine to replicate the reigning NFL Defensive Player of the Year’s production. Payton said Monday that the Broncos continued to play a handful of their planned coverages against Dallas, but he felt coordinator Vance Joseph “did a good job adjusting” to Surtain’s sudden absence. Abrams-Draine surrendered six catches on six targets for 78 yards in the second half. A couple, though, came in garbage time as Joseph dialed up soft coverages to keep the ball in front of the Broncos’ defense.
Abrams-Draine is comfortable in press coverage after playing healthy doses of it at Mizzou. The key to his success moving forward — with or without Surtain — is “being able to match receivers’ movement” in off coverages, a concept Abrams-Draine said this summer he was less familiar with. Twice on one third-quarter Cowboys drive, Abrams-Draine drifted away from Pickens to help shadow another receiver, eventually leading to 13-yard and 17-yard grabs for Pickens.
Replacing Surtain may well be one of the hardest tasks in the league. But Allen said the Broncos’ locker room has “full faith” in Abrams-Draine.
“Kris is a stud,” Allen said.