After going undrafted, this player is consider Broncos' most important contract extension

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Players who are drafted into the NFL get most of the headlines and most of the attention. But those who pay attention to detail know how important the undrafted free-agent process is to building a winning NFL roster.

The Denver Broncos have historically been one of the best at finding productive undrafted players and Ja'Quan McMillian is the most recent example of that. McMillian joined the Broncos in 2022 out of East Carolina. In that time, he has racked up nearly 200 tackles while intercepting six passes, returning two of them for touchdowns.

He also made one of the biggest plays of the season for the Broncos in the playoffs last year.

There should be no doubt whether or not the team should offer him a contract extension; the only question is when. I recently ranked McMillian at No.1 in terms of how the team should prioritize potential contract extensions heading into the season, but that is in contrast to a recent article by Aaron Schatz of ESPN, who sees Brandon Jones as a more important player to the team.

However, when discussing the most important contract extension currently facing each team, Moe Moton of Bleacher Report went with McMillian as well.

"McMillian has excelled in his role as the primary nickelback. He's a versatile playmaker who's logged 24 pass breakups, six interceptions and seven sacks over the last three seasons. General manager George Paton called the slot defender one of the team's "core players" before retaining him on a one-year, $5.7 million restricted free-agent tender. McMillian is massively underpaid, given his value to the Broncos defense", wrote Moton.

The Broncos' front office seems to know that it needs to remedy that, as McMillian is set to be a free agent at season's end. Though there is an argument that Jahdae Barron, selected in the first round last year, needs to see the field more, it should not be at McMillian's expense.

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This will be an interesting storyline to follow as the season approaches and into the season, if it goes that far.