Everyone wants to play alongside Pat Surtain II

Or maybe its that Alabama connection. Either way, Alabama defensive backs all like the idea of playing with Denver Broncos star cornerback Pat Surtain II in the NFL.

The 2024 NFL Combine is fully underway this week and that always brings some interesting storylines. One that happened a few days ago was some Alabama players noting that they would love to play alongside Denver Broncos star cornerback Patrick Surtain II.

The first came from Alabama safety Jaylen Key who said he would love to play with Surtain and how they still study his film at Bama to learn the right way to play.

Key could be a good prospect for Denver to target after the 2024 NFL Draft. He has prototypical size and is projected to go undrafted. He finished the 2023 season with 35 tackles and an interception, but is a smart football player whose game could translate at the NFL level.

He wasn’t the only Bama player to say he’d liked to play with Surtain at the NFL level. Cornerback Terrion Arnold also said it.

Arnold, a projected solid first-round pick, is a guy that Denver is unlikely to have a chance of drafting if they end up going quarterback early. He was an elite lockdown cornerback who held opposing quarterbacks to 50 passer rating last season.

Of the two, I think Key would be a realistic guy to see the Broncos target. Arnold is just too good and the Broncos too QB-needy to be available for where Arnold will end up going.

To round things out for Alabama, Kool-Aid McKinstry was asked about Surtain’s game too and felt their game is similar in style.

“We kind of have the same playing style, whether it’s playing press man or playing zone,” McKinstry said. “We came, of course, from the same college and same coach [in] Coach [Nick] Saban, so we were taught the same things. If I ever wanted to just look at something back when I was in college … I’d always pull up his film and see how he did it and just kind of add it to my game.”

McKinstry is projected to go in the late first-round, so if he slips into the second the Broncos could be able to jump up and get him. I’m not sure if they can, but it would be interesting. McKinstry held opposing quarterbacks to a 59 passer rating in 2022 and a 66 passer rating in 2023. Both excellent numbers.

Whether any of these players end up Broncos is a question for another day, but its nice to have a mega superstar on the roster that other players want to line up and play with. Been missing that with Peyton Manning and Von Miller long since gone.