The Denver Broncos have signed seven undrafted free agents.  They now dropped the following press release, with brief bios on all seven new rookie Broncos. Find it after the jump.

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Linebacker Wesley Woodyard of Kentucky was the SEC’s leading tackler, playing both linebacker and safety for the UK Wildcats. Most people had him rated as a 3rd or 4th round pick, so finding him on the market the day after the draft was extremely surprising. After talking with different teams over Sunday evening, he agreed to sign with Denver and marks the seventh undrafted rookie the Broncos will bring in.

With the addition of these seven undrafted players, the Broncos had to make room to fit under their 80-man roster. Seven players were let go.

The players released were DT Michael Bozeman, S Steve Cargile, OL Mark Fenton, FB Steven Jackson, LB William Kershaw, FB Paul Smith, and RB Marquis Weeks.

Smith is the most surprising – he didn’t have the big impact on special teams the Broncos were hoping he would, but that was largely due to him being consistently double teamed. Other surprises are Cargile and Fenton. Cargile saw game time in 2007 and I had heard from various sources that the Broncos were high on Fenton.

WR Lorne Sam (6′ 2 3/8″ 218lbs) has been signed as undrafted free agent. And like another former undrafted wide receiver, Rod Smith (6’0″ 200lbs), he comes to the Broncos with some passing skills.

In High School, Lorne earned All-State honors as a senior after leading the team to a 15-0 record and a state title. That year he completed 61 of 115 passes for 1,439 yards and 15 touchdowns (only 1 INT). He also ran for 548 yards and four touchdowns on 64 carries (8.6 avg).

He joined UTEP after spending two seasons with the Seminoles. Including his time at Florida State, Here are his college stats:

AS A RECEIVER:
He caught 64 passes for 934 yards (14.6-yard average) and one touchdown.

AS A RUNNER:
He also Carried 77 times for 436 yards (5.7-yard average) and four scores.

AS A PASSER:
Completed 13 of 25 passes (52.0%) for 185 yards, three touchdowns and three interceptions.
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According to Scout.com Denver will only have one Abdullah in the backfield this year. It appears that Bronco safety Hamza’s ‘little’ brother has signed with the Minnesota Vikings today. Husain Abdullah had hoped to land in Denver, but Shanahan drafted Josh Barrett this weekend instead.

Husain Abdullah’s NFL Scouting Report

So, we have ourselves a new placekicker, rookie undrafted free agent Garrett Hartley.

Hartley is from Texas and is about as laid back as you can get. He has the calm personality that Jason Elam always impressed me with although Gerratt seems a bit more on the hippy end of that persuasion.

In High School Hartley set a national record for points in a career by a kicker. His longest FG was 52 yards and he dominated on kickoffs, posting 86% touchbacks.

At Oklahoma, he took over half way through his freshman year. He had a modest year in terms of Field Goals, but did very well on kickoffs. He had 33 touchbacks out of 67 kicks. He averaged 58.5 yards on kickoffs and had only one kickoff go out of bounds.

In 2006 he exploded with a near perfect 19 of 20 FG attempts (his one miss was blocked by no fault of his own). That 95% was enough to led the nation among kickers with more than 10 attempts that year. He also nailed PAT’s (49 of 50) and continued to do well on kickoffs with 31 touchbacks out of 78 kickoffs.

His senior year slumped a bit as he made only 13 of 15 FG’s and 71 of 76 PAT. He did kick his career longest FG against Utah State (53 yards) and continued to do well on kickoffs.

Here is a video of Garrett leading into his senior year. You definitely get a feeling of his calmness and humility.

I like the kid. What do you think?

We reported last night that University of Houston running back Anthony Alridge had been signed by the Broncos. Consider that report confirmed – along with five other names to add to the list.

Here’s a quick snippet on each guy, we’ll be breaking down all the draft picks and the UDFA’s throughout the week in much more detail.

• OL Mitch Erickson (South Dakota St)
• K Garrett Hartley (Oklahoma)
• P Brett Kern (Toledo)
• OT Tyler Polumbus (Colorado)
• WR Lorne Sam (Texas El Paso)

The Broncos have also been trying to sign Kentucky LB Wesley Woodyard, but it sounds like he’s talking to a few different teams. We’ll keep you posted.

• Who had the best draft? Football field not required. Broncos: B [Yahoo! Sports]
• More grades. Broncos: C+ [ESPN]
• More grades. Broncos: D+ [USA Today]
• Through it all, Shanahan says we’re better, and I agree. [Rocky Mountain News]
• What?! Never heard of Tom Nalen, Mr. Lichtensteiger? [Denver Post]
• The Broncos kept seeing their targeted guys fall to them. [Rocky Mountain News]
• RB Torain has first round talent, according to Shanahan. [Rocky Mountain News]
• The Broncos draftees are high character guys. Great article. [Denver Post]
• Quick scouting reports on each day 2 draftee. [Denver Post]
• Matt Prater has the edge in the kicker contest. [Denver Post]
• Most teams take a need-based approach come draft day. Plus some more “grades.” [Rocky Mountain News]
• Horrible weekend for CO sports. [Denver Post]

So, I’ve read up on the Bronco’s 2008 draft – which finished up a couple of hours before I rolled back into Knoxville from my family camping trip this weekend.

I’ll start off by saying, ‘thank you’ to all of our friends and supporters here at BroncoTalk for your feedback and participation throughout the draft and our live-blogs this weekend. I was very excited to read through the archived chat and see what your thoughts and feelings were as the draft took place (it was almost compensation for missing the whole thing up in the woods).

We have some of the best readers, contributors and commentators in the blog-o-sphere and I can’t thank you enough!

My second thoughts were that I was very pleased with our draft this year. As you all know by now, I’m not a college football guy, and I don’t go overboard with draft prospects and the like. So I pretty much stay out of the scouting and evaluating aspects of the draft (I’ll let Kyle predict Mike Shanahan’s draft day picks – he seems to be doing a pretty good job so far!). The reason I feel pleased with this year’s draft is that I believe Denver has solidified areas that were thin or may have needed an infusion of youth. I know we didn’t solve every problem, but for the most part I think we came out of this draft with some very good players.

And now, I think I’ll begin from the end of the draft and work my way forward. I’m not going into each of the picks, but I would like to chat with you about the picks that excited me in one way or another this year.

PEYTON HILLIS:
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We’ve just caught wind of an unconfirmed report that the Denver Broncos have already made a splash in the undrafted free agent market. The Broncos reportedly signed University of Houston running back Anthony Alridge, according to this Houston Chronicle blog. The report seems legitimate, as the author says he spoke to Alridge and quotes him several times during the article.

Alridge (5-9, 170) has very great quickness and is a threat to go the distance each time he touches the ball. Although he’s been fairly durable in college, most scouts look at his height and weight and don’t project him to be able to take a running back’s pounding at the pro level.

Alridge says a current Bronco had a lot to do with his recruitment there:

“Teams like Denver, Atlanta and Chicago liked me, but everyone talked about me being a ‘tweener. It was like nobody wanted to draft a guy who was between a running back and a wide receiver. I have a friend there (in Denver) from my hometown (Denton) named Jarvis Moss, so it should be a good transition for me.”

Alridge won’t let his critics dictate his success, though.

“I’ve got to make people pay for not drafting me. You know me – that’s going down. People are going to pay for that. You can tell everyone – that’s going down.”

An undersized guy with a ton of talent and a huge chip on his shoulder? Where have we heard that one before? He’s a nice complement to 5th round pick Ryan Torain, who projects to be a more bulky power runner. If the report is true, and it sounds like it is, he’ll certainly compete for a special teams returner spot as well.

The 2008 NFL Draft is in the books – and the Denver Broncos came away with nine players. They addressed offense with their first three selections, then selected defensive players with four of the remaining six picks.

1. (12) OT Ryan Clady, Boise St
2. (42) WR Eddie Royal, Virginia Tech
4. (108) C Kory Lichtensteiger, Bowling Green
4. (119) CB Jack Williams, Kent St
5. (139) RB Ryan Torain, Arizona St
5. (148) DT Carlton Powell, Virginia Tech
6. (183) LB Spencer Larsen, Arizona
7. (220) S Josh Barrett, Arizona St
7. (227) FB Peyton Hillis, Arkansas

Overall the Broncos found a lot of value for most of these guys, particularly in the first, sixth, and seventh rounds. We’ll have a ton more on every new Bronco draftee, including in-depth player breakdowns, highlights, roster speculation and more!