Q >> Can we trust Riley Moss after his rough game against the Bengals? He did not look 100% out there. And what’s going on with the defense? We gave up over 30 points in three of the last four games.

— Reggie L., Denver

Parker >> Hard to believe we’ve reached the end of the regular season already. Seems like we just were fielding questions about Riley Moss and whether he’d win the starting job in training camp, what the 53-man roster would look like, etc.

Sean Payton made what I thought was a pretty fair point on his conference call Monday: It’s one thing to criticize some of the way the defense has played in recent weeks but quite another when talking about the Bengals on Saturday night.

Against the Los Angeles Chargers, guys were running wide-open. Obviously, they had a bad night at the office even in a Week 13 win against Cleveland. The Bengals, though, are among the most dangerous offenses in football and playing as well as anybody on that side right now.

As good as Joe Burrow and those receivers are, it didn’t feel like a bad defensive outing. The early fourth-down stops, the two overtime stops — one aided by the short missed field goal — the seven sacks despite Burrow’s career-low 2.23 seconds average time-to-throw. Cincinnati’s just really good offensively. Tee Higgins is a huge part of that and he got the best of Moss, no doubt about it.

As long as Moss is feeling good physically, though, the Broncos should trust him going forward. He’s got real ability and, just as important in this case, he seems to have the right mentality for handling failure and bouncing back.

Q >> What area should the Broncos concentrate on in the 2025 draft?

— Max Clark, Beavercreek, Ohio

Parker >> Some of the eventual draft needs are going to depend on the decisions Denver makes after the season and in free agency. Defensive tackle is a great example. They could re-sign D.J. Jones and run back the really solid group from this year. They could let him walk and bank on Malcolm Roach, Eyioma Uwazurike and young players to step up. They could address the position in free agency if they like some of the veteran options.

But also, look at the draft and you’ll see guys like Michigan’s Mason Graham and Kenneth Grant along with a bunch of others dotting early draft rankings.

Payton and general manager George Paton use the way they see the draft — strengths, weaknesses, their needs, other teams’ needs — to plot their course for free agency and the draft. In terms of premium positions like disruptive interior players, edge rushers, quarterbacks, etc., good players don’t last long in the draft.

Though defensive tackle is a good example and one the Broncos certainly could address early, the still-early prevailing sentiment is that they’ll try to load up around Nix. Not at the expense of everything else, of course, but they’ve got an obvious lack of difference-making talent at the offensive skill positions.

Q >> Penn State tight end Tyler Warren seems like he’d be a great pickup for us in the draft. We’ve always had success when we have a strong tight end with good hands, like Shannon Sharpe and Julius Thomas. Bo Nix needs another weapon and this is who I think it should be. What say you?

— Adam, Aurora

Parker >> I haven’t done a ton of homework on particular players yet, but Warren’s got obvious production and when you watch him, he looks like the kind of guy Payton’s made a ton of hay with in the past. Same goes for Michigan’s Colston Loveland, who’s considered a bit more of an all-around guy.

It’s an admittedly silly thing to do with a whole lot of time between now and the draft, but what the heck, let’s throw in an early 2025 prediction to celebrate the new year: The Broncos will get a tight end and a running back in the first three rounds of the draft and it won’t be a surprise if they use their first two picks to do it.