The Man Called Lil’Jordan Humphrey Is 6-Foot-4 and Has No Interest in Arguing About It
His older brother wanted the name Michael – for Michael Jordan. His mother wouldn’t do it. So they landed on Lil’Jordan, and the kid grew up to be 6-foot-4 and 225 pounds, playing wide receiver in the NFL. The name has never fit. Neither has the position, not in the way most people think about it.
Humphrey was born April 19, 1998, in Southlake, Texas, and played running back through high school. At Southlake Carroll – a Texas football factory – he rushed for 1,828 yards and 29 touchdowns as a junior, then added 1,292 yards as a senior while also catching 57 passes for 876 yards. The Texas Sports Writers Association named him first-team 6A All-State. When he got to the University of Texas, the coaches moved him to receiver.
His first two seasons at Texas were quiet. Then his junior year happened: 86 receptions, 1,176 yards, nine touchdowns. That’s a legitimate NFL draft season, and he declared for 2019 expecting to hear his name called. He didn’t. The Saints signed him as an undrafted free agent on April 27, 2019, which is the polite way of saying every team in the league passed on him twice.
What followed was three years of practice squad football in New Orleans, and the transaction log from those years is genuinely exhausting to read. Waived August 31, 2019. Signed to the practice squad September 1. Promoted September 18. Waived October 26. Re-signed to the practice squad. Promoted December 28. The cycle repeated across three seasons. He appeared in 18 games total for the Saints, caught 16 passes for 295 yards and three touchdowns, and then had a failed physical void a restricted free-agent offer after the 2021 season. He signed with the Patriots in 2022, caught two passes for 20 yards in six games, and was released.
Seven years in, he has 75 career receptions for 926 yards and 8 touchdowns across 68 games. By a standard receiver rubric, that’s a thin file. Receivers who last seven NFL seasons on those numbers are either specialists or survivors. Humphrey is the second thing, but the reason he’s survived is the first.
When Sean Payton took the Denver head coaching job in 2023, one of his first calls was to Lil’Jordan Humphrey. Humphrey signed with the Broncos in March of that year. Payton had coached him in New Orleans through three seasons and seen whatever the stat sheet doesn’t show – and what it doesn’t show, Humphrey will tell you about directly.
“I think I’m the best to be honest at blocking for sure,” he told the Denver Gazette in December 2025. “I’m definitely the best.”
That’s not the standard wide receiver answer. Most receivers tolerate blocking as a professional obligation, something they perform adequately when the play calls for it and quietly resent the rest of the time. Humphrey built his NFL survival on it. Payton has praised him specifically for his willingness to block on runs and screen plays – the dirty work that makes the skill position look glamorous for someone else.
His 2024 season with the Broncos was his best by any conventional measure: 31 receptions, 293 yards, one touchdown, 17 games. He ranked third on the team in yards after the catch despite ranking fifth in receptions. In March 2025 he left Denver and signed with the New York Giants, presumably for a larger role. He caught four passes in three games. The Broncos claimed him off the Giants’ practice squad in November 2025, and when he walked back into Broncos Park he described it the way most people describe a return they didn’t fully expect to need: “Who doesn’t want to be wanted? I’m just excited to be back.”
He re-signed with Denver again in March 2026 on a one-year deal worth $1,487,500 with $87,500 guaranteed. That contract number tells you exactly where he sits in the league’s hierarchy of wide receivers – not the guys teams build around, not a depth chart liability, but a known quantity that a specific coach keeps finding reasons to bring back.
The Payton relationship is the clearest fact in his career. Humphrey played for him in New Orleans 2019 through 2021. Followed him to Denver in 2023. Left, came back mid-season in 2025, re-signed in 2026. Payton’s explanation, filtered through Humphrey: “I feel like I’m a tough guy and I know a little bit of football. He values guys like that.” Teammate Troy Franklin, a 2024 Broncos draft pick, put it without any coaching spin: “Jordan is a great blocker and he’s going to get the job done.”
In seven seasons across four teams – Saints, Patriots, Broncos, Giants, Broncos again – he has never started more games than he’s appeared in as a reserve, never led a team’s receiver group in any category, never made a Pro Bowl ballot. He also hasn’t been out of the league, which is the harder thing to do. There are hundreds of players from the 2019 draft class, many of them drafted, who are no longer on rosters. Humphrey, who wasn’t drafted at all, just signed his seventh NFL contract.
His career totals through the 2025 season: 75 catches, 926 yards, 8 touchdowns, 68 games. Career-high 31 catches in 2024. Re-signed to Denver, March 2026, $1.3 million base salary, $87,500 signing bonus – the same team, the same coach, the same job.
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