Mile High Report
Things are going great right now in Broncos Country. The Broncos currently sit at 13-3, have already clinched a postseason berth, and are now your 2025 AFC West Champs. They still have a chance to clinch the one seed later today or do it next Sunday with a win over the Chargers in the season finale. The Broncos are having a magical season and are once again Super Bowl contenders.
However, as many of us remember, things were not always so pleasant.
Just three years ago, our Denver Broncos were the laughing stock of the NFL. They sat at 4-11, without their own 1st round pick, and were just coming off a 51-14 loss to the Rams on Christmas. They hit rock bottom, and a day later, they would fire Head Coach Nathaniel Hackett before he could complete his first full season as the Head Coach of the Broncos.
They did not have a coach, they did not have a quarterback(Just Russell Wilson and his awful contract), no top 5 first-round pick, and were directionless at the moment. However, everything changed the moment the team hired Sean Payton to be their Head Coach.
After being hired, Sean Payton quickly built a foundation that would help lead this team back to being Super Bowl contenders in just three short years. He built a strong coaching staff, emphasized building up the offensive and defensive lines, and developing the young talent on the roster. On top of all that, he had to figure out if Russell Wilson and his massive contract were the answer at the quarterback position.
Year one, the Broncos started slowly, and even had that awful 70-point disaster against the Dolphins, but as the season progressed, you started to see glimpses of the culture Sean Payton was starting to build with this team. While they did not make the playoffs, they finished 8-9 on the year and started to show some promise.
As we know, the Broncos would later release quarterback Russell Wilson and eat a historic dead cap hit in the process of doing so. Payton and the Broncos were mocked for this, but they were confident they would be able to find their franchise quarterback, and they did just that. In the first round of the 2024 NFL Draft, the Denver Broncos selected Oregon quarterback Bo Nix. This pick was an unpopular one for the most part, but Payton was confident in his process, and Nix would quickly prove him right once again. After a slow start to his rookie season, Nix started to string together some good performances and had the Broncos back in the postseason conversation. In the season finale, they would defeat the Kansas City Chiefs to clinch a wildcard spot and end their lengthy postseason drought. On top of Nix developing into a really good quarterback, the Denver Broncos’ defense, led by Vance Joseph, who Payton hired a year prior, led the NFL in sacks and turned into one of the better units in...
