Mile High Report
The NFL Draft is less than two weeks away and there is no telling which direction head coach Sean Payton will go,,,
Pat Surtain II, a Broncos’ team captain and NFL’s Defensive Player of the Year, was honored last week at the Colorado Sports Hall of Fame’s 60th annual banquet.
Surtain, who helped lead the Broncos to their first playoff berth since 2015 while also earning his second career-high four interceptions in a season, was one of the three honored Professional Athletes of the Year alongside Nuggets’ Nikola Jokić and Avalanche’s Nathan MacKinnon.
Surtain was also the first Broncos player to receive Pro Athlete of the Year recognition from the CSHOF since Phillip Lindsay in 2018.
After the ceremony, Surtain spoke with denverbroncos.com about receiving yet another accolade.
“It’s a huge honor to be mentioned as one of the Colorado greats,” he said, noting it was another award “to add to the trophy case.”
But as voluntary workouts are just around the corner for players, Surtain is setting his sights on 2025 and building off the turnaround Denver experienced last season.
“The mindset (in OTAs) is to continuously get better — get stronger in the weight room, get in the playbook, meet with the coaches,” he said, adding that it’s also a time to build camaraderie with the new guys — whether that’s rookies or new free agents. “It’s a time to build camaraderie so we can go on a run next year.”
GM George Paton picked up several defensive pieces in free agency last month to help Surtain and the Broncos do just that.
“The goal is always to get better,” Paton said, adding that building on a strength is always the goal. “We had a really good defense last year. How can we take it to the next level? It’s really important to build off of strength.
That’s why Denver re-signed DJ Jones and added Dre Greenlaw and Talanoa Hufanga into the mix.
Surtain loves the new additions and believes those guys will make the Broncos even “more dominant” on defense.
“Man that’s huge,” he said last week. “DJ is a key piece toward our defense. He’s one of the anchors, and adding Dre and Hufanga? Man, it’s a huge addition.”
And in less than two weeks, the Broncos will add some rookies, no doubt a few who may be key defensive weapons. Maybe one of them will even “be a Nik Bonitto” (aka, breakout player in year three), Payton pointed out.
“Last year at this time were any of us expecting Bonitto to be an All Pro player?” Paton said, adding that the development of young players has been a credit to Sean Payton and the coaching staff. “No, I don’t think any of us would have said that.”
History tells us that if Sean Payton is making any moves on Draft Day, it will not...
