ENGLEWOOD, Colo. — The Denver Broncos will honor their last Super Bowl-winning team on Sunday at Empower Field at Mile High, celebrating the 10-year anniversary of the Super Bowl 50 victory that earned the franchise its third Vince Lombardi Trophy. They will also honor one of the Broncos’ best and most beloved players in late wide receiver Demaryius Thomas, who will be formally added to the team’s ring of fame.
This celebration will occur with Russell Wilson on the visitor’s sideline as the New York Giants‘ backup quarterback. Wilson was the focal point of a historic 2022 trade that cost the Broncos three players as well as five draft picks. It netted the paltry return of two losing seasons, a coaching change and a record $85 million in dead money against the salary cap.
But 19 months after they decided to pay that hefty price to part with Wilson, the 4-2 Broncos have emerged as true contenders heading into Sunday’s game (4:05 p.m. ET, CBS). The optimism is so strong that coach Sean Payton talked all summer about his team’s Super Bowl worthiness, confident in a roster of youthful talent signed long term by an ownership group, led by Greg Penner, which has the league’s deepest pockets.
“Sometimes I think it’s all gone fast and sometimes I think everything from my rookie year [2017] until now feels like so long ago,” said Broncos left tackle Garett Bolles, Denver’s longest-tenured player. “All I know is right now this team has a bunch of dawgs, the kind of team you want to be a part of … I love these guys, I love where we are and I love where we can go.”
To get there, they had to make a big decision. Wilson was released on March 4, 2024, a move that cost them $53 million in dead money against their salary cap in 2024 and another $32 million this year. They dug out of it with a mindset that Penner has clearly stated.
“Our job is to put the best football team on the field each season, no matter what the constraints are,” Penner said. “You’re going to have obstacles that come up, whether they are injuries, something happens with a player or financial restraints with the cap, but we’re not going to make excuses.”
How did the Broncos move from the financial fallout of Wilson’s release to breaking an eight-year playoff drought last season and emerging as one of the AFC’s top contenders in 2025? We interviewed more than two dozen people to find the answers, and three themes stood out most.
Ownership buy-in
The Walton-Penner group, which includes Penner and his wife Carrie, was formally approved by NFL in August 2022, in a unanimous vote of the franchise owners at a specially called league meeting in Minneapolis. They took over six months after the Wilson trade, paying $4.65 billion for the franchise.
“Don’t underestimate that,” an AFC general manager said. “That settled it all down. They had direction, somebody at the top and the resources.”
The ownership group went to work on a lavish 205,000-square-foot facility that’s currently under construction and completely funded by the team. There’s also a multibillion dollar stadium project in the works that will also be self-funded. Penner said in London last week that he hopes the new stadium brings Super Bowls, Final Fours and concerts along with serving as the Broncos’ home.
Beyond that, the resources of the Penner group have enabled the Broncos to pony up more upfront money guaranteed at signing in contract extensions than most teams could, multiple league sources said. Even with the dead money from the Wilson release, the Broncos have guaranteed a combined $228.42 million at signing the past two offseasons in extending Bolles, cornerback Pat Surtain II, guard Quinn Meinerz, edge rusher Nik Bonitto, defensive tackle Zach Allen, wide receiver Courtland Sutton and edge rusher Jonathon Cooper. Every player except Allen was drafted by Denver.
That ability to pay upfront has also allowed the Broncos to sign outside starters in free agency the past three offseasons such as tackle Mike McGlinchey, guard Ben Powers, defensive tackle D.J. Jones, safety Brandon Jones and safety Talanoa Hufanga.
“They could do that because they had the cash for the upfront [guarantees] in those deals available when they wanted to make them, when maybe other people couldn’t have pulled that off,” the AFC general manager said. “They had a young core they have kept together to give them continuity when that’s hard to hold together in a cap situation.
“And [the Broncos got] the quarterback.”
The young QB
Most league personnel executives agree the best, most-coveted roster flexibility in the salary cap NFL is the most difficult to achieve. It requires a quarterback good enough to lift a franchise but young enough to still be on his rookie contract — a five-year window, including an option year, for a first-round pick.
For example, in Wilson’s last season in Denver (2023), his salary cap charge of $22 million was the highest on the team. In contrast, Bo Nix‘s salary cap charge this season — the second of his rookie deal — is $4.24 million. That’s 18th highest on the team, just ahead of the $4.01 million for backup quarterback Jarrett Stidham.
The Broncos believe Nix, who Payton pushed to make the 12th pick of the 2024 draft, is their long-term franchise quarterback. Nix — the team’s first first-round draft selection since the Wilson trade — has started all 24 games since he was picked (23 in the regular season and one in the playoffs), leading Denver to a 14-10 record.
“I’ve said Bo has that look, the way about him, any team would want in a quarterback,” Brandon Jones said. “I called it a dawg, you want that dawg … he sets the tone.”
Nix threw 29 touchdown passes last season, the second most for a rookie in NFL history. Even though the Broncos’ offense is working through some early-season wobbles — Nix is currently 21st in QBR (51.0), and the Broncos are 16th in offensive points per game (21.7) — Payton continues to laud Nix’s long-term potential.
“I like the player,” he said.
Maximizing limited draft capital
General manager George Paton and staff have filled in important gaps with the picks that remained after the Wilson trade, in which the Broncos sent two first-round picks, two second-round picks and a fifth-round pick — all in the 2022 and 2023 drafts — to the Seattle Seahawks.
The Broncos also sent three players (quarterback Drew Lock, defensive end Shelby Harris and tight end Noah Fant) and got a fourth-round pick (in ’22) back with Wilson. They got a 2023 first-rounder and 2024 fourth-rounder back when they sent edge rusher Bradley Chubb to the Miami Dolphins in a 2022 deadline deal but sent that first-rounder and a 2024 second-rounder to the New Orleans Saints the ensuing offseason to secure the rights to hire Payton.
The Wilson deal, and the trades that resulted from 2022’s struggles and the eventual firing of previous coach Nathaniel Hackett, robbed the Broncos of precious draft capital. But two of their 2021 draft picks — Surtain and Meinerz — have become All-Pros, with Surtain being named Defensive Player of the Year last season. And in the two drafts in which they didn’t have a first-rounder (2022 and 2023), their second-rounders — Bonitto and wide receiver/returner Marvin Mims Jr. — evolved into Pro Bowlers.
Bonitto leads the NFL with eight sacks this season and is in the early Defensive Player of the Year conversation. In all, the Broncos selected five players in those drafts who are currently starters or high-volume rotational players.
Nix, edge rusher Jonah Elliss and wide receiver Troy Franklin followed in the 2024 draft, with safety Jahdae Barron, running back RJ Harvey, wide receiver Pat Bryant, edge rusher Que Robinson and punter Jeremy Crawshaw already making an impact from the 2025 class.
“Upstairs made this locker room what it is,” Jones said. “We’re invested here, in each other. Guys want to be here, and the young guys feel that when they get here, they know the standard. I think that’s one thing the guys here aren’t going to let people not strive for the standard, no matter what.”
And unless something happens to Giants’ rookie quarterback Jaxson Dart on Sunday, Wilson will have a front-row seat to see how the Broncos moved on from him since his release.
“Everybody has seen what we had to go through,” Cooper said. “I love this culture, I love what we have, the past is that — past. We have to just keep working, because what’s out there is forward, ahead of us.”
