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Jeff Legwold
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.”
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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.