Alex Palczewski spent his rookie year in a familiar routine.
The Broncos offensive lineman showed enough during training camp to make the 53-man roster despite going undrafted in the spring of 2023.
He was placed on injured reserve after the roster cutdown, and remained there for the entire year and didn’t appear in a game.
Palczewski would work out on Denver’s rehab field on a daily basis, wondering what the future might hold.
In November that year, the Broncos announced plans for a new, cutting-edge $175 million training facility and headquarters project. The next summer, they broke ground on it.
Now the building is nearly complete. Team employees are set to be moved over in less than two weeks. Broncos players will be in their new locker room and digs for training camp next month.
Palczewski last week leaned against a bench after wrapping up the first week of OTAs and looked across at the gleaming new building and smiled, recalling “vividly,” he said, when he first heard about the plans.
“I was like, ‘Oh, itap going to be open in 2026?,’” he recalled. “That’ll be pretty nice. I hope those guys enjoy it.”
Turns out, ‘Palcho’ is going to enjoy it, too. Perhaps for many years to come.
The versatile offensive lineman got his biggest opportunity yet in 2025, starting 10 games for injured Ben Powers at left guard — a position he’d never played before — and excelled. This spring, the Broncos rewarded him with a two-year, $9.5 million contract. It came with a $2.5 million signing bonus, $5.75 million in guarantees and can be worth up to $11 million based on incentives.
It also came with a clear message from the club: We may not have a starting job for you at the moment, but you’re a big part of the plan going forward.
‘I’m thankful every single day’
Palczewski was an offseason priority for Denver’s coaching staff and front office. His deal was finalized on March 5 and had been in the works for about a week before that. That meant it was done before the club’s retention run of four more signings closer to the start of free agency, plus Palczewski was a restricted free agent, so the team could have taken more time had it wanted to.
To Palczewski, the wait from the crushing end of Denver’s 2025 season to hearing a deal was on the table felt long enough. It started with exit meetings, when he asked head coach Sean Payton and general manager George Paton what his future looked like in Denver.
“Itap so weird, you go from thinking you could go to the Super Bowl, we get our hearts ripped out and then you’ve got to do that,” he said.
They told him they’d get to him. There’s a timeline for these things.
“Then itap just silence. We’ll get to it when we get to it,” Palczewski said. “But when it happened? I mean, I’m ecstatic. Looking back at the road, especially being an undrafted guy, I’m thankful every single day.”
Even more rewarding for the Mount Prospect, Illinois native: Since he went undrafted, he chose the Broncos in the first place. He saw Denver generally and offensive line coach Zach Strief specifically as a place where he would get good coaching and development.
Three years later, Palcho has started games at two different positions, earned the staff’s trust and landed a quality contract.
He’s done it, he said, by consciously paring down what he puts thought and energy into.
“When I first got here my rookie year, I was just like, ‘How do I stay here the longest?’” Palczewski said. “And I kind of got into a mental, like, I don’t know how to say it without swearing. I just was, like, I just thought about the big picture too much. ‘What about this and this and this?’ A week or a week and a half in, I was just like, ‘screw that.’ I’m just going to focus on what can I get better at today? Today, today, today. I’ve got 24 hours, what can I do? And then, that way, it felt a lot more manageable.
“I didn’t have to worry about the anxiety of, whatap going to happen at the end of camp with cuts? Well, if I worry about it and I’m too scared to play free, guess whatap going to happen? I’m getting cut. 100% chance.”
Finding a future fit
Now the next question: Where will Palcho play in 2026 and beyond? He’s shown he can handle left guard, where Powers is back but entering the final year of his contract. Palcho can play right tackle, where Mike McGlinchey has two years remaining and is coming off one of his best pro seasons, though he turns 32 during training camp.
The Broncos brass knows it can’t have five premium-paid starters forever. They’re wary of getting old across the board at the same time. They’ve got enviable depth and versatility behind their high-priced starting quintet.
All of that means Palczewski’s time is coming. It’s a matter of when.
In the meantime, the soon-to-be 27-year-old is willing to acknowledge that starting is a goal, but he also continues to be adamant about the benefits of playing in a group thatap been largely intact the past three seasons.
He also knows the career arc of his position coach well. Strief, a seventh-round pick in Sean Payton’s first New Orleans draft class, spent five seasons as a reserve. Then he started 85 games over six years as the Saints’ right tackle.
Palcho? Undrafted in Payton’s first Denver class. Now going into Year 4 still perhaps ticketed for reserve duty, but with a future and a contract that suggests he’ll crack the lineup at some point.
“I think Palcho is in position to be a starter for a long time,” defensive tackle Malcolm Roach said recently.
Until then, Palczewski will keep focusing on small things and trusting they’ll lead to big ones. For himself and for his team.
“Itap simple for anyone to say, ‘I want to be a Super Bowl champion,’’ Palczewski said, using a high-pitched kid’s voice for emphasis. “OK, well can you (freakin’) back-side cutoff? Can you hit your target on a guy when his shoulders are down on a bull rush? How do you just work it and focus on the process each day?
“If you take care of that, it’ll go on further.”
