Von Miller is a Denver icon, a Mile High legend, the engine of the defense, the life of the party, the Mick Jagger of ����apountry.

One problem: The Broncos already have a lead singer.

They’re looking for bass players, keyboardists, percussionists and backup dancers. It’s the Sean & Bo Show now,

“I would love to assist and be a vice president to Bo Nix and Courtland Sutton,” Miller told The Post’s Parker Gabriel a few days earlier at a Von’s Vision function in Commerce City. “I’ve been the guy and also I’ve been the vice president as well.

“I’d love to contribute to us getting back to the glory land, holding up that trophy and confetti falling again. For me, my whole entire life, I’ve helped guys be the best version of themselves and I’d love to do that back here with the Denver Broncos back home.”

Having No. 58 in the fold would be a hit for fans who’ve still got Miller jerseys hanging in their closets and a boon for media looking for a sound bite from one of the best to ever play in orange and blue.

And Von — who racked up nine sacks as a situational pass-rusher in Washington last fall — knows a good thing when he sees it, having faced the Broncos with the Bills and with the Commanders over the last three seasons.

Assuming Nix is healthy (crosses fingers), the Broncos are on the Super Bowl train, and Miller would love nothing more than to close out a Hall-of-Fame career with another ring in his favorite NFL town.

Von Miller playing for Sean Payton — D

Never say never, right? The kids up in the Grading The Week department would love to dust off their replica jerseys and party like it’s 2015 all over again.

“I think there’s no question the type of environment I bring to a locker room,” Miller told Gabriel. “I think there’s no question to the type of environment I bring to a team.”

Yet the bean-counters over the corner office keep reminding us of the same thing whenever the subject of No. 58 returning to the Broncos gets brought up:

Ain’t nowhere for The Vonster to play.

The law firm of (Nik) Bonitto & (Jonathon) Cooper are in their respective primes coming off the edge, combining for 22 sacks a season ago.

Behind them, Dondrea Tillman (four sacks in ’25) has been a revelation who hasn’t slowed down, while second-year rusher Que Robinson recorded a sack in the AFC Championship Game. Drew Sanders is looking for a home, and all Jonah Elliss does is make plays.

Whose snaps would you give to Miller, who’s still spry at age 37 but is creeping in the winter of his playing days?

“Obviously, I wouldn’t start. Obviously, I wouldn’t play special teams,” Miller continued. “But I will say, the type of room that we would have, the outside linebackers with me, Nik Bonitto, we’d be a force. Whatever (the) coach (has) going on, I would just contribute to that. The defense that we’d have. I’d love to bring back those Super Bowl 50 vibes.”

Yeah, but here’s the thing: This defense kind of already has those vibes — just with a different generation under defensive coordinator Vance Joseph. The Broncos also need their second-and third-wave of linebackers to play on special teams, my friend.

Von was the face of the Broncos seven years ago, and a good one. But that face is Payton’s now. That voice is Payton’s now.

Miller will retire a Bronco. But Team GTW wagers it’ll be the same way Justin Simmons just retired as a Bronco — with a ceremony, a 1-day contract, a news conference, some tears and a hearty thanks for services rendered and memories we’ll never let go.

A man who never tires of helping out — even when it means helping complete strangers change a tire.

Won’t lie: It’s been a brutal few days for the Grading The Week interns, who make scour social media for Front Range items of note. Especially as the Nuggets just performed one of the most epic face-plants in Colorado playoff history up in Minnesota.

Man, those memes are mean. And Jaden McDaniels was right, which stings even more.

But first, let’s get the good stuff. From a good dude.

Bolles’ tire-changing moment — A

Earlier in the week, to her feed showing a very large, muscular man with the number “72” on his right sleeve adjusting the bolts on the driver’s-side front tire on the side of a busy road.

In the video, our “72” — who’s clearly Bolles, the Broncos’ Pro Bowl left tackle and — appears to be explaining what he’s doing to a young man standing just behind him, taking mental notes, as the traffic passes them both.

“OK?” Bolles says at one point. “And you go around …”

The video loops from there, because, well, TikTok. But the accompanying caption sums it up rather neatly — which, when translated from its original Spanish, reads:

“Thanks to this gentleman, a player for the Denver Broncos, who helped me change my tire. He is an angel; God bless him.”

And let’s be straight — this tale fits GB’s M.O. to a ‘T.’ The former first-round draft pick, now 33, is also a former Eagle Scout. Bolles, the Broncos’ 2025 nominee for the NFL’s Walter Payton Man of the Year Award, has been a fixture in the community over the last decade or so,

True hearts never lie. True protectors never rest. Like his ex-Broncos teammate Justin Simmons, who announced his retirement earlier this week, Bolles is one of those guys you’d be proud to call a friend or a neighbor.

Actually, he’s one of those guys you’d call to help you move. Or to help carry a piano up five flights of stairs. Or to help change a tire in a pinch.

At any rate, the next time one of our wheels comes off, Bolles is the guy we want in our corner. To say nothing of our pit crew.

Nuggets-Timberwolves — F-minus minus minus minus minus minus

For obvious reasons. Shot-making comes and goes. But effort is a constant you can control. The thing that stuck dagger after dagger into the hoops kids on the GTW crew was watching Minnesota in Game 6 — again, without Anthony Edwards, Donte DiVincenzo and Ayo Dosunmu — seemingly beat the Nuggets to every 50-50 ball.

And beating Denver to what felt like 70% of the loose balls and what felt like 75% of the possible rebounds. The more you think about it, the worse it looks — a Nuggets team that started two All-Stars lost in six games to a No. 6 seed that on Thursday was missing three wing guards who averaged 55 points and eight 3-point makes during the regular season. That’s not just an Aaron Gordon thing. That’s not just a Peyton Watson thing. It’s a culture thing. It’s an accountability thing.

David Adelman = New Tiger King? — F

Watching the Nuggets for the last eight days or so was a hard enough slog. But ever since compared a picture of Nuggets coach David Adelman to one of And Heaven help us, we’ve tried.

He was a winning player on losing teams.

Through a cracking voice and watery eyes, Simmons retired from the NFL on Wednesday. At 32, he is done playing and no apologies are necessary for how his career played out with the Broncos.

Simmons experienced one season with a winning record, his first in 2016 as a probationary member of the No Fly Zone. He never reached the playoffs. He came close in 2021 before the Bengals’ Khalid Kareem stripped quarterback Drew Lock, a fumble that sent the Broncos into a predictable season-ending death spiral.

Understand one thing: Simmons excelled through adversity.

Take Super Bowls XXXII and XXIII off the loop, lose the violent vision of the safety position, separate the man from the ownership and coaching mayhem, and reality kicks you in the gut like Thunder’s hoof.

Justin Simmons is a Ring of Famer.

“I don’t know about all that,” Simmons said after a 40-minute press conference defined by gratitude and humility. “I didn’t deserve all of this.”

Simmons was referring to the classy exit provided by the Broncos with a press conference, farewell video and introduction by Hall of Famer Steve Atwater. Simmons reached out a few weeks ago and wanted to know if he could swing by headquarters and sign a one-day contract to retire as a Bronco.

The Broncos wisely told Simmons his departure was worth more than a photo op and social media post.

His eight seasons cemented his status as a franchise legend. Yes, it is hard for some to reach this conclusion because of all the losses.

His case demands nuance. It calls for an understanding of the period in which he played and how he overcame the dysfunction around him.

Simmons became a star when groans were the franchise soundtrack. He played for four coaches. He watched a floundering offense use 13 starting quarterbacks. And none were Bo Nix. The Broncos rarely won.

That was not because of him.

His teams didn’t dominate anything, but Simmons defined his position.

Despite revolving coordinators and a carousel of teammates, Simmons became the NFL’s finest ballhawk. No safety had more interceptions than Simmons from the time he entered the league through 2023, his final season in Denver.

He finished with 32 picks, 30 with the Broncos, including four from Patrick Mahomes.

“To me, he’s the best safety in the deep part of the field in his era,” said Dallas Cowboys defensive coordinator and former Broncos assistant coach Christian Parker. “I think the interceptions speak to that.”

For those who do not believe Simmons’ play rises to the level of a pillar outside the stadium, consider his All-Pro honors.

All-Pro still means something. It is the best of the best. And when considering Ring of Fame status, franchise context is relevant.

Simmons earned second-team All-Pro four times. No other Broncos safety can match that. Atwater (two first team, one second) and Billy Thompson (one first team, one second) are the only other Broncos’ safeties to receive multiple All-Pro nods. They are Ring of Famers.

From 2012 to 2023, only five Denver players made All-Pro more than once. The list includes Von Miller, Peyton Manning, Chris Harris Jr.,  Demaryius Thomas and Simmons. Manning and Thomas are in the Ring of Fame. Miller will join them. And Harris has a strong case.

And consider this bullet point. When it comes to the most Broncos’ All-Pro honors, Simmons sits tied for sixth, behind only Miller, Rick Upchurch, Randy Grandishar, Shannon Sharpe and Champ Bailey. Simmons is knotted with Karl Mecklenburg and Riley Odoms.

Do I need to tell you what all those players, save for Miller and Simmons, share in common? They enjoy immortality outside the stadium.

Miller will go in after the five-year waiting period, if he ever retires. Simmons’ clock has started.

It would help him tremendously if the logjam loosened. That seems unlikely, as the Walton-Penner group prefers to make the Ring of Fame even more exclusive.

How much narrower does the funnel need to be? It is already as selective as Stanford’s admissions office, with only 33 players, three coaches and two owners honored in 65 seasons.

The hope is that over the next few years, Gary Kubiak, Joe Collier, and Al Wilson will gain entry. They are all deserving.

Simmons has no Super Bowl ring. He doesn’t even have an AFC West Championship cap. I get it. But he became the light during arguably the darkest period in Broncos history. They posted seven straight losing seasons, topped only by the nosedive from 1963-72. Those archaic teams did not have lofty expectations like the ones that featured Simmons.

Performing great with a stream of new coaches, coordinators and underwhelming quarterbacks is, in many ways, more difficult.

Simmons admitted Wednesday that he felt like he let ����apountry down, unable to lead the team to the postseason. It was not his fault that the team stunk.

He did his part on the field and in the locker room. No player was more accountable during this stretch than Simmons. Trying to articulate what went wrong during Nathaniel Hazmat’s abbreviated tenure alone is worthy of the Ring of Fame.

Then, there is the off-field involvement. Character and community work are not part of the Ring of Fame debate. But in Simmons’ case, an exception should be made.

If there is any doubt, Simmons’ impact should break the tie. He was a three-time Walter Payton Man of the Year nominee.

Through his foundation, he mentors kids, supports their education, and provides hunger relief. That is the macro.

At the micro level, I have witnessed him surprise families with Christmas trees and maintain relationships with them. I have seen him walk around stores for hours picking out Christmas gifts for underprivileged kids. He supported teens NaShara Ellerbee and Naja’Ray West as they created the March for Peace, a 5K run/walk and community event in the Montbello neighborhood.

And he has been such a regular at the Broncos Boys & Girls club that the students don’t see him as a professional athlete, but just as Justin, a guy looking to shoot some hoops.

What does it say about Simmons that he was the team’s best player during its worst time and he never hid from a camera, never shied away from interacting with fans? It is a level of professionalism that must be weighed.

His case is complicated by the lack of team success. It is also strengthened by it.

That he posted his resume under these circumstances, not surrounded by great players, is exactly why he should be a Ring of Famer.

Like Wednesday’s ceremony, he deserves it.

And still, he returned for a Broncos curtain call, on Monday, in the building where he helped lay the current foundation.

Ten years to the day that the Broncos drafted him in 2016, the 32-year-old Simmons announced the end of his playing days on Wednesday morning through a video announcement on the Broncos’ account. After a one-year stint with the Falcons and a year-long absence from football, Simmons also signed a ceremonial deal to retire with the Broncos.

Simmons welled up several times in a 30-minute-long press conference later Wednesday afternoon in Dove Valley, thanking a seemingly never-ending slew of backers: wife Taryn for supporting him, Broncos executive John Elway for drafting him, general manager George Paton for extending him, and the Denver fanbase for sticking with him.

“It just felt like there was a lot asked, and I feel like I fell short,” Simmons said, on his eight-year career in Denver. “So, that’s why — a lot of the emotional aspect of it. And so, I felt like I let a lot of people down over the years.”

“And so, to see that type of reaction for me is more than I deserve,” he continued, on the response to his retirement. “It’s heartwarming. I’m thankful. I’m blessed, I’m honored.”

The heartbeat of the Broncos’ defense

For eight seasons after Elway took him with the final pick of the third round in 2016, Simmons led the Broncos’ secondary, defense and locker room at large. His 30 interceptions are tied for seventh all-time in Denver franchise history. And he lives in rooms he’s never touched — still flashing across the tape that Cowboys defensive coordinator Christian Parker shows players, a deep-safety model for the defense that the former Broncos secondary coach wants to install in Dallas.

Parker has a simpler lasting memory of his years with Simmons, though.

By Jan. 8, 2021, the Vic Fangio era as the Broncos’ head coach was over. The locker room, Parker remembered, had a “feeling” about that, heading into a Week 18 matchup with the Chiefs. For a fifth straight season in Denver, they had nothing to play for. Simmons’ safety partner, Kareem Jackson, was hurt. Future Defensive Player of the Year Pat Surtain II was hurt. Ronald Darby, the other starting corner, was hurt.

And yet Simmons trotted out to play like everything was on the line.

“He was still scratching,” Parker said, remembering. “He was clawing, out there.”

One’s football legacy is strange, Simmons said. His is no exception. He was a two-time Pro Bowler and four-time All-Pro, and tied for seventh all-time in Broncos history in interceptions. He showed up, as Parker pointed out, playing 118 of a possible 131 games in Denver. He also had one season with a winning record but never made the playoffs.

It ate at him, as Simmons said. He told reporters on Wednesday that he believed each passing year would be the year. Behind the scenes, he had “a lot of talks” with Parker about a burning desire to simply make the postseason, as the Dallas defensive coordinator recounted.

“That����ap really all he wanted to do, to be honest with you,” Parker said. “I think if you asked if he would trade some of those career accolades relative to the interceptions and All-Pro nominees, and all that kinda stuff — to have that taste of January and February football, he would trade it in a heartbeat.”

That never came, and the Broncos cut Simmons for his price tag while rebuilding under Payton after the 2023 season. He signed in Atlanta in 2024 to try and chase a playoff berth — but found it “miserable,” as he said, to be away from his wife and FaceTime-parenting his three children, who were still living in Denver.

Simmons continued to train throughout the 2025 season but never signed with a franchise. The time he regained with family, though, was invaluable, as he recounted. Eventually, he found peace in realizing that it was “just time” to move away from his playing days, he said.

The safety had always wanted to retire a Bronco, even after being cut, Parker said. And the two years away from Denver helped Simmons find peace, too, with a tenure that lacked wins but had a much greater effect on the orbit around him.

“My overall goal was to leave here, and continue the legacy and to be a Hall of Fame player,” Simmons said. “Obviously, I fell short of that, I think. Not I think — I know I fell short of that.

“I think what I’m the most proud of, though, is the adversity that popped up in those eight seasons … it����ap hard to get recognized as a player when your team is not doing well,” Simmons continued. “It����ap a very difficult thing. So I’m proud of the way I was able to fight through some adversity in that aspect. It����ap hard when you have a lot going on. It helped me, though. It����ap part of my journey and my career. I’m thankful for it.”

Simmons has been a bridge between eras in Denver. He was drafted in 2016, the year after the Broncos’ Super Bowl 50 win. His time ended in 2023, the year before the Broncos returned to the playoffs. Denver went 52-79 in Simmons’ eight seasons, and saw six different coaches don a headset, and pivoted through a massive ownership change from the late Pat Bowlen to the Walton-Penner Group.

Still, Simmons became a “legend in his own way,” as former teammate Melvin Gordon told The Post. He organized Thursday bowling sessions and dinners with the defensive backs, and took care of the youngsters, Gordon said. Simmons was named a three-time captain and remained consistently accountable to local media during losing seasons. His impact ripples through foundational pieces still on the Broncos’ roster — Garett Bolles, Courtland Sutton, Surtain and Alex Singleton.

Gordon, a former Pro Bowler who played for the Broncos for three seasons, is quick to admit he fell into a bad place in Denver by his final year. He fumbled five times in 2022 and said he began to lose his “love for the game.”

Simmons, Gordon said, helped keep that passion burning through simple words and simple locker-room games of UNO.

“Sometimes, you do need a leader to show you the way,” Gordon said. “And I think he made his mark that way.”

The safety made his mark in the community, too, serving as an active mentor at the Broncos Boys and Girls Club. And after retirement, Simmons said he intends to try to wedge a foot into the broadcasting world — and explore a potential position at a local high school program, similar to Cherry Creek High head coach Dave Logan.

“I want to be the guy in the community that����ap a consistent, reliable figure for kids to look up to,” Simmons said.

And he hopes he left a legacy, as he said Wednesday, of a man who cared.

“I passionately cared,” Simmons said. “I wanted to do well. I really wanted to win. Didn’t work out. And I’m so glad that they’re winning now.”

Safety Justin Simmons, who spent all but one of his active seasons with Denver, announced his retirement Wednesday at the age of 32. He did so as a Bronco, where he spent the better part of a decade building a legacy as a fan favorite on the field and a model in the community.

Simmons’ announcement came 10 years to the day after Denver drafted him.

“My time in Denver literally shaped me into the man that I am,” Simmons said in a retirement announcement video shared by the team. “To the best fans in the world and ����apountry, thank you so much for all your support both for myself and for my family.”

Simmons was selected in the third round of the 2016 draft by the Broncos and played eight years in blue and orange, earning a pair of Pro Bowl nods and making second-team All-Pro four times. He blossomed into one of the best safeties in football, logging 30 interceptions over his eight seasons in Denver.

Simmons was released by the Broncos in the spring of 2024 and spent the ensuing season with the Atlanta Falcons on a one-year deal. A free agent through the 2025 season, Simmons never latched on to a team and has not played in a game since Atlanta’s regular-season finale on Jan. 5, 2025.

Simmons, his wife Taryn and their children still call Denver home and Simmons’ legacy off the field will endure every bit as long and perhaps even more profoundly than his on-field exploits.

Simmons has done extensive work with the Boys & Girls Club in Denver among many other endeavors through the Justin Simmons Foundation.

Simmons occupies a unique place in Broncos history. His numbers and impact are that of a Ring of Fame-type player. His time with the franchise, though, did not feature much winning.

Simmons arrived to the Broncos as the club came off a Super Bowl victory to cap the 2015 season.

Selected by then-general manager John Elway to play for head coach Gary Kubiak, Simmons saw the field as a rookie but Denver finished in third place in the AFC West at 9-7 and missed the postseason. They didn’t make the playoffs in any of the following seven seasons under head coaches Vance Joseph, Vic Fangio, Nathaniel Hackett or Sean Payton, either.

Then Simmons was released but took some solace in latching on with the Falcons, who looked like a contender in the NFC South. Instead Atlanta missed the postseason and the Broncos have made it each of the past two years, following up a 10-7 Wild Card year in 2024 with a 14-3 campaign and subsequent run to the AFC Championship Game last season.

Still, Simmons will be universally revered by ����apountry for who he was as a player and who he is as a man.

— Ed Helinski, Auburn, N.Y.

Hey Ed, thanks for writing in and getting us going in a draft-a-palooza version of the Broncos mailbag.

Denver is almost certain to move some of its picks around. Will they go up from No. 62? Back from their fourth-rounders? Vice versa? That, of course, all depends and the most likely outcome is we won’t know until Friday evening as the second round unfolds.

Teams move picks, though, and the Broncos have moved them at a high volume recently under general manager George Paton and head coach Sean Payton. Last year alone they made their own selection at No. 20 in the first round — through Paton said they considered trading back from there — and then got busy. They didn’t actually pick at any of their original spots from then on and engineered four trades that included a total of 20 draft picks. They went back from 51 to 57 and then to 60. They went up from No. 111 to No. 101 to draft Sai’Vion Jones and in the process also moved back four spots from No. 130.

Generally speaking, it’d be a surprise if Denver wasn’t similarly active this year. Especially with just one pick on Day 2, it would make sense for Paton and Payton to try to move around. That could mean trying to pick up capital by moving back from their first pick at No. 62. They could get into the third round by moving up from No. 108 or No. 111. It could mean some combination of that or something else entirely.

Paton’s reputation is that of a pick collector, while Payton is more gung-ho about trading up. Paton said last week that their styles have melded together well.

A natural inclination going into the draft with seven picks would be wanting to preserve somewhere around that number, but there’s a pretty good argument for being aggressive and moving up. It����ap basically the same they used when explaining their trade for Jaylen Waddle. Essentially: This is a deep roster as is. It����ap not going to be easy to make. If they take six Day 3 players as their current cache lines them up for, are all of them going to be on the 53-man roster?

The counter: Do you have to move up to get the players you really want? Payton talked last week about the “spray” of evaluations across the league and how it widens as the draft progresses. The Broncos traded back twice in the second round last year and got the guy they wanted in Harvey. They won’t be needlessly aggressive, but their roster is in such a place where they can go get a particular player, even without the benefit of a first-round pick.

What are the top three things you have learned about the NFL draft?

— David Brown, Silverthorne

Hey David, thanks for writing in and great question. I’m going to take this as this upcoming draft particularly.

1. Many of the best players and deepest position groups in this draft are at what the league generally considers non-premium spots. This is a great draft for inside linebackers and safeties. It����ap not teeming with top-end tight ends, but there are a boatload of solid options to work through. Similar at running back after the one true blue-chipper in Jeremiyah Love. It����ap another good year for edge rushers and receivers, so those groups will go fast in the first round — and offensive line will, too — but there’s hay to be made at some of those other spots.

2. Related to that point, a team is always better off draft-wise if it����ap armed with a first-round pick or extra capital, but this weekend actually looks like it sets up fairly well for the Broncos. Their needs — call it tight end, linebacker, running back, safety and offensive line — line up well overall with the deeper parts of this draft class. That doesn’t mean there are going to be Week 1 starters sitting there waiting for them on Day 3, of course, but the Broncos should be looking at their board and seeing realistic options at some positions of need despite having traded away their first- and third-rounders.

3. The 2026 draft is already being colored, to some degree, by next year’s proceedings. You saw it in Denver’s willingness to give up multiple picks this year for Waddle while hanging on to all of its 2027 capital. Teams around the league widely view next year’s class as shaping up to be substantially better than this year’s.

“I think everyone feels like next year is going to be a strong draft and I think that����ap based on the quarterbacks and it feels like it����ap going to be a strong quarterback draft,” Paton said. “We definitely look at that when we’re making trades.”

Paton earlier in the offseason said the Broncos pay attention to the fact that they’re in line for a fourth-round comp pick for next year due to John Franklin-Myers’ departure and perhaps a seventh-rounder, too, but that it doesn’t dictate how Denver operates. Expect a similar approach when it comes to deciding whether to part with 2027 draft capital during the 2026 proceedings.

Extra picks can benefit the Broncos next year in a strong class, but it could also benefit them this week.

“We have 10 picks, we think, next year, including the compensatories,” Paton said. “So it gives us more flexibility if we need to use one of those to help ourselves now.”

Do you think the Broncos will make a splash at the draft?

— Roger, Aurora

Hey Roger, guess it depends on what you mean by splash. Two years ago Bo Nix’s selection got all of the attention, and rightfully so. The Saturday trade they swung with the New York Jets for John Franklin-Myers and subsequent two-year, $15 million extension flew much more under the radar, but obviously ended up being quite consequential.

It would probably be bigger news if Denver acquired a veteran player during the draft — especially if that player were at a clear position of need like tight end  — or if they traded a player off their existing roster to acquire more draft capital.

Not saying one or the other is a guarantee, but certainly you can’t count out the possibility of a trade involving an active player one way or the other.

Any chance we move back into the first round? We need a tight end and if Kenyon Sadiq slips, I could see us making some moves to grab him in the late 20s. What say you?

— Tim, Denver

Hey Tim, thanks for writing in. That would be spicy, but it just doesn’t seem feasible without making a dramatic sacrifice either from the existing roster or from the club’s stash of 2027 draft picks. Even then, the math is tough to square. Let����ap use the Jimmy Johnson trade chart as a guide. There are other ways of valuing picks and every team does so slightly differently, but Payton’s draft trades generally follow the Johnson chart.

Denver’s pick at No. 62 is worth 284 points. San Francisco’s pick at No. 27 is worth 680. So even if Sadiq made it that far and the 49ers were willing to deal the pick rather than take him, the gap is 396 points. Denver’s pair of fourth-rounders (Nos. 108 and 111) are worth 150. Not even close, so now you’re talking 2027 capital. Maybe 108, 111 and a 2027 second-rounder gets you there. Given the way teams generally value future year picks and the fact that Denver is likely to be good this fall, the 49ers wouldn’t be out of line asking for No. 62 and next year’s first-rounder. Maybe with a later-round pick this year coming back in return.

That just seems like an awfully steep price, which Paton said himself last week.

“You never say never, but it����ap unlikely,” Paton said about getting to the first round. “It would cost quite a haul for us to get up there. Most of our draft we would have to trade and then something next year.”

Do you think we’ll find our answer at tight end in the draft? Kenyon Sadiq is expected to go in the first round, so I know it’s not him. How about someone like Eli Stowers or someone else who’s under the radar in the middle of the draft?

— Mike, Denver

Hey Mike, it����ap possible. Sadiq will definitely be off the board and Vanderbilt����ap Eli Stowers may well be, too, by the time Denver’s pick rolls around. There will be options, though.

The terrific draft analyst Daniel Jeremiah has an interesting clump of tight ends graded right in Denver’s range. His top 150 includes this run: No. 66 Stowers, No. 71 Oscar Delp (Georgia), No. 81 Max Klare (Ohio State), No. 83 Sam Roush (Stanford), No. 84 Marlin Klein (Michigan).

Stowers and Klare are pass-catchers first. Roush and Klein are more accomplished blockers than receivers in college. Delp is tantalizing as an all-around player but never had more than 24 catches in a collegiate season. There are others that could go in the Day 2 range, among them NC State’s Justin Joly. It’ll be fascinating to see if Denver is set on one of them or if they take the view that the group’s depth will present a quality option somewhere along the way.

Parker, what do you think about the Broncos picking up Washington RB Jonah Coleman? He’s got a little shake-and-bake. I’m not sold on RJ Harvey being our back of the future and J.K. Dobbins is a liability with his injury history.

— Mike, Denver

Hey Mike, I like Coleman and my beat partner, Luca Evans, is even higher on him. The 5-foot-8, 220-pounder — Coleman, not Luca — certainly looks like he fits what the Broncos like and what they need in that room. He visited the Broncos last week, too.

Coleman’s not the only option, of course. Does Denver feel the need to use an early pick on a running back after taking Harvey in the second round last year? Or are they looking more for a late-round add or even a post-draft veteran? One of many questions we’ll soon learn the answer to for certain.

I still don’t understand why they let John Franklin-Myers walk in free agency. I think he was a very good defensive end, an important spot next to Zach Allen, and they re-signed everybody else on the defensive line, why not him? Another thing I don’t get, if Adam Trautman is such a good blocker, how come RJ Harvey couldn’t get more than 2 or 3 yards? And if he is in the game instead of Engram, aren’t you telegraphing a running play?

— Anthony, Venice, Fla.

Hey Anthony, thanks for writing in and for the questions.

First question: Franklin-Myers got as much per year from Tennessee as the Broncos gave D.J. Jones and Malcolm Roach combined, so that����ap part of the equation. They could have paid him, but they knew he was going to make a ton of money and they’re planning around having already paid a bunch of other players while knowing that they may well be looking at a massive Bo Nix extension a year from now. Plus, they like their depth on the defensive line. And they get a fourth-round comp pick in next year’s draft. Doesn’t guarantee that letting him go was the right move, of course, but they didn’t wake up one day in early March and say, oh, dang, we can’t pay JFM. It����ap been part of the plan.

Second question: Easy to point at Harvey’s numbers, but if Trautman is such a bad blocker, then how did Dobbins go through 10 weeks as one of the most effective and efficient rushers in football?

And last: Yeah, that����ap got to be part of Denver’s calculus as it goes through the offseason and puts together its plan in Davis Webb’s first year as the team’s primary playcaller. They have to find ways to play one, the other or both TEs without being too predictable.

Hey Parker, I’ve been hearing rumors about the Broncos being in the mix to sign De’Von Achane. How serious are these talks and do we have the money to sign him?

— Raj P., Centennial

Hey Raj, thanks for writing in. Achane sure is fun, but reporting out of Miami recently is that he showed up for their offseason program in part because extension talks have progressed. Seems like he’s going to be staying in Miami a while.

Who’s making the biggest jump in 2026? My money’s on Jonah Elliss. I think he’s due for a breakout year.

— Adam Miller, Fort Collins

Hey Adam, thanks for writing in and interesting question. If Elliss broke out while making the switch to inside linebacker, that would have present-day and future ramifications for the Broncos. They’d undoubtedly welcome that.

With the caveat that it����ap very early, I’ll put some early breakout chips in for the guy who currently stands to benefit the most from Elliss’ move inside: Second-year outside linebacker Que Robinson. Paton said after the season that Robinson has as much upside as anybody Denver drafted last year. That combined with the flashes on the field are enough to pique substantial interest.

What are the odds that we would bring back some Broncos favorites in Justin Simmons and Von Miller that are available in free agency?  We are very deep at outside edge, so probably a harder sell for Von.  Safety seems to be a point of some need.  Is the price just too high for both of them?

— Michael Horn, Westminster

Hey Michael, thanks for writing. I guess you never say never never, but neither seems at all likely at this point. Miller, of course, would be a tremendous story, but if the Broncos end up adding a veteran edge rusher after the draft I wonder if longtime New Orleans star Cam Jordan is a more likely option.

The adrenaline of a 33-30 overtime win over Buffalo began to fade Saturday evening, but so much more sat right there for the Broncos offensive lineman to consider.

The week ahead. The AFC Championship Game at Empower Field. A trip to the Super Bowl on the line.

As Forsyth pulled out of the stadium, however, he went the wrong way.

Road closed ahead. Standstill traffic.

He sat with his thoughts. Then his phone buzzed.

A group message lit up with a text from a friend.

Bo Nix broke his ankle. Out for the season.

Forsyth assumed his friend had bad information.

“I figured it was one of those fake football accounts,” he told The Denver Post this week. “I was like, ‘Nah, I think you got fooled.’”

Forsyth had just seen Nix in the postgame training room. The third-year center has ankle issues himself, missed 16 snaps Saturday and was evaluated again after the game. He talked with Nix, a teammate in Denver for two years and at the University of Oregon in 2022, briefly about the game while waiting around the X-ray room.

“I didn’t think anything of it,” Forsyth said. “I’ve played with Bo since Oregon, so I know when something’s wrong. I couldn’t tell or anything.”

Nix didn’t yet know he’d broken a bone in his right ankle, though he suspected something was wrong. He didn’t yet know he’d have surgery less than 72 hours later. That there was no way he could continue playing this year.

It all turned out to be true. Forsyth’s friend was right.

Teammates and coaches found out in myriad ways.

Offensive coordinator Joe Lombardi was driving home with his son, who told him. He, too, thought bad information must have somehow spread.

Lil’Jordan Humphrey was on his way to the parking lot when a teammate told him.

“It broke my heart a little bit,” said the wide receiver, who hours earlier hauled in a touchdown from Nix against the Bills.

Fellow quarterbacks Jarrett Stidham and Sam Ehlinger were in the training room with Nix while he was evaluated and the imaging was done. They each described the moments that followed as “devastating.”

Head coach Sean Payton, his team scattered to the wind, decided to announce the news to reporters right away Saturday night. He did so because he knew the injury wouldn’t stay quiet until a Monday morning team meeting, but in the process, he also seized an opportunity to set an immediate tone.

Payton didn’t just say Stidham would be fine. He pushed his chips to the middle of the table right away.

“Just watch,” he said defiantly of his No. 2. In the days since, Payton’s confidence has sometimes veered toward bravado.

Part of that really is about belief in Stidham. Much of it, though, is because Denver is not scrambling this week trying to figure out how to approach life without Nix. Really, Payton and the Broncos front office have spent the past three years assembling a team and an operation built for this exact moment. Now comes the biggest stress test to date on the biggest stage yet.

‘Hurricane proof’

Payton often talks about identifying players who are “hurricane proof.”

He attributes the metaphor to legendary University of Alabama football coach Nick Saban.

“Toughness really is not necessarily about physical, but the mental and how much you can take,” Payton said earlier this season. “And (Saban) likened it to hurricane windows. You can get the 139s, the 150s or the 189s. Obviously, if you go up, they cost more.”

Finding the right players, Payton said, is “finding the 189s.”

In November, Payton implored reporters to pick a Super Bowl team. Any of them. They all go through storms.

“They come every season,” Payton said then, providing an ominously accurate forecast.

Denver at the time had just lost running back J.K. Dobbins to a foot injury. All-Pro corner Pat Surtain II was out with a pectoral strain, too. That����ap bad weather, to be sure, though Denver had won seven straight and would ultimately run that streak out to 11.

Stunningly losing your quarterback 60 minutes from the Super Bowl isn’t a squall.

It’s the eye wall of a Category 5.

Payton, however, thinks his team will come out the other side Sunday still standing.

He built the Broncos that way.

“It starts with really the right type of DNA that you’re bringing in,” he said in November. “You’re bringing in these guys with grit, toughness, football I.Q.. Generally speaking, those are hard-weathered players that can withstand the storms that come in our league.”

Hard and dark times

When Payton arrived in Denver in early 2023, he promised players on the roster one thing: The past did not matter. Everybody would be evaluated on what he, his staff and the front office saw with their own eyes going forward.

Some talented players didn’t last more than the first season, like 2020 first-round receiver Jerry Jeudy.

Some who’d been leaders under previous coaches did not work for Payton, like guard Dalton Risner and safety Justin Simmons.

Others, though, found their way through the chaff and into the light.

One example: 2023 undrafted rookie Jaleel McLaughlin. The North Carolina native spent part of his childhood in and out of homelessness. He played Division II and then FCS football. His pre-dawn workouts became the stuff of legend.

Payton liked the tape. He loved the rest.

“I heard the report on how he arrived at being a candidate to be in the NFL,” Payton said. “Then the question was, ‘Is he good enough?’ That question has been answered.”

Talent and traits matter. There is a performance baseline that is required to make it in the NFL. But to Payton, once that line is satisfied, grit is a differentiating factor.

That����ap how nickel Ja’Quan McMillian, undrafted in 2022, went from early bench player for Payton to starting nickel to now one of the premier slot men in the game.

Defensive coordinator Vance Joseph, this week, acknowledged to The Post that McMillian doesn’t hit the physical thresholds Denver sets for defensive backs.

“He’s undersized,” Joseph said. “He’s fast but not really fast. But he was always tough and smart and the ball always found him. That����ap his best trait. Having him here for three years, you watch him and how much he’s overcome, first with his physical traits. But he’s so tough mentally and he’s so smart.

“When things get hard and dark, he’s at his best. You need guys like that. Sometimes you have guys who are really, really good athletes, they’re the perfect profile, but when things get tough, those traits go away.”

The Broncos prioritize players like McMillian and McLaughlin. They, like everybody, need elite talent and they have it in Surtain, OLB Nik Bonitto, DT Zach Allen, RG Quinn Meinerz and others. But they’ve managed to collect high-end players who are “like-minded,” as Allen describes it, and then fill in the roster based on a willingness to sacrifice on talent or traits for players they believe fit their mental mold.

“Sean’s done a good job of finding players like that,” Joseph said. “Guys who love football. Guys who just earn their way. Our defense is full of them. Malcolm Roach has earned his way. Not a profile guy by any means. Undersized for a defensive lineman. But just tough, smart and the energy is so positive every day.”

The Grit Lab

Ralph Waldo Emerson wrote in his 1841 essay, “Self-Reliance,” that “an institution is the lengthened shadow of one man.”

If the Broncos’ football operation is an institution, Payton casts the shadow.

He is obsessive about winning. “Maniacal,” he’s said multiple times, about any detail he deems as being even remotely potentially impactful to that cause.

That does not mean everything he does is right, that he handles every situation with aplomb or that those tendencies can’t sometimes get in his own way.

What it does provide, though, is clarity.

Once a goal is set forth, it does not go back to the shelf. Once a standard is set, it cannot be lowered.

The wrench turns only one direction.

In 2023, Payton’s first year, he said he’d be “pissed” if the Broncos didn’t make the playoffs.

The next year, he stiff-armed any notion that carrying $53 million in dead salary cap from Russell Wilson’s contract and playing a rookie quarterback should dampen expectations for his team. He reminded everyone about those dead cap charges after Denver made the playoffs, but never used them to head off a potential step back because he never believed a step back would come.

“When you have like-minded people, excuses aren’t going to be an option,” Allen said. “That����ap why the past two years have been so good is because we’ve been able to bring in like-minded people. Guys really, genuinely enjoy spending time with each other and the more time you spend here, the better you’re going to be.”

Players can sharpen skills, get stronger or become more familiar with schematics, to be sure. But they can also learn to become grittier. More hurricane-proof.

Payton said as much Thursday, citing , a psychology professor at the University of Pennsylvania and the author of the 2016 book, “Grit: The Power of Passion and Perseverance.”

“Obviously, it����ap something that I think is learned to some degree,” Payton said. “It����ap not like, ‘Oh, I was just born with grit genes.’ It can be developed.”

It can be developed, Duckworth contends, not just in individuals but in organizations.

Duckworth, who teaches a course at Penn called “Grit Lab,” hasn’t worked with Payton previously but she’s been rooting for Denver in the playoffs because she is friends with — and has received research funding from — Broncos owner Carrie Walton-Penner.

In 2018, Duckworth co-authored an article and wrote that “restlessness with the status quo and an unrelenting drive to improve” are fundamental to organizations with grit and that, “clarity around high-level goals can be a competitive differentiator.”

Payton believes that in Year 3, his Broncos have all of that.

The next challenge

Ultimately, none of this may matter Sunday against the Patriots.

Nix’s loss is a big one, no matter how resolved the rest of the group is.

The gambling company Circa Sports earlier this week installed New England as a 5.5-point favorite and its risk manager, Jamey Pileggi, determined the Broncos would have opened as 1.5-point favorites had Nix not been injured.

That’s a 7-point swing. Ten of Denver’s wins this year have been by that margin or less. Six of the NFL’s 10 postseason games thus far have been, too.

The Patriots matched Denver’s 14 regular-season games and have dominated the Los Angeles Chargers and Houston so far in the playoffs.

Amazingly, only a Week 1 loss to Las Vegas, the worst team in football, produced the tiebreaker that put this game in Denver rather than Massachusetts.

Head coach Mike Vrabel’s team is balanced, explosive and led by quarterback Drake Maye, a 2024 NFL Draft classmate of Nix’s who authored an MVP-contending season.

They’re good. They’re favored. Most expect they’ll win.

What had become clear over the course of 12 one-score wins, though, is that the Broncos do not rattle easily.

What has crystallized in the hours and days after Nix’s injury is that they will not rattle even in the aftershock of one of the most surreal post-game emotion swings a group could endure.

Certainly, if the Broncos bow out, players and coaches will wonder what might have been. They will remember the year they had such a golden opportunity and when it changed just that fast, so close to the finish line.

Right now, though, Payton is betting he’s built a fortress impenetrable to such thoughts as long as there is still an opponent ahead.

“Anything that����ap like, ‘imagine if we had this,’ that never crosses anybody’s mind,” Allen said.

Payton showed up Monday morning for a team meeting, the first time the group had been together since Nix’s injury, and told them that Sunday would be determined not by how Stidham played, but by how everybody else did.

He projected confidence, just like he did Wednesday when he implored Broncos fans to be loud and said they’d have “plenty of time to rest after this one. Two weeks.”

From the first days of training camp this year, Payton talked about this team as one that could make a championship run. He didn’t guarantee it, but he said he wanted the group to be comfortable thinking and talking in those terms.

For as much as the earth moved beneath the Broncos’ feet in the hour after Saturday’s win, the reality at hand Sunday did not.

Two teams are left in the AFC. One of them is going to the Super Bowl.

Payton, seemingly, hasn’t even considered the possibility of the Broncos not being that team. His lengthened shadow envelops the locker room entirely.

“He just knows what he’s got,” Humphrey said. “He knows what kind of coach he is, he knows what type of players he has in this locker room and he doesn’t think it matters what the situation is.

“We can go out there and handle business.”

Carolina. Minneapolis. Iowa. UCLA. Flights. Specialist after specialist, trying to race against his own symptoms.

“I’ve just tried to find the answer of, what����ap wrong with me, how to fix it?” Jewell said this week.

After a standout six-year Broncos career as an inside linebacker, Jewell signed a three-year deal with the Panthers in March 2024. In Week 16 against the Cardinals, he suffered a concussion. He never cleared protocol, and Carolina released him in July.

Jewell doesn’t want to specifically disclose what these past few months have brought. He doesn’t want to be pitied. But everything’s progressed “downward,” he said. And no treatment, no kind of rehab he’s tried, has worked.

“I’m not a quitter,” Jewell said. “And I’m going to keep on looking for the answer.”

The 31-year-old doesn’t like to talk about his problems. He prefers, instead, to talk about others’ successes. To this day, Jewell has remained active in a group chat with Broncos linebackers Alex Singleton and Justin Strnad. He has not told them about his symptoms. Instead, they sometimes send photo memories of the 2022 and ’23 days, three musketeers in a Denver locker room that was only just sowing seeds of greatness.

On off days, sometimes, they’d form a golf party with Courtland Sutton and Justin Simmons and hit greens around Denver. Sometimes Arrowhead Golf Course, in Littleton. Sometimes Sanctuary, in Douglas County. It was always a toss-up. Sutton was usually the most consistent. Simmons would get “pissed off” from slicing a drive somewhere foreign, Jewell chuckled.

The veteran has watched this current group most every Sunday, the men he knows well climbing to 14-3 and heights not reached in Denver since the Manning days. It brings elation. It also brings pain, sometimes.

In the three years since Broncos head coach Sean Payton arrived in Denver, he and general manager George Paton have filtered this roster at their respective whims to largely momentous results. Much of the heartbeat of Payton’s original roster in 2023 remains: nearly 60% of the initial 53-man group that season is still in Denver, as the No. 1-seeded Broncos head into the AFC playoffs.

Two heartbeats of that first-year Payton Era roster, though — two golf-squad mainstays — are now on the outside looking in. Jewell is trying to heal. Former All-Pro safety Simmons, meanwhile, has remained a free agent for the entirety of the 2025 season. Both still lament the missed opportunities in their respective tenures in Denver.

Both, still, are pulling for the locker room they once knew.

“You kinda wish you were there,” Jewell said. “You wish you were with the team. You’re like, ‘Ah, that looks like fun, man.’

“It����ap a little tough every once in a while,” he continued. “But at the same time, it’s rewarding.”

Simmons was a four-time All-Pro safety in Denver, a 2016 third-round pick who caught the tail end of Gary Kubiak’s tenure and the very beginning of Payton’s. He existed in purgatory, starring in the era between eras, playing under six different head coaches. In March 2024, the Broncos cut bait with one of their franchise stalwarts. They’ve ascended ever since.

Still, Simmons’s Twitter feed is stuffed full of . He has promoted this group at every turn, from appearances on DNVR to Kay Adams’ “Up and Adams.” His only regret, he told The Denver Post in December, was that he couldn’t get Denver back to the playoffs in his own eight-year tenure.

“Of course I’d love to be there like Courtland, like Garett (Bolles), to be able to celebrate them with me being in the postseason and being back to like, what we know the Denver Broncos are,” Simmons reflected, referring to these Broncos’ two-longest-tenured veterans.

“But,” he continued, “there’s no bitterness or hate or ill will towards anything or anyone in the organization. Like, I consider myself, and always will consider myself, a Bronco and a part of ����apountry. And I literally watch every single Sunday, Thursday, Monday, whatever it is, and I’m jumping out of my seat, excited for the guys.

“I can’t be more proud of the group and how they’ve rallied and how well they’re playing, and it just makes me so happy and so proud,” Simmons finished. “I just, like — I’m elated. I’m full of joy. And I’m so happy for the guys, man. And I just hope they continue to have the utmost success, because they’re great humans, they’re great people, and they’re tremendous football players. And I hope they keep grinding and rising to the top.”

Jewell sees it much the same, a fourth-round pick in 2018 who started next to Singleton for two years in Denver. Payton, Paton and the Broncos elected not to re-sign him when he became a free agent in 2024. And Jewell wishes, too, that he had more coaching consistency in his years in Denver.

“I loved Coach Payton … it would’ve been awesome to spend a little bit more time with him,” Jewell said.

Life has rolled several unforeseen developments his way, after that late-2024 hit. The good ol’ days have become good ol’ days quicker, perhaps, than Jewell intended. He misses it. He wants to be a part of it.

He still is, in a sense.

“I hope the guys,” Jewell said, “make it all the way.”

The linebacker motioned one back and asked a question, quietly, not knowing whether he actually wanted the answer.

“Was it the worst of all time?”

The answer brought no comfort.

Technically, Sept. 24, 2023 was not the worst defensive outing in NFL history. But it was, far and away, the worst in Broncos history.

Seventy points allowed. More than 350 yards surrendered running and passing each to Miami.

Denver was not just 0-3 under head coach Sean Payton, but off to the worst defensive start in franchise history under new coordinator Vance Joseph after the worst game in franchise history. The next week, the Broncos trailed 28-7 to Justin Fields and the Bears, who shredded Denver’s defense, too, before a massive second-half comeback.

To put it mildly, Joseph had a bad opening month in his return to Denver as the coordinator. He already arrived with questions, given his earlier head coaching tenure with the club ended when he was fired after two seasons. Payton very publicly talked about several other candidates he’d considered for the coordinator posting before landing on Joseph.

As Joseph tried to mesh some of his own system with a more Vic Fangio-style scheme run previously by Ejiro Evero in Denver — a style many of the returning players liked — the new coordinator found himself inside a burning defensive building.

“I mean, 70 points is a (crap) show,”  said defensive tackle Zach Allen, who has had Joseph as his coordinator for all seven of his NFL seasons dating to 2019 in Arizona. “You do that, you’re 0-3, then Chicago, you’re down 28-7 at half and it����ap like, ‘Oh my god.’”

“It was brutal,” cornerback Riley Moss, a rookie in 2023, told The Post recently. “That was my first NFL experience, like, is this how this (crap) is supposed to go? Obviously not.”

Two years later, Joseph is among the most popular head coaching candidates in the NFL.

Far from getting fired or continuing to struggle, the veteran coordinator instead turned the Broncos into one of the most feared defenses in football.

Far from the passive, read-and-react front deployed in 2023, Joseph has engineered an unprecedented assault on opposing quarterbacks, racking up 131 sacks and 306 quarterback hits in the past two regular seasons.

He did it, at the core, by being himself.

“That����ap a Harvard Business School case study of leadership right there,” Allen told the Post.

‘I’ll go out on my shield’

In the spring of 2023, the only remnants left from Nathaniel Hackett����ap time as Denver’s head coach were in the defensive meeting rooms.

The Broncos’ defense put forth a salty 2022 season under Evero before finally caving late in a lost season.

When Payton was hired, he cleaned out just about everybody on staff except a pair of talented young assistants in secondary coach Christian Parker and defensive line coach Marcus Dixon.

Joseph and players talked about taking some of the previous defensive principles and incorporating them into his system.

“Year 1, there definitely were people who were like, ‘I want to stick to the old ways and Evero’s way,’” Allen said. “And Vance tried to do that because it was a successful defense. We were kind of mixing the two.”

That quickly backfired when the season began. It wasn’t their only problem, but Joseph decided quickly that striking a balance wasn’t going to work.

“He wanted to try to meld a little bit of that, but especially after that Dolphins game, he was like, ‘If it����ap going to go like that, I’ll go out on my shield,’” inside linebacker Justin Strnad told The Post.

The problem: There’s no good way to make a massive overhaul on the fly. The Broncos’ defense did improve dramatically, though, over the rest of the season. Denver won five straight and pushed to the doorstep of the playoff picture before finishing 8-9.

Publicly, the Broncos’ quarterback situation dominated offseason headlines. First, cutting Russell Wilson and taking $85 million in dead salary cap in the process. Then, drafting Bo Nix.

Joseph, meanwhile, helped oversee a defensive overhaul that drew far less attention.

Parker and Dixon left for jobs in Philadelphia and Minnesota, respectively — two very productive defenses in their own right. Denver promoted Jamar Cain to defensive line coach and hired Jim Leonhard to coach the secondary.  Stalwart safety Justin Simmons was cut in the spring, the biggest in a series of personnel changes. The Broncos signed safety Brandon Jones in March and traded for defensive tackle John Franklin-Myers during the draft.

Then the group showed up for organized team activities in May. Joseph had a message in the first defensive meeting.

“He said, ‘I’m just going to rip it and do it my way,’” Allen recalled.

Added Moss, “We all kind of sat down and they taught us, this is how we’re going to do it. If you see it another way, yes, you can bring it up. Yes, we can have that conversation. But this is how we’re going to start off doing it.”

‘It����ap something special’

Over the subsequent two seasons, few defenses have been more consistent and more disruptive than Denver’s.

Joseph’s group this year finished third in scoring and second in total defense. First in the red zone and second on third downs.

Over the past 34 regular-season games, the Broncos have 33 more sacks than anybody else. The Vikings are a distant second, with 98.

There are myriad reasons for the success. The Broncos have major hits in free agency like Allen, Jones and safety Talanoa Hufanga, among others. They’ve developed a host of draft picks and undrafted players into All-Pros and high-quality starters like outside linebackers Nik Bonitto and Jonathan Cooper, nickel Ja’Quan McMillian, Moss and more.

They, of course, have one of the best defensive players in football in cornerback and reigning defensive player of the year Pat Surtain II.

Those are premium tools and Joseph’s carpentry has been excellent and ornate.

“V.J.’s an aggressive play-caller. He’s going to dial stuff up,” Strnad said. … “His defense, there’s a lot of moving parts. Even on some of the pressures — not to give things away, but there are blitzes where you’re reading things on the fly that can change what goes on on that blitz. There’s a lot of things that go into the defense, but he’s done a great job.”

Joseph preaches players before scheme and lives by it.

He’s convinced players who struggled early that they could excel.

Bonitto this summer recalled Joseph bringing him up to his office after a dismal rookie year and telling him he could be special.

Moss, same thing.

“As a rookie, I was still kind of, ‘Can I play in the NFL?’” Moss said. “Everyone questions that. But he’s always been behind me, always had my back.”

Joseph’s match-heavy system requires players to think on the fly and communicate at a high level, but now, three years in with much of the core, they operate daily as Ph.Ds.

“He’s really good at just understanding (situations) and he’s not tied to, ‘It has to be this play, this play, this play,’” Allen said. “He looks at, what are our strengths? What are our weaknesses? And then he works in that space. From day dot, he’s been awesome with that. …

“This year, it was just that perfect mix where it����ap the culmination of the talent and then on top of that, I think he’s done a hell of a job of explaining why we’re doing certain stuff and getting guys to 100% buy into it all. When you combine those two, it����ap something special.”

‘His standard is set high’

Of course, should Joseph land a head coaching job, that kind of expertise is not necessarily waiting for him in a new locker room.

Systems take time to learn. Talent takes time to accumulate.

The New York Giants have a wealth of defensive difference-makers as they pursue a head coach, but not every team with a vacancy can say the same. Baltimore and Miami each have talent, too.

Plus, defense is just part of the equation when you’re in the big chair. The Broncos were in quarterback purgatory when Joseph had the head coaching job in 2017-18 and it showed. The current openings range from having promising young quarterbacks in place — Jaxson Dart with the Giants and Cam Ward in Tennessee — to Las Vegas owning the No. 1 pick in April’s draft, question marks in Atlanta, Cleveland, Miami and Arizona and MVP winner Lamar Jackson in his Baltimore prime.

Quarterback, staff, ownership, general manager. There are so many elements at play for head coaches that go beyond how to get your nickel on a free run to the quarterback in a critical moment.

In the Broncos locker room, though, players are just as likely to rave about Joseph the leader and person as they are Joseph the tactician.

Hall of Fame quarterback Peyton Manning , “I’m not sure there’s a better characteristic or quality for a head coach than, ‘Do your players play hard for you?’”

There are different ways to achieve that. Hufanga has seen multiple versions during his years in San Francisco and now as a first-year Broncos safety.

With Joseph, he said, two words come to mind: Accountability and consistency.

“There’s games this year where we’ve come in afterward for film and he’s been like, ‘This call is on me,’” Hufanga said. “ And you’re like, dang, there’s not a lot of coaches that are going to do that. They’re going to figure out a way to coach you through a play, but he’ll be like, ‘This play here:  bad play, bad call, bad timing. That����ap on me. That����ap not on you guys.’”

If the guy standing at the front of the room is willing to put failure on his own shoulders, Hufanga said, then there’s no room for anybody else to pass off blame.

“That����ap what he expects out of us, too,” the All-Pro candidate said. “If I make a mistake, I’ve got to be willing to own what I was thinking during that play. Why did I make that mistake? That way, they can help coach me to better processing and better reads. …

“If he’s going to do it, then who are we to not be accountable, too? We want to be our best for him. We’ve got to go out there and play to his standard. And his standard is set high.”

Hufanga said Joseph is “ferocious in the way he attacks life” and said he hasn’t noticed a difference at all as the season’s progressed and Joseph’s name has come up more and more as a head coaching candidate.

“Some people can get lost, especially like in his situation, where he’s getting odds to go other places or could be thinking about other opportunities, but, man, he’s been the same person every single day,” Hufanga said. “And that����ap all you can ask for in this profession. That����ap what he expects out of us and that����ap the way he coaches us.”

Make no mistake, though, Joseph has been taking notes throughout his time in Denver. He’s talked extensively about what he’s learned from Payton and how he’d apply it if he gets the chance to run his own team again.

“How he paints the picture for each player. Each week’s game plan,” Joseph said on Thanksgiving, of what he’s taken from Payton’s style. “The best thing he has done is change the culture and that����ap players. How we draft players — the draft process is a deep dive into players. The person, the player, what����ap the vision for the player? There’s no guessing when you’re drafting players and we’ve drafted really well the last three years.

“Even in free agency, very careful of who you bring into your culture. The culture is changed by the players.”

The Broncos are hoping for a long playoff run and a trip to the Super Bowl to start February. Along the way, several teams will be kicking the tires on Joseph. Six of the seven with head coaching openings have asked to speak with him about head coaching jobs.

That would have been hard to imagine given the way his coordinator tenure started in Denver, but it����ap plain to see why he’s in demand now.

“He’s a fighter. He persevered through it,” Allen said. “I’ve been with him the longest, obviously, but everybody here loves him.  It����ap awesome to see his success. He’s not just a great coach. He’s a great person.”