Darnold, of course, was picked No. 3 overall in the 2018 draft by the New York Jets. He flamed out there, then started a journey that featured stops and starts, more downs than ups and, eventually, a fast rise at Minnesota, a $100 million deal in Seattle and, in his first year starting for the Seahawks, a world championship.

Darnold is one of several quarterbacks in the NFL who has had to take the long route to being a coveted starter. Baker Mayfield went through the same thing. Jared Goff nearly won a Super Bowl in Los Angeles only to be dumped by the Rams to Detroit. Daniel Jones was putting together a great year last year — his first in seven seasons — before an injury cut his Indianapolis debut short.

Overall, though, winning a Super Bowl in the past decade-plus in the NFL has been the province of surefire Hall of Famers. Before the Seahawks, nine of the previous 11 Super Bowls had been won by Patrick Mahomes, Tom Brady, Peyton Manning and Matthew Stafford. The other two belong to the Eagles: The Nick Foles miracle run in 2017 and Jalen Hurts in 2024.

Of course, any team would take a future Hall of Famer at quarterback, but one interesting element here: For as much as the prevailing wisdom is that quarterbacks on a cheap, rookie contract are the key to building a championship-caliber team, the only quarterbacks since 2013 to win a Super Bowl while actually playing on their rookie deal are Russell Wilson (2013 for Seattle) and Mahomes in 2019.

Mahomes’ and Brady’s dominance have a lot to do with that stat, but perhaps it����ap telling nonetheless.

While they haven’t won many titles, rookie-contract quarterbacks still have appeared in the Super Bowl frequently. Wilson made it back in 2014. Since 2018, the losing Super Bowl quarterback has been on his rookie deal six of eight years, with Mahomes holding the two exceptions in 2020 and 2024. Otherwise, the list goes Goff (2018), Jimmy Garoppolo (2019), Joe Burrow (2021), Hurts (2022), Brock Purdy (2023) and Drake Maye last year.

Of the 26 quarterbacks to start a Super Bowl in the past 13 years, 12 have accounted for 5.2% of his team’s cap that year or less. That includes the past two winners in Darnold and Hurts.

Could a quarterback on a rookie deal break through this year and win a Super Bowl? The 2024 draft class, which becomes extension-eligible after this season, looks like a decent bet. After all, Caleb Williams, Jayden Daniels, Maye and Denver’s Bo Nix have already won division titles in their first two seasons. Maye’s played in a Super Bowl, while Daniels and Nix have come within a game.

The list of quarterbacks good enough to take up double-digit percentage of a team’s salary cap has been short over the past decade-plus. Mahomes winning two in Kansas City while taking up 17% of the Chiefs’ cap space stands as a substantial outlier.

Of course, teams are adept at suppressing the cap hit for a player long after he signs an extension, but the bill comes due at some point. So, the most efficient way is to strike while the iron is hot and the signal-caller is cheap.

QBs in the Super Bowl since 2013

* Cap data via OvertheCap

The 2024 QB class through two years

John Elway will make his “Manningcast” debut for the Broncos-Chiefs game, joining fellow Hall of Famer Peyton Manning. Brother Eli, who remains a candidate for Canton, will be there, too.

But Elway’s first appearance will draw in ����apountry for what Elway and Manning have to say. Both have an intimate knowledge of the Broncos. When it comes to the team’s history, there is Elway and everyone else.

He guided the Broncos to five Super Bowls, winning the franchise’s first two in the 1997 and 1998 seasons behind a star-studded offense that included future Hall of Famers Gary Zimmerman, Shannon Sharpe and Terrell Davis.

With the help of an historically great defense, Manning engineered the Broncos’ last title, taming the Carolina Panthers, 24-10.

The current Broncos open the season with championship expectations, making Elway’s appearance well-timed and even more fascinating.

The “Manningcast” began in 2021, the same year Elway transitioned from head of the Broncos football operations to a consulting role. His last day in that position was March 15, 2023.

While Elway has been removed from the Broncos, he has not been far away. He has long had a good friendship with coach Sean Payton, through many golf outings, leaving him tethered and mindful of the Broncos’ results.

There will likely be questions about Bo Nix. Following Manning’s retirement, Elway struggled to keep the Broncos in contention because a carousel of quarterbacks — from Trevor Siemian to Case Keenum and Joe Flacco — failed to pan out.

Nix represents the 13th starter since Manning, and two playoff berths in his first two seasons have cast him as a long-term solution.

Elway’s thoughts on Nix and the Broncos should make for interesting listening. There should be some barbs as well. Elway and the Mannings have a history of one-liners, and it would be a disappointment if they didn’t rib each other.

Elway is the third former or current Broncos player to appear on the “Manningcast,” joining Sharpe and Russell Wilson.

When looking to amplify self-deprecation and his love for football, the Hall of Famer advanced to blowing up buildings, crawling through air ducts and chasing a helicopter in the reveal of the Manningcast schedule that opens on Monday night with the Broncos at Chiefs.

“The Heist” grew from a desire to change the broadcast dates since one conflicted with Peyton’s book club reading of his old playbooks. He enlisted brother and co-host Eli to break into the NFL offices and change the master schedule on commissioner Roger Goodell’s computer.

Why not just pick up the phone? An annoyed Goodell had long ago started sending Peyton’s calls to voicemail. So, the script with “2 brothers, 40 cameos and 0 clue” came to life.

“Peyton always has the perfectionist mentality. And the mandate is to go bigger and better,” Omaha Productions head writer DJ Gallo told The Denver Post. “This year, there were like six pitches, and we settled on a mini-action movie. Both Peyton and Eli grew up watching a lot of movies. They are all about football. But they definitely know movies, so they liked the idea.”

It was on Gallo to pull it together. The first two schedule reveals worked well — auditions centering on finding a third Manningcast member and Manning the musical filmed at Kent Denver School’s Anschutz Theater — but this represented a bigger undertaking. Rather than seven months, they had a 16-month lead-up.

It provided time and multiple opportunities to add players and coaches at the NFL meetings and Pro Bowl. And it opened up a chance to bring in more Hollywood stars.

“We very much lean on Peyton. Everyone has such respect for him,” Gallo said. “He tells them the idea, how much time we need and they want to participate.”

The Mannings had shown they can turn their dry wit into comedic gold with athletes. This project found its sense of humor from Anne Hathaway as a foul-mouthed getaway driver of a van with the Mannings picture on the side, a bumbling Paul Rudd, too good-looking Jon Hamm and an irritable Larry David.

David delivered perhaps the movie’s best zinger, going full He let Peyton and Eli know their plan stunk — “You forgot the night watchman, what a bunch of blithering idiots!” — and called their commercial presence “ubiquitous.”

Eli thanked him.

“That wasn’t a compliment,” Peyton corrected.

The result is a smooth-moving adventure of follies. It includes father Archie aborting a helicopter rescue.

“We went down to New Orleans for that one, and he is so great,” Gallo said. “We give him the lines and he bangs them out.”

Gallo enjoys working with current and former athletes because they are used to being coached. Spoiler alert: The Mannings, clumsy as they were, succeeded in getting the schedule tweaked to fit Peyton’s needs.

“Monday Night Football with Peyton & Eli” will appear on 11 regular-season games and, for the first time, the Super Bowl.

“These reveals are positive and fun. That is the tone of the Manningcast with athletes, actors and musicians. People who love the NFL,” Gallo said. “We hope these reveals give off that vibe in a different way of what we want the Manningcast to be.”

Former Broncos head coach Gary Kubiak wanted Joseph, then the Bengals’ defensive backs coach, to be his defensive coordinator in Denver in 2015. Then-Denver general manager John Elway put in a slip to interview Joseph. Longtime Bengals head coach Lewis wanted Joseph to advance. But someone — as Lewis tells it — wandered upstairs to convince Bengals owner Mike Brown that Joseph was valuable enough to keep, and Lewis tried to convince Brown to no avail, and the Bengals blocked Joseph from leaving.

So a year later, Joseph left Cincinnati “because he was upset,” as Lewis said, to take the Dolphins’ defensive coordinator job. Another year later, Joseph landed the top job in Denver on the heels of Kubiak’s retirement and at the beginning of a transitional era.

The what-if, from Cincinnati’s 2015 blockade, is significant. Lewis was asked: If Joseph had already been immersed in Denver’s building for the two years before he succeeded Kubiak, would things have gone differently?

“It’s probably,” Lewis affirmed, “a really different outcome.”

Instead, the Broncos went 5-11 and 6-10 in two years before firing Joseph, sending him spiraling back down the rungs of an arbitrary NFL coaching ladder that is remarkably difficult to climb back up. The journey, since, has taken him back to Denver as a coordinator, in a remarkably humble move for a fired head coach — “no fear,” as Cowboys DC Christian Parker put it — only for the NFL to pass him up with each passing coaching cycle.

After he put together two straight seasons of top-three defenses in Denver, 10 head-coaching jobs came free this past NFL cycle. Five teams requested to interview Joseph. None of them chose to hire him.

As Joseph has built his resume, peers across the league point directly to him amid a troubling demographic trend across the NFL: it’s empirically difficult for Black coaches to earn a head-coaching job, and even more difficult to earn a second job.

“The success he’s had the last couple years in Denver, having the defense like he’s had, and building the credibility, credentials that he’s had — not to get a shot or another shot, is unbelievable to me,” Buccaneers head coach Todd Bowles told reporters at the NFL owners’ meetings in March. “So, something has to be fixed.”

Joseph declined to be interviewed for this story, and had no hand in supporting it. In June, he told reporters it was “OK” he didn’t get a head-coaching job this past cycle.

“My focus now is to get back in position, and that’s winning games for the Broncos and being a great defense again,” Joseph said then. “It’s a process that is different every single year. I can’t be concerned about the outcomes. Just keep pushing forward, winning games and being in position to interview.”

Coaches close to Joseph have told The Post he remains undeterred. Some speak with near-outrage on a hiring system that — since 2018 — has excluded him.

“I’m not an owner, not a general manager,” Seahawks assistant head coach Leslie Frazier told The Post at February’s Super Bowl week in San Francisco. “But how does that happen? I just don’t get it. His resume should speak for itself. Disappointed. I hope that things will change.

“But when there are 10 jobs, and there’s not one Black coach who anyone feels is qualified or capable of leading their team — just makes me scratch my head. It����ap just disappointing.”

—

There are several plain and possible contributing factors across the NFL for Joseph’s extended and incomplete climb back to a head-coaching chair. Cleveland’s Todd Monken, for one, is the only head coach (60) hired this cycle who is older than Joseph and hasn’t won a Super Bowl as a head coach. Franchises, too, have increasingly shifted in recent years toward targeting young offensive play-callers in the Sean McVay mold, as one prominent NFL coaching agent told The Post. And, of course, Joseph doesn’t have a long string of head-coaching victories as a second-chance hire.

The league’s static progress in head-coaching diversity, though — just three Black head coaches are set to helm NFL teams in 2026 — is hard for many to ignore.

“There’s not many of them anywhere,” said former Browns head coach Hue Jackson. “And the numbers get worse. The numbers are as bad as it����ap ever been, now.”

There is a stark historical disparity, too, in the time between second chances for Black and white head coaches. According to coaching data collected and analyzed by The Denver Post, there have been nine Black head coaches and 29 white head coaches who coached in the 2000s, were fired from a head-coaching job and rehired by a different organization.

The average number of seasons between top jobs for Black coaches is 4.2, compared to 2.7 for white coaches.

This known disparity in falling back down the ladder, Jackson believes, can influence decisions to even approach head-coaching jobs

“I think a lot of guys that I know — are personally afraid to do it,” said Jackson, who hasn’t been an NFL head coach since a 3-36-1 tenure with the Browns from 2016 to 2018. “Because you have success, and you get this opportunity, and let����ap say you get it. Where do you go when it����ap over?”

“I think people have had an opportunity to see firsthand that if you do step out there and take that chance,” he continued later, “this is what could happen to you.”

Vikings defensive coordinator Brian Flores’s discrimination suit against the NFL, filed in February 2022, has ignited years of debate about the role of race in the league’s hiring practices. So has examination of the league’s long-standing “Rooney Rule,” . But key to this conversation, as several former Black head coaches spoke with The Post about, is the difficulty of Black coaches not only getting hired but also being rehired.

“In this business, they want to know, did you win or did you lose?” former Browns and Chiefs head coach Romeo Crennel told The Post. “And if you win, generally, you get a chance to stay. If you lose, now then – that becomes part of your resume, that you are a losing head coach. And so, when these people start looking for coaches, they aren’t crazy about hiring a black coach that����ap a losing coach.

“And so, that makes it tougher for a black coach to get rehired.”

—

Joseph began his football career as an option quarterback at the University of Colorado, where he overlapped with current Chiefs offensive coordinator Eric Bieniemy for a year. Both were members of Colorado’s chapter of the Omega Psi Phi fraternity, and Bieniemy — who is still close friends with Joseph — said both still live by an old fraternity motto: “Humility With Dignity.”

“He’s an outstanding communicator, and he’s one of the top damn NFL defensive coordinators in this business right now,” Bieniemy told The Post of Joseph in July. “And he deserves a shot.”

Joseph’s head-coaching stint in Denver remains a stain, overseeing two years of sluggish Broncos offenses that fielded four different starting quarterbacks. But those in the building from that era, still, take up for Joseph. The franchise’s fatal flaw in those 2017 and 2018 seasons, as former Broncos defensive coordinator Joe Woods indicated — now the Raiders’ defensive-passing game coordinator — was not aligning expectations with an objective assessment of the roster’s talent.

Kubiak was gone, after a 9-7 slip in 2016 from 2015’s Super Bowl title. Peyton Manning was a year retired, and the Broncos had already whiffed on 2016 first-round QB Paxton Lynch. Pro Bowl staples like Demaryius Thomas and Emmanuel Sanders were entering the twilight of their careers, and Denver’s vaunted “No-Fly Zone” secondary was losing altitude.

“Probably one of the main things from Denver that (Joseph) learned is that, just from an organizational standpoint, that everybody has to be on the same path in terms of what the outlook is,” Woods said. “When we were there, we were coming off, ‘Hey, we were just in the Super Bowl in ‘15, we’re a couple pieces away.’ But I think really, at that time, we weren’t.”

The 2017 Broncos started 3-1 under Joseph and finished 2-10, starting three different quarterbacks. Veteran Case Keenum wasn’t the answer at quarterback a year later.

And still, former Denver tight end Virgil Green calls Joseph a “football wizard,” and ex-Broncos great Von Miller said Joseph did “the best job he could do” with the tools at his disposal.

“It was a hangover there,” Broncos great Von Miller told The Post this spring. “It had nothing to do with VJ’s coaching, or perspective. We, as far as recruiting, we had a hangover there. We were behind the ball as far as scouting, and getting guys in there that really could change, like, the organization. And we had missed that whole mark for that whole time VJ was there, and then leading up to VJ getting there. So VJ, he really didn’t have much to work with.

“VJ did an incredible job, as far as his managing of the team,” Miller continued. “His managing of the offense, of the defense, our schemes. We won some games that we should not have won, with the team that we had. We had trouble at the quarterback position. We had trouble everywhere. We didn’t have the No-Fly Zone. It was all types of things that were happening, and VJ managed it well.”

And Joseph, as Lewis told The Post, has been able to watch Denver’s roster-building strategy under Sean Payton and understand the need to build around a quarterback.

“You give him Peyton Manning,” Miller said, recounting Joseph’s head-coaching years, “we’re going to the Super Bowl. You give him a Josh Allen, you give him one of these great quarterbacks, we’re going to the Super Bowl.”

In Denver, now, players almost universally praise Joseph’s ability to relay complex, aggressive defensive schemes. His units have produced two straight seasons of franchise sack records, largely due to creative packages that use inside linebackers and nickel blitzes. And he stepped in seamlessly for Payton for two days this camp, when Denver’s head coach flew to Canton, Ohio, for Drew Brees’ Hall of Fame induction.

At one point during Joseph’s brief time in charge, nickel cornerback Ja’Quan McMillian went up to Joseph and told him: “Head coach looks good on you.”

“He’s a leader of men – like, he checks every single box,” All-Pro defensive lineman Zach Allen told The Post at the Pro Bowl in San Francisco in February. “I don’t know what the teams are looking for. But for us, it����ap good news. So we’ll take it.”

When will another team take Joseph, though? Most everyone in Denver’s building and Joseph’s orbit — and Joseph himself — remain expressively optimistic he’ll get a second chance. But luck in the NFL is fickle, and proven leadership hasn’t worked on its own accord.

Lewis laid out a hypothetical situation in which injuries befall the Broncos’ offense in 2026, the wins stop coming, and Joseph’s overall defensive impact from two previous seasons is lost in the weeds.

“That is my worry,” Lewis said. “That, really, is my worry.”

Joseph will walk into another head-coaching cycle, now, only able to control a handful of factors in front of him. But those who know him ultimately present the image of a man who will control those factors as well as anyone in his profession.

“Was Vance ready?” Kubiak said, asked if Joseph was ready in 2017. “Yeah, Vance is ready. I mean, he’s been ready for a long time.”

“You guys are really lucky to play for the Penners,” the former Broncos safety, enforcer for the Super Bowl 50 champions, told me recently. “You know your owners are personable when they come up (and say), ‘Here’s my email. If you need anything, hit us up.'”

So he did.

“I met them a few times, actually,” Ward said of Carrie Walton Penner and her husband, Greg Penner, the first family of ����apountry. “They were great. Great couple. Great family.”

And you wonder why we want them to buy the Rockies?

Happy Week 1, kids. The Broncos’ defense of the 2025 AFC West title begins next Monday night in Kansas City. Bo Nix looks fine. Davis Webb is calling plays without Sean Payton calling him names (so far).

Thanks to Jonah Coleman, the orange and blue suddenly has more good tailbacks than carries to feed them. The Sack Pack is back, Jack, even if John Franklin-Myers isn’t. It’s Super Bo or bust.

Lombardi Trophies are usually won from the top down. Smart owners set the bar, then leave the football people alone to try and clear the blasted thing.

Look closely at the last 10 Super Bowl winners. Judy Allen in Seattle. The Hunts in Kansas City. Jeffrey Lurie in Philadelphia. The Kroenkes in Los Angeles. The Glazers in Tampa. Robert Kraft in New England.

With the Penners, the Broncos aspire to have the best of everything — team offices, training facilities, stadium–  in order to be the best, every year. That stuff trickles down. It permeates.

“Oh, 1,000%,” ex-Broncos safety Justin Simmons noted by phone. “I came in, unfortunately, when Mr. B. (former Broncos owner Pat Bowlen) was declining in his health. But I could feel the family vibe. I felt included. I felt a sense of importance in 2016, and it wasn’t just because I was a draft pick.

“As the years went on and we were trying to figure out ownership, and all the things in between, it got messy at times. Some of those things got lost in the (ensuring years).”

Simmons, 32, retired this past spring after a nine-year NFL career, eight of which were spent with the Broncos (2016-2023). No. 31 was a darn good player, and an even better dude, stuck with trying to help carry some forgettable teams. During his Dove Valley tenure, Simmons was named an All-Pro four times and selected to the Pro Bowl twice. But until the Penners arrived in August 2022, what rested above him on the corporate chain of command, at times, really stunk.

The former Boston College star played for six different coaches, including interims, over his eight seasons here. What Simmons didn’t know when he was drafted in 2016 was that the Broncos were careening into The Wilderness Years. He didn’t know that winning a Super Bowl with an injured Peyton Manning and peak Von Miller in 2015-16 convinced management that anybody could quarterback the orange and blue as long as Miller and the No Fly Zone remained intact.

They were, to be kind, badly mistaken. A merry-go-round of “meh” signal-callers and blah coaches followed, and the Broncos averaged 9.9 losses per year during Simmons’ tenure with the franchise.

But No. 31 could also tell you exactly when that spinning slowed down and eventually came to a dead stop. Not long after the Walton-Penner Group purchased the Broncos four Augusts ago, the safety and Broncos punter Brandon McManus, two of the most tenured members of the locker room, were called into new CEO Penner’s office for a meeting.

“Hey, give me a rundown … you guys are longest-tenured players here,” Penner told Simmons and McManus in 2022. “Give me a list of things that people have complained about.'”

For starters? Small locker room. No family room. No individualized nutrition plans. No sauna.

“(Penner) said, ‘This is so helpful,’ didn’t give us any backlash,” Simmons recalled. “I’m super-appreciative of that conversation to this day.”

The proof is in the buildings. Broncos Park Powered by Common Spirit, the team’s brand-new HQ, features a state-of-the-art training room with pools, sleep pods, a hyperbaric chamber — and a sauna.

“In their first year, (the Walton-Penner Group) put in a whole new grass field at the end of the season, and we weren’t even in the playoffs,” Simmons marveled.

“You could just tell the type of people they were. You always see success as an organization, in my opinion, when you have people who lead like that.”

The best NFL franchises almost always are the ones that get it right at quarterback and at head coach first. But the perennial contenders are also the ones that don’t skimp on the margins. Or to accountability.

From 2018 through 2022, the Broncos were an NFL club locked in a contentious custody battle, rotting at the summit. The Battlin’ Bowlens, heirs to Mr. B., schemed and leveraged against one another as if tussling for

Meanwhile, The Bowlen Trust — a trio of former CEO Joe Ellis, team counsel Rich Silva and Denver attorney Mary Kelly — ran the Broncos like a committee of substitute teachers. Underwhelming signal-callers came, failed, and went. Uninspired coaching hires did the same.

Most ownership groups come in and take big swings. Great ownership groups are the ones that can course-correct swiftly, and efficiently, when those swings are obvious misses.

Bad NFL clubs — the Browns of now, the Bengals before Marvin Lewis showed up — are reluctant to move off of whiffs at coach and QB. Not here. Nathaniel Hackett and Russell Wilson quickly gave way to Sean Payton and Bo Nix, despite the costs.

“You see how some of these owners deal with their players,” Ward continued. “As commodities. Or capital. (With the Broncos), you have owners that treat you like people, are empathetic to what you’re going through — not only as a person, but maybe your family, all those type of things.

“Yeah, they want to win. Everybody wants to be successful. But there’s a certain way you treat your people, treat your employees. And I think that creates better business, at the end of the day, to get better players to want to come in and play for you.

“I grew up a Niners fan. And at the time (they were owned by) the DeBartolos, (and) they treated players completely different — and that’s why, at that time, they were winning. You start operating like that, providing the best resources for your players, the best training, the best facilities, travel — that stuff results in wins. If you try to shortcut everything and treat your players like items on the shelf, you’re not going to be very successful.”

As if the Broncos needed any reminder of how close they came last year, the NFL season kicks off Wednesday night with a Super Bowl rematch between New England and Seattle. Then, San Francisco and the Los Angeles Rams square off in Australia on Thursday night.

Denver plays all four of those teams this season and three of them by Week 6, but the Broncos have a long wait until Monday night, Sept. 14, before finally kicking off at Kansas City.

Tuesday marks six weeks since Broncos veterans reported for training camp. In that time, we’ve learned quite a bit about Sean Payton’s team. There also remain a handful of outstanding questions as prep for the Chiefs is set to kick into gear Monday and then really ramp up midweek.

Let����ap set the table as we head into the final week of the year without games that count on the menu.

What we’ve learned

Bo Nix has passed every test so far and looks primed for Week 1

When camp began in late July, Nix hadn’t opened up and ran in a practice setting since before he broke his ankle in January and had a follow-up procedure in April. It didn’t take long, though, for the third-year quarterback to show he felt good. Nix took every rep in training camp and he ran and cut hard off the right ankle. He showed no signs of any kind of rehab plan or workload moderation, outside of Payton mentioning that he likely still had scar tissue. The staff held him out of the preseason opener, but otherwise it����ap been full throttle for Nix heading into Week 1. And his teammates say he “is playing out of his mind.” The physically taxing part for all players is just beginning, but the summer has gone as well as it could have so far for Nix and the Broncos.

This should be the best collection of skill talent the Broncos have had in years

Camp featured glimpses of Denver’s offensive potential in 2026, but the whole No. 1 group has only played together in practice so far. Running back J.K. Dobbins didn’t play a preseason game snap and wide receiver Jaylen Waddle played six.

When this group hits the field for the first time against the Chiefs, though, it should be the most dangerous since Peyton Manning retired. Waddle’s arrival and Pat Bryant����ap ascension will certainly impact — and maybe transform — the wide receiver room. Payton and company have invested in the running back room and it finally appears to be in a good spot with Dobbins, RJ Harvey and rookie Jonah Coleman. The tight end room didn’t change much, but Evan Engram sees growth for himself, and the group could see residual benefit from the uptick in skill at the other positions. Bottom line: Nix and new play-caller Davis Webb have a lot to work with at their disposal.

The questions on defense are not where we thought they’d be when camp opened

The Broncos appear poised to cover the free-agency departure of John Franklin-Myers with players on the rise. Eyioma Uwazurike had one of the most impressive camps on the roster, Malcolm Roach continues to improve each year, and they pair with Zach Allen and D.J. Jones to make a high-quality top four. They’ll need Jordan Jackson to handle some snaps and rookie Tyler Onyedim to progress over the season, but this group looks ready to hit the ground running. When JFM got $21 million a year, it would have been a bit strange to think that safety P.J. Locke and inside linebacker Dre Greenlaw would be the departures that left more lingering questions, but that����ap how it feels heading into Week 1.

Questions remaining

Will anybody get a contract extension before the opener?

Each of the past two seasons, the Broncos have inked a major contract extension with a defensive stalwart during Week 1 preparations. In 2024, it was cornerback Pat Surtain II. Last year, outside linebacker Nik Bonitto.

The Broncos don’t have the kind of obvious to-do list they did last year when Courtland Sutton and Zach Allen both also got extensions during camp, but they do have a big group of key players entering contract seasons. These things can change fast, but it����ap been quiet on the contract front so far. There’s been no solid indication that an extension is on the immediate horizon for Ja’Quan McMillian, Riley Moss, Uwazurike, Bandon Jones, Marvin Mims Jr., Ben Powers or anybody else. Deadlines spur actions, of course, and Payton has expressed interest in having multiple players on that list around long-term, but nothing has materialized.

Payton and owner Greg Penner have downplayed the impact that Nix’s impending extension eligibility, which begins next offseason, has on Denver’s contract decision-making from here forward. It����ap also true that the Broncos have spent a ton to lock up their core over the past two years. Still, if nothing comes over the next 10 days, Denver will enter the season looking like a team that could well be entering its last season with such extensive continuity.

When will Jonathon Cooper’s criminal case be resolved?

When veterans reported on July 29, Payton said the Broncos stood firmly behind Cooper and that he thought resolution could come “sooner than later.” Six weeks later, Cooper’s been arraigned on felony assault for strangulation and other lesser charges stemming from a pair of domestic violence-related arrests in June. He is not on the Broncos’ 53-man roster and is instead on the commissioner’s exempt list, which is essentially paid leave. His trial date is slated for mid-November, after nine Broncos regular-season games. The league could conclude its review of Cooper’s case for potential violations of its personal conduct policy before a trial starts, but neither the league office nor the 23rd Judicial District Attorney’s Office appears to have much incentive to rush to a conclusion. Cooper’s in line to miss the opening portion of the season, but beyond that, there’s still uncertainty about what resolution looks like and if and when Denver’s starting outside linebacker might be back on the field.

How will Payton handle his new game-day role when they actually count?

The biggest outstanding question for the Broncos, really, is how Davis Webb will fare as a first-time play-caller. Particularly against a run of top-flight opponents out of the gate. Players and coaches are confident. So, too, is Webb. The interesting undercard is how Payton himself handles game days. He swears he’s not going to be like his mentor, Bill Parcells, who he said sighed or questioned many of his calls as games unfolded. He’s adamant this is going to work swimmingly and he won’t be tempted to take play-calling duties back. He’ll have “some suggestions, some mandates,” he said with a smile. New-look Gameday Sean in the preseason is one thing. How it looks in the regular season will be fascinating. There will undoubtedly be plenty of camera shots along the way to help tell the story.

J.K. Dobbins has promised to be healthy, and if not, there is an MRI machine on site. Evan Engram’s key card permits him to leave witness protection on Sundays. Ben Powers’ foot is surgically repaired. Brandon Jones has his biceps back, and his bare feet are more calloused for the journey ahead.

The Broncos are not fighting recent history — of no winning seasons, of zero playoff victories. They are poised to make history.

They broke the Bills. And they would have punked the Patriots had their starting quarterback or running back played.

Two days into the 2026 training camp, the Broncos have their doubters, especially from sportsbooks who believe they will finish with nine wins and miss the playoffs.

None are inside the 320,000-square foot headquarters.

In coach Sean Payton’s fourth season, the Broncos are positioned to win the franchise’s fourth Super Bowl.

Watching practice, two reasons why emerge on loop: Bo Nix’s brains and Jaylen Waddle’s feet.

The Broncos boast a championship-caliber defense, steeped in familiarity. There will be one new starter at defensive end for the departed John Franklin-Myers, with Malcolm Roach and Eyioma Uwazurike capable of filling the void.

It is the offense that has held the Broncos back. It still sounds weird to say about a Payton team, but the truth is obvious. The Broncos were terrible on early downs and early in games last season.

It is why they were chasing more than limes after tequila.

They are not going 12-3 in one-score games again. They will likely play only eight, needing five victories.

For the first time since Peyton Manning started, the Broncos will be dynamic, explosive.

It traces back to Nix. He looks better physically than at any point of his career, his right ankle fixed, and lingering college injuries a distant memory.

Feel good, play better. And faster.

While focus remains on Nix’s feet — he is already making plays off script — it is his head that matters. There is a point in a quarterback’s career where he becomes focused on the defense, not his own personnel.

Nix has reached this intersection.

He is not Manning changing plays at the line of scrimmage, but he is more equipped to audible because he knows what he is seeing. Davis Webb getting the calls in more quickly will also help Nix diagnose with roughly 10 seconds on the play clock.

All those exotic sub packages and third down defenses will no longer look like a foreign film without subtitles.

“Those can be a little more complex and it begins to slow down a little bit when you get into year two and year three. You begin to not get fooled as much,” Payton said. “And in that area he is a lot further along.”

Nix will go from making sure he didn’t turn the ball over as a rookie to making a star turn as a 26-year-old. He is entering his prime as the Broncos’ championship window opens wide and says aaagh!

“You have a second-nature thought process. You know the play, so you are not thinking about the operation, the motion, the route concept or the handoff point. You can attack the defense in a more strategic way,” Nix said Saturday. “My eyes are up a little more. It’s by memory at this point.”

The next two seasons — before an expected huge contract extension for Nix kicks in — are the time to win at a level not witnessed in more than a decade.

When the Broncos claimed their last title, it was more oil can than Vatican. But lost in the No Fly Zone’s gravitational pull and Von Miller’s matrix bend around the edge, the offense had weapons.

Demaryius Thomas and Emmanuel Sanders eclipsed 1,000-yards receiving. There was also balance. C.J. Anderson and Ronnie Hillman combined for 1,583 rushing yards and 78 first downs.

The Broncos fell far too short of those numbers last season.

Dobbins is trying to speak 17 games into existence. Even if he gives the Broncos 13, they will be fine.

It is Waddle who will be the catalyst.

There is no reason the Broncos cannot have a pair of 1,000-yard targets (Courtland Sutton and Waddle).

Waddle is what Nix needed. A player who can pile up yards after the catch, a trash talker who can break ankles on slants and beat corners deep.

It is not a coincidence that Nix’s first pass in 11-on-11 drills keeps going to Waddle. He is the hack. The shortcut on long gains, a receiver capable of winning from hash mark to hash mark.

“Middle of the field, outside, vertically, behind the line of scrimmage. Anywhere — we are going to utilize him,” Nix said.

It has been on display in the limited sample size. Waddle does not look like the other receivers, other than Marvin Mims Jr. Payton has a type, and it is 6-foot-3-ish and 210 pounds. Waddle measures 5-10, 185.

But he is tremendous and amphibious, breaking free of the prototype because “he is one of those players who can walk on water,” Payton said.

Already in camp, he has scored on deep strikes and made a one-handed grab in full sprint that dropped jaws.

“He might be faster than when he was in Miami, and I didn’t think that was physically possible,” said safety Brandon Jones, who was Waddle’s teammate with the Dolphins. “He brings a different type of juice. He is a guy that can line up anywhere, catch any ball on any route.”

The Broncos have not talked about a receiver like this in more than a decade. It happened in 2015 when the Broncos overcame the odds.

This looks similar. It feels like that.

This Broncos offense should go from the turtle to full throttle.

Nix will throw 30 touchdown passes and reach 4,000 yards. Holding leads longer will free the defense to create more turnovers.

This team is almost identical to the group that was a Jarrett Stidham turnover and a Payton brain freeze on eschewing a field goal from going to the Super Bowl.

Now Nix is wiser, and Waddle is better.

Walk through the new facility, which houses 300 employees, features 95 underground parking spots, a golf simulator, a locker room with a sunken lounge, and a cafeteria with a chef making everything from salmon to bison burgers, and nothing is spared.

This season, the Broncos, if healthy, should win the Super Bowl.

There are no excuses or Bo excuses.

Was Allen Iverson, I tapped the other day, actually good for the Nuggets?

Thinking …

Thinking …

Mixed bag. No shock.

“The good: Elite scoring. Playmaking. Excitement.

“The bad: Overlapping skills. Team success. The trade.”

Ah, yes. The trade. The Nuggets eventually swapped Iverson to Detroit in November 2008 after 135 games in blue and gold for Chauncey Billups, Antonio McDyess and Cheikh Samb.

Given almost 18 years of retrospection, AI was the better scorer. Mr. Big Shot was the better fit, better leader, better facilitator, better — well, everything else. The best prep hoopster Denver ever produced steadied George Karl’s ship, helping to march the Nuggets to the Western Conference Finals in 2009 against Kobe Bryant and the Lakers.

Elite scoring. Playmaking. Excitement.

Overlapping skills. Team success. The trade.

Carmelo then, Nikola Jokic now.

Allen Iverson then, LeBron James now.

Not the perfect parallel, granted. But both AI and King James are old dogs, set in their ways, who can’t necessarily be counted on to master new tricks this late in their careers.

Sure, Iverson was all kinds of fun in Denver, even into his 30s — but once a ball hog, always a ball hog. His Nuggs won 45 games in ’06-’07 and won 50 in ’07-08. Only those same Nuggets lost to the Spurs over five games in the first round of ’07 playoffs as AI averaged 22.8 points on 22.8 shots per game. In the ’08 postseason, it was another first-round loss, this time in four games to the Lakers, as Iverson averaged 24.5 points on 20.8 shots per contest.

King James’ Denver interest as a free agent is reportedly flagging, but it ain’t over ’til the fat whiteboard sings. Like AI two decades earlier, James turns the Nuggets into ESPN’s Team, which, by proxy, makes them America’s Team. It’s the Coach Prime Effect times 50. Denver becomes the NBA capital of the world. Ticket values skyrocket. Jerseys fly off the shelves. The King’s presence makes the Nuggs nationally relevant and a heck of a lot more fun to watch.

But like AI, does he make them … better? And better when it counts?

King James is only the second NBA player , our new cultural bar for all-time basketball greatness.  At age 35, he helped carry the Lake Show to a 2020 NBA title at the COVID bubble.

Yet in the six postseasons since, LeBron’s been knocked out in the first round of the playoffs three times, reached the Western Conference Finals once (2023), made the West semis once, and missed the bracket entirely once.

It’s a different game in April, May and June. Different rules. Different defenses. Different calls. But over five playoff runs that followed, he’s only topped the 120 mark in offensive efficiency one other time (2025) and his OR dipped to 109 this past spring while he shot 45.9% from the floor and 32.7% on treys.

If the King’s expected final season was strictly about basketball, purely about joy on the court, it would be the Nuggets, wouldn’t it?  Jokic and Old Man Bron are basketball brothers, hoops savants who always seem to be two to three steps ahead of everyone else.

The Nuggets during the apex of The Joker Era — think 2020-2024 — were at their best when they were looking for the quick bucket on runouts, flipping defense into instant offense. Even if the engine doesn’t turn over as often as it used to, James can still fly at 41.

Joker hitting LeBron mid-stride while the latter runs skinny post routes up the court, then finishing with authority, They’d scare the pants off of even the best Western Conference defenses, Oklahoma City’s slap-happy, grabby mitts included. With King James in the fold, Thunder-Nuggets, for better or worse, would inevitably devolve into a free-throw contest between LeBron and SGA — a ratings boon and aesthetic flop.

Alas, even if the King says his final act isn’t about money, it is about staging. Staging and control.

For one, the buzz says LeBron is lining up a documentary crew to film his version of the last NBA chapter. Can you picture Jokic ever being comfortable with camera crews that aren’t his hanging around to chronicle his every move in the locker room? Or on the bench? Or Kroenke Sports & Entertainment green-lighting an ongoing narrative in which they’ve got neither editorial oversight nor final cut?

For another, One More Ride For Posterity is also designed to end with a ring — or trying, at least. Shea (Thunder), Wemby (San Antonio), LaMelo Ball (Minnesota) and Luka (Lakers) give the Western Conference four of the league’s best six teams. With all apologies to Jalen Brunson and the Knicks, the road to the crown is still simpler and easier via the Eastern Conference route.

Philly is risky, Miami is trite and Cleveland is hackneyed. But if you want the Last Dance to end in confetti, those might be the smarter plays for James’ camp.

The Nuggets’ second-smartest move right now would be to give Peyton Watson $20 million. The smartest would be to facilitate a trade that flips P-Swat into two P-Swat clones. Jokic turns 32 on February 19. If there’s a debate on Chopper Circle between “Elite Scoring” and “Team Success,” it better darn well be a short one.

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LeBron James could be a Nugget.

A fever dream became more rooted in reality when agent Rich Paul confirmed his client’s interest in the Nuggets on his “Game Over” podcast with Max Kellerman.  Paul used a whiteboard to list 10 suitors for LeBron.

Five made the inner circle. The Nuggets were among them, joined by Cleveland, Philadelphia, Miami and Minnesota.

Of course, the Nuggets could be getting played, winking back at James as the Cavs hang “Welcome Home” banners outside Rocket Arena.

But when Kellerman asked quizzically if the Nuggets were a legitimate destination, Paul responded, “(They) wouldn’t be on the whiteboard (if they weren’t).”

Taking Paul at his word — always dangerous with any agent — the Nuggets must take the hint.

It’s time to put on a full-court press for James. Time for the Kroenkes to be all in.

Go for the old. Go for the bold. Go for the gold.

Want to place soothing balm on three years of disappointing playoff finishes? Chase after a legend whose addition would shake our state’s sports landscape to its core.

Anything less than an open-throttle pursuit is disingenuous. All talk of championship windows with Nikola Jokic comes across as hollow if the Nuggets watch this parade from the curb.

To be clear, this July is not about James. It is about Stan and Josh Kroenke. As the Nuggets owner and president, they hold the PIN numbers to the ATM and the keys to the locker room.

There is no guarantee the Nuggets will get LeBron James. But it is 100% certain they won’t without the Kroenkes being all in.

If there was ever a reason to go into the second apron and absorb the repeater tax, this is it.

James likes the Nuggets. He is friends with Josh Kroenke. And he respects KSE’s sports empire of championships delivered by the Nuggets, Avalanche, Rams and Arsenal.

Even with all the cringeworthy things James does and the massive attention he brings, this is an opportunity that cannot be dismissed.

If James is seriously considering the Nuggets over the coming days, the question is simple: If the Kroenkes cannot be bothered to recruit James, the NBA’s all-time scorer and, to the younger generation, the sport’s greatest ever, then why play the season? Why compete? Just call the second apron a hard cap and be done with it.

There have long been pros and cons to bringing on James. He sucks the oxygen out of every room. He becomes the hub of the universe. And, when not happy, he can take out the coach or hold a franchise hostage with his whims.

What makes this different is the timing. Season 24 sets up as James’ last, especially given the Hoops Hype report that the four-time MVP has discussed filming a documentary about the campaign.

James is a lot. But no longer for a lot. Or for a long time.

All indications are that he is prioritizing happiness over money in his next contract. Of course, that means winning, too. And Paul drew the names of Jamal Murray, Cam Johnson, Aaron Gordon and Jokic as an enticing foursome James could join.

Peyton Watson was curiously absent. He is also Paul’s client, so perhaps it was a coded message, a reminder that Johnson might need to go to pay Watson his worth.

Typically, I spray cold water on stories like this. I covered Alex Rodriguez nearly signing with the Rockies in 2000 before he accepted a quarter billion from the Texas Rangers. Smart agents — no one is better than Scott Boras — create markets out of sand pits and leverage mysterious teams into more money.

The reason this has legs is because of the fit.

James excels at the two-man game. No team is better at this than the Nuggets. Jokic and LeBron would not play basketball; they would give nightly recitals. Put LeBron on the wing and let Jokic find him. It would represent the most unselfish pairing of superstars the league has ever seen.

Want to convince LeBron to become a Nugget? Mention Jokic. Over and over.

Want to convince Jokic that being a Nugget still matters? Sell out to sign LeBron.

Jokic was in favor of bringing in Russell Westbrook. There is no reason to believe he would not open his arms to the 41-year-old.

James to the Nuggets conjures memories of Peyton Manning choosing the Broncos. An all-time great aiming for a final championship.

Current BetOnline numbers give the Nuggets 10-to-1 odds of signing James.

Some fans wish they were longer. It is a fascinating wrinkle to this story that James would have to win over the Mile High City. Playing for the Lakers for the last eight seasons made him the enemy.

He won a single ring with the Lakers in 2020, knocking out the Nuggets in the Western Conference Finals in the bubble. When posting Paul’s whiteboard on my Facebook page, the comments against James came in fast and furious, calling the idea “Bad News,” “Not worth $30 million,” and “No please.”

The anger is understandable. James’ fine whine in playoff series against the Nuggets has left footprints on fans’ brains.

Here is how I see it. The Nuggets have the money. They have the roster. They have the pedigree. But to unseat the Spurs and Thunder, they need an impact player.

There is no one on the market who covers all the bases like James. Injuries will be a concern. So will the distractions. And his workload must be managed to make sure he is rested for the postseason.

All the talk of running it back and staying healthy can no longer insult our intelligence. It reached that flash point with me during Game 3 against the Timberwolves.

James is available. He is interested. The ball is in the Kroenkes’ court.

The time is now to pursue The King, for Jokic, for a realistic chance at another championship.

“Very nice,” he said, giving me a wry, knowing smile and a short laugh.

Some background is definitely required here.

In 2014, Weiss was managing the Rockies on a hazy, humid September Sunday morning at Busch Stadium in St. Louis. Somehow, Weiss, MLB.com’s Thomas Harding, and I started talking about our 1970s crushes. We mentioned, of course, Farrah Fawcett and her famous poster, Cheryl Tiegs and her poster, as well as other supermodels and Hollywood stars. I said I once had a poster of pop singer Linda Ronstadt.

Then came the bombshell.

“I had a crush on Barbara Streisand,” Thomas said. “I thought she was hot.”

Walt and I were aghast. As Walt pointed out, “Babs” had a nose like his own. No way Thomas was telling us the truth, right? To this day, insists he was.

The kicker came after the Rockies lost to the Cardinals that day. Walt pulled us aside and said, “You know, when I was going out to the mound to make a pitching change, I kept thinking about Barbra Streisand. Thanks a lot, Thomas.”

The point of my ramble down memory lane? My nearly 28-year career at The Denver Post ends Wednesday when the Rockies host the Red Sox at Coors Field. I’ve covered World Series, Super Bowls, Final Fours, Nuggets games and scores of high school state championships alongside Kyle Newman. In the end, my fondest memories are not about games, highlight reels, strategy, upsets, or scoops. My fondest memories are about people. It’s what I wrote about best.

Being a baseball beat writer is the most gratifying of any of the major sports beats, in my humble opinion. You get to know the people, from owners and managers to players and clubbies to broadcasters and fellow writers. Meanwhile, the walls between the NFL and the media grow thicker and taller with each passing year. I can’t imagine Broncos beat writers talking about their boyhood crushes with coach Sean Payton.

I was hired by The Post in October 1998, joining Adam Schefter as a Broncos No. 2 beat writer, just in time to cover John Elway’s second Super Bowl title. In the summer of 2005, I was yanked off the Broncos beat and moved to the Rockies, as the No. 2 writer behind current Post columnist Troy Renck. It was a demotion for me, no doubt.

My wife, Nancy, and I were shocked by the grind of the baseball beat, especially back in the days when The Post still traveled to cover the Rockies. We eventually embraced the lifestyle, though it wasn’t easy.

Covering a team afflicted with chronic losing wasn’t easy either. I covered the Rockies for nearly 20 years, and during that time, they had five winning seasons, made the playoffs four times, and made one magical run to the World Series in 2007.

I’ve had to rewrite more deadline game stories than I can count. The adage in the Coors Field press box: “The Rockies blew another lead. And they blew another lede.”

But, all in all, it’s been quite a wonderful ride. What follows are excerpts from some of my favorite stories I wrote for The Post. The common theme is people.

McCaffrey family legacy

When I started covering the Broncos, first for the Longmont Times-Call and then with The Post, training camp was still held at the University of Northern Colorado in Greeley. The players stayed in one dorm, the media in another, and we shared the same cafeteria. Access to the players was incredible. I once interviewed Elway while riding in a golf cart as the fans screamed for autographs — Elway’s, not mine.

That’s how I got to know wide receiver Ed McCaffrey and his wife, Lisa. In 1999, I profiled their family’s rich sports legacy:

When 5-year-old Max McCaffrey plays soccer, his 3-year-old brother, Christian, can’t bear to watch.

“Christian is always trying to run out on the field to be with his big brother,” his dad said. “We have to keep reeling him back in.”

Christian can’t help it. The need for speed, the energy driving his little motor, the desire to follow the bouncing ball — they’re in his genes.

His grandfather won a silver medal in the 100-meter dash at the 1960 Summer Olympics in Rome. Uncle Billy became a legend in the Pennsylvania Rust Belt and later won a national basketball championship with the Duke Blue Devils.

When she was a pixie in South Florida, Christian’s mom scored so many goals for her high school soccer team that her mug shot ended up in Sports Illustrated’s “Faces in the Crowd.”

Christian’s dad? All he’s done is win three Super Bowl rings, earn a trip to the Pro Bowl, develop a stiff-arm that could stop a rhinoceros, become one of the best receivers in Denver Broncos history and destroy forever the notion that white men can’t run.

Arenado’s SoCal roots

In 2016, Rockies third baseman Nolan Arenado was a budding star. I traveled to his boyhood home of Lake Forest, in Orange County, California. While the Rockies hosted the Blue Jays at Coors Field, I sat in the living room of Fernando and Millie Arenado as they watched the game on TV. It was a remarkable day, topped off with a trip to El Toro High School, less than 10 minutes from the Arenado home. I spent an hour reminiscing with Mike Gonzalez, Arenado’s high school coach.

Here’s the beginning of my story about Arenado’s baseball roots:

LAKE FOREST, Calif. — The trim, stucco home looks like many others in this quiet, middle-class Southern California neighborhood. There is a basketball hoop out front and a beautifully tiled swimming pool in the backyard.

Step inside and you’re enveloped by warmth. Family photos cover every wall, every shelf, every nook and cranny. The family dog, a white Havanese named Mojito (“Mo” for short), hops up on the comfy couch to greet visitors.

Baseball is everywhere, too. Indeed, the home is something of an impromptu museum. Near the TV in the living room sits Nolan Arenado’s gleaming 2015 Silver Slugger Award. Open a nearby cabinet, and one of Arenado’s three Gold Glove Awards sits among a sea of memorabilia.

Likely more baseball stuff will be added after Tuesday night����ap All-Star Game in San Diego, where Arenado, the Rockies’ third baseman, will be appearing, the second year in a row he was voted in by fellow major-league players. Who knows? Perhaps an All-Star Game MVP trophy will be his newest baseball heirloom. At the very least, his All-Star Game jersey will find a place in the Arenado home.

Upstairs is the “Bonus Room,” as the family calls it. In the middle sits a pool table, now overflowing with framed photos, jerseys and signed baseballs. On the couch in front of a big-screen TV sits a Star Wars stormtrooper helmet. Back in the day, Arenado wore it while playing video games.

A day in the life of Buddy Black

I covered five managers in my time with the Rockies: Clint Hurdle, a force of nature and philosophy; Loquacious Jim Tracy, one of the nicest men I’ve ever met; Weiss, a fellow Bruce Springsteen fanatic; Bud Black, a walking baseball encyclopedia who’s beloved throughout the game; and current manager Warren Schaeffer, full of incredible passion and heart.

Of all of the Rockies’ managers, I know Black the best. We’re near the same age and share the same sense of humor. We still text frequently. In 2018, in the midst of a race for the National League West title, Black allowed me to go behind the scenes and chronicle a day in the life of a big-league manager:

It����ap the second week of September, the Rockies are chasing their first division title, and Bud Black has former Bronco Peyton Manning on his mind.

He’s trying to figure out a way to get the legendary quarterback to appear in a video that would play on the giant scoreboard at Coors Field as the Rockies make their run to a possible National League West crown.

“I want Peyton, waving his arms up and down, to get the crowd going,” Black says. “Hey, we don’t care about the snap count! We want it loud! ‘Omaha! Omaha!’ ”

Later in the afternoon, he’ll call in Julian Valentin, the director of social media, to see if there has been any progress on Project Peyton. (Valentin tells Black that it����ap being looked into).

Black’s office, down the hallway from the players’ spacious clubhouse, contains a comfy black-leather couch and a tidy desk. Photographs of Coors Field adorn the walls, including one that captures the joy of a young boy watching a game. Encased in a glass frame is the lineup and a baseball from Black’s first game as Rockies manager. It����ap dated April 3, 2017, a game in which the Rockies beat the Brewers at Milwaukee, 7-5.

Black has plenty on his to-do list, though he goes about his chores with a relaxed, easy manner. Colorado’s second-year manager, age 61, plans to watch video, meet with his coaches, chat with some players and confer with head trainer Keith Dugger. The night before, the Rockies hammered the Diamondbacks, 13-2. With nothing to stew over and no second-guesses haunting him, he got an excellent night����ap sleep. Today, he’s open to having a reporter shadow him, from arriving at the ballpark just after noon through another critical game that night vs. Arizona.

Helton gets the call

Todd Helton is the greatest player in Rockies history. He’s a complex, moody, smart and extremely funny man. His sense of humor can be cutting and takes some getting used to. Somehow, we bonded.

In January 2024, Helton invited Thomas and me to his home outside Knoxville, Tenn., to be there with his family and close friends when he got the call that he’d been elected to the National Baseball Hall of Fame. We all figured he’d get in, but there were no guarantees. It turned out to be one of the most memorable days of my career:

KNOXVILLE, Tenn. — Todd Helton, arms folded across his chest, nervously paced the living room of his home Tuesday afternoon.

“I haven’t been superstitious for 10 years, not since I retired,” the Rockies’ iconic first baseman said. “Today, I’m superstitious. I didn’t look at anything, I didn’t watch anything, I didn’t look at the internet.”

He could have spared himself the angst.

Because, fittingly, at 5:17 p.m. Eastern time, No. 17 got the call of a lifetime. Told that he had been elected to the National Baseball Hall of Fame, Helton pumped his fist and finally took a deep breath.

“It����ap the greatest honor you can get as a baseball player,” Helton said. “Getting your number retired and getting elected to the Hall of Fame are the two greatest achievements you can get.”

Still, Helton wasn’t quite ready to let it all go.

“I’m going to go (crazy) when y’all leave,” he said.

The sweet-swinging Helton, the beloved heart and soul of the Rockies for 17 seasons and one of the most accomplished players of his era, received 79.7% of the vote, clearing the 75% bar required by the Hall of Fame and the Baseball Writers’ Association of America.

Matzek, ‘The Yips,’ and me

We’ve all got something. Mine is anxiety and depression, something I’ve dealt with for much of my adult life.

That’s why I was so interested in Tyler Matzek’s story. The former Rockies pitcher had such a bad case of the yips, brought on by performance anxiety, that it nearly ruined his baseball career. In December 2015, we met in a Southern California coffee shop and talked for nearly three hours. He was remarkably candid.

In 2021, he won a World Series as a shutdown reliever for the Braves. But before that, I wrote this story:

LAGUNA HILLS, Calif. — On Sept. 5, 2014, at Coors Field, Tyler Matzek pitched a three-hit shutout against the San Diego Padres. Poised and confident, and throwing a 94 mph fastball with graceful ease, the Rockies’ rookie left-hander was dominant. Over his final six starts, Matzek went 4-2 with a 1.55 ERA. He looked like the Rockies’ ace of the future.

Yet demons lurked in the corners of Matzek’s mind, and by the time he took the mound for the Rockies’ 2015 home opener April 10, he was headed for trouble.

“Even when things were going the right way, there was this overwhelming stress inside me that just kept building and building and building,” Matzek said recently while sipping coffee at a Starbucks in Southern California. “(Then) I just couldn’t hold that stress any longer and my game collapsed.”

Matzek was suffering from performance anxiety.

It wrecked him on the mound and even began to creep into his everyday life.

“My wife, Lauren, said it was our worst time, relationship-wise, because I was so tight, so stressed, just waiting to explode from this thing,” Matzek said. “She knew it wasn’t about her, but it was hard.”

But the quiet, intelligent 25-year-old confronted his condition head-on, confident he would fulfill the promise that prompted the Rockies to make him the 11th pick in the first round of the 2009 draft. He is determined to compete for a job in the Rockies’ starting rotation in spring training.

Thanks, mom

The day after I cover my final Rockies game, Nancy and I are flying to Southern California. We’ll join my extended family to scatter the ashes of my mom, Anita, and my dad, Dusty, in Laguna Beach, their favorite vacation spot.

This is my final chance to say thanks, sharing past stories with you:

Somewhere up there, my mom is smiling.

Ryan McMahon hit a home run for the Rockies in their 4-3 win over the Giants on Thursday night. McMahon broke out of a horrendous slump.

“RyMac” was my mom’s second-favorite Rockie, right behind Todd Helton. Why? Partly because he’s Irish, mostly because I like RyMac.

She was thrilled when Helton invited me to his Knoxville, Tenn., home to witness his Hall of Fame phone call in January 2024. When my wife, Nancy, and I were invited to Helton’s party in Cooperstown last July, my mom felt like she was there.

During her last years, I watched Rockies road games with her when I could. She rarely asked why the team was winning or losing. Strategy was not her thing. She always asked, “Is so and so a good guy?”

That����ap the kind of sports fan my mom was. She knew nothing about OPS, yards after catch, 3-point percentages, or point spreads. She just liked how players played and hoped they were good people. She loved Dr. J, Nolan Arenado and Floyd Little.

In the Broncos’ infancy, when Little was their only star and the game plan was “Little off left tackle, Little off right tackle,” my mom would shout, “Don’t hurt Floyd!”

In her later years, she’d tried to stay up late enough to watch manager Bud Black’s postgame news conference, not because she wanted to hear his explanations but to hear me ask a question.

Thanks, dad

I wrote this journal a few months before my dad died in May 2022:

What do you get your dad for his 90th birthday?

I’ve been pondering that question for the past few weeks. I kept striking out.

Then, as I perused the web, I came across a cool T-shirt. Cardinals red, the shirt displays the image of Stan Musial, leaning on a baseball bat. The script simply reads: The MAN.

How many sports-related T-shirts, sweatshirts and books have I given my dad over the years? I’ve lost track. It doesn’t matter. My dad’s going to love his “Stan the Man” T-shirt.

A father and son bonding over sports is not unique, but it is different for every father and son.

Walter Patrick “Dusty” Saunders was born on Sept. 24, 1931, in Denver. He was a lonely kid. His father died when he was 9 years old, and his mom died when he was 10.

In the 1940s, my dad’s companions were the radio, books and sports. He became a St. Louis Cardinals fan because he could pick up the strong signal from KMOX radio in St. Louis. Musial was his favorite player.

In 2006, my first full year on the Rockies beat, I took my dad to St. Louis for Father’s Day to watch the Rockies play the Cardinals in the first year of the new Busch Stadium. He chatted with Clint Hurdle and Todd Helton. After the game, my dad, MLB.com Rockies beat writer Thomas Harding and I had dinner at former Cardinal Mike Shannon’s restaurant. Thomas and I still talk about that day.