Head coach Sean Payton made a brief appearance early in the walkthrough portion of the proceedings, but he and a contingent of more than a half dozen Broncos staffers and players are heading to Canton, Ohio, to be part of Drew Brees’ enshrinement into the Pro Football Hall of Fame this weekend.

Payton will miss the team’s Saturday practice as well.

“I honestly didn’t even realize that he left,” Broncos wide receiver Pat Bryant said. “Around this time (of camp), you just kind of hone in on what we got going on at practice. … It����ap just the standard around here, whether he’s here or not.”

Brees and Payton arrived in New Orleans together in 2006 and spent 15 years together, including a Super Bowl-winning campaign in 2009. The coach will present his former star quarterback during the Saturday induction ceremony.

Traveling to the Hall of Fame along with Payton from the Broncos: Kicker Wil Lutz, offensive line coach Zach Strief, senior defensive assistant Joe Vitt, offensive quality control coach Willie Snead IV, strength coach Dan Dalrymple, and VP of player health and performance Beau Lowery.

Payton’s absence left defensive coordinator Vance Joseph in charge of the practice, but he is an overqualified substitute teacher.

“I saw (Payton) during the warmup,” Broncos defensive back Ja’Quan McMillian said. “I really honestly didn’t notice it before. I didn’t see him. I was just focused on what I was doing. But just having (Joseph), I went up to him and said head coaching looked good on him. He gave us some words at the end of practice that were inspirational.”

Joseph rose through the ranks as a defensive assistant before landing the Broncos’ head-coaching job in 2017. After going 5-11 and 6-10 in two seasons, Joseph was fired by the organization on Dec. 31, 2018.

He returned to the Broncos as Payton’s defensive coordinator in 2023. After a rocky start that season, Joseph has helped turn Denver’s defense into one of the best in the NFL.

The guy his players call “VJ” was named the NFL’s assistant coach of the year in January after the Broncos allowed the second-fewest yards and third-fewest points en route to a 14-3 record in 2025.

Joseph became a hot name during the NFL’s coaching carousel. He interviewed with five teams for their head coaching positions during Denver’s run to the AFC championship game, but ultimately is returning to the Front Range for his fourth season in charge of the Broncos’ defense.

He’s been the top boss before, but a couple of days running the show for a team with Super Bowl aspirations certainly can’t hurt.

“I think we’ll definitely see ‘VJ’ be a head coach (again) at some point,” Broncos linebacker Justin Strnad said. “It����ap cool to see him out there, kind of getting that experience. I know he had a short stint here in Denver, but I think he’ll get another chance and I’m excited to see what he does.

“He did a great job today. We got a bunch of situations in, a bunch of work. I thought it was a great practice from both sides.”

Did not practice: Physically Unable to Perform list — OL Nick Gargiulo. Non-football injury list — ILB Jordan Turner. Did not practice — WR Jaylen Waddle (muscle strain), C Luke Wattenberg (shoulder) , TE Caleb Lohner (foot/ankle), OLB Dasan McCullough. Left practice — LG Ben Powers

The Broncos really got mostly good news on the injury front Thursday. They were not in pads, but star outside linebacker Nik Bonitto returned to practice in a limited capacity, taking walk-through reps. Bonitto watched when the team went full speed and 11-on-11.

Wide receiver Courtland Sutton was limited for a third straight day, but Payton and Sutton each insisted it was due to a workload management plan the club has for the veteran.

Waddle has “a strain,” according to head coach Sean Payton, but is expected to return to practice in four or five days.

Wattenberg didn’t practice but had cleats on and a harness on his left shoulder. He did side field conditioning work.

Powers started off practicing but left midway through and wasn’t spotted in the later parts of the session. A source said Powers had a planned partial rest day. He, of course, missed nine games with a torn bicep last year and played the final five with a Lisfranc fracture in his foot.

Payton said several players are going to have their workloads managed over the next three days.

RJ Harvey is dynamite in the passing game, but what����ap next?

The Broncos clearly have three running backs pacing the room at this point in J.K. Dobbins, RJ Harvey and rookie Jonah Coleman.

The question is how those three – assuming good health – will fill roles. Dobbins is the lead back, to be sure. Coleman’s pass protection experience in college might give him the inside track for third-down work over Harvey, but Payton said recently he thinks Harvey is squarely in the mix for that work, too. The Broncos would love it if he’s ready to handle the protection stuff in third-down and two-minute situations because he is dynamite in the passing game and has made a series of big plays as a receiver out of the backfield in training camp already.

What does making a jump in that department look like?

“RJ is certainly starting to see how we’re (identifying the Mike linebacker) and where that puts him,” Payton said. “Some of that is just the (college) they come from. But I think he gives us a lot of versatility. …

“Technique is one thing, and I think that����ap the easy part. The challenging part is the front and the pieces (to the puzzle). Who the line is going to. Who are you left with? And if you’re not careful, you get left staring in the backfield, and you should be out right now. Being able to get into the pattern and then recognize where the pressure is coming from. And how to see it. Usually those back-end safeties are going to move to where the pressure is coming from. All of that is part of it. But the technique, if you have the stature — and he does — that part of it you can quickly polish up on.”

Top play

Two candidates from a little further down the depth chart in the middle of a six-day work week.

First, nickel Reese Taylor made a heck of a play to break up a pass from Jarrett Stidham to Michael Bandy over the middle. Bandy leapt and stretched out to try to snag the ball, and for a moment it looked like he would, but Taylor recovered, got his hands on the ball and knocked it away as they went to the ground. He flies under the radar, and the path to the 53-man roster is a rough one, but Taylor was on Denver’s active roster down the stretch last season and was a special teams contributor. He’s a valued player, even if he doesn’t make the initial roster in a few weeks.

The other: A pretty deep ball from Sam Ehlinger to undrafted rookie wide receiver Cam Ross. Ross has started to make more plays the past couple of days and is probably running alongside Kolbie Katsis — he also had a long catch Thursday — as Denver’s most impressive undrafted receivers.

“Cam’s doing really good,” fellow receiver Marvin Mims Jr. told The Post this week. … “The biggest thing for him is just trusting his ability, trusting his speed. It����ap a lot coming in here, especially when he had some injury stuff earlier. Come out here, try your hardest and we’ll coach it up in the (meeting) room after practice.”

Thumbs Up

Jahdae Barron, hello. Jahdae Barron hadn’t been off to a particularly bad start in training camp, by any means. He just hadn’t made many splash plays, either.

That changed Thursday. In one team period alone, Barron knifed in front of Pat Bryant on a short catch for what would have been, at minimum, a jarring hit just after a catch. Then on the next snap he broke up a pass over the middle to Lil’Jordan Humphrey. The 2025 first-round pick, like his rookie season, is playing all over. He’s Denver’s dime like last year, he’s getting extensive run at outside corner with the second unit, and he’s Ja’Quan McMillian’s backup at nickel.

“He’s got a lot more patient,” cornerback Riley Moss said. “It����ap a lot different — you throw a guy in, and he’s playing dime and then nickel and then outside, it����ap totally different. The job description is DB, but it is totally different. He’s done a great job of being a little more patient, his eyes have got a lot better, and he’s just a great athlete. It just takes time to get used to the outside stuff, but he’s doing a great job.”

Thumbs Down

Frustration bubbling. As training camp progresses, a lot of different factors wax and wane. The length and physicality of each practice, for example. Players who stand out. Who’s getting the No. 2 reps at quarterback. So on and so forth. One thing that����ap been consistent: The Broncos’ defensive front has dominated. Particularly so in the run game, but they’re generating pressure, too. On Thursday, Broncos offensive linemen were visibly frustrated. They talked among themselves and in small groups after sets of repetitions. Tight end Evan Engram joined in at one point. Thursday was a different kind of day because, without pads, there’s not as much of a true line play evaluation to be had. The OL is rotating through several veterans seeing limited reps, but so, too, is the defense. D.J. Jones didn’t do much team work Thursday, and Zach Allen had the same treatment earlier this week. Still, the defensive front has clearly been a handful for Denver’s veteran offensive line.

Odds and Ends

* If there’s a player having a better camp than Riley Moss, the list is short. He’s been sticky in coverage, and Denver’s deep receiving room has had its hands full against him, no matter who he’s covering.

* Payton on Thursday said there are eight total Broncos staffers and players leaving Friday night to head to Canton, Ohio, for Drew Brees’ Pro Football Hall of Fame induction. Payton, of course, has many more New Orleans connections on his staff than that, from assistant coaches Zach Strief, Ronald Curry, Joe Vitt, John Morton, Willie Snead IV and Darren Rizzi, strength coach Dan Dalrymple, VP of player health and performance Beau Lowery and VP of player personnel Cody Rager. Players who played with Brees in New Orleans include tight end Adam Trautman, receiver Lil’Jordan Humprprey, kicker Wil Lutz and defensive lineman Malcolm Roach.

* Speaking of the Hall of Fame, former Broncos coach Mike Shanahan was in attendance on Thursday. He chatted with Payton for a while early in practice and saw the new training facility. Payton has stumped for Shanahan to be in the Hall of Fame and said there’s frustration with the difficulty of getting coaches enshrined the past couple of years. Still, Payton said it����ap a matter of “when, not if” Shanahan’s inducted.

* The Broncos had Shawn Hochuli’s officiating crew in town for practice each of the past two days. Payton said it’s a quiet year on the officiating emphasis front — there were no major rule changes this offseason. Hochuli’s crew presented to players and staff Wednesday night.

Next: 10 a.m. Friday, lots open at 8 a.m., gates open at 9 a.m. The Broncos are expected to be back in pads.

Head coach Sean Payton said Monday that the Broncos will talk with Hill about what his plans are after Hill said goodbye to a nine-year stint in New Orleans last week. Payton, though, insisted that “there’s no hurry” in coming to any kind of decision regarding Hill and added that he’ll see Hill in Canton, Ohio, this weekend when Drew Brees is inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame.

“I’ll see him here in about five days,” said Payton, who first mentioned the interest in the 35-year-old on Saturday to NFL Network. “We’ll see where he’s at and kind of go from there. … The key thing is his health and where he’s at mentally. I don’t want to assume that he still wants to play. I haven’t had a chance to talk to him.”

The pair have deep shared history, though.

Payton has often told the story about scouting a back-up Green Bay quarterback on tape ahead of roster cutdowns in 2017 and continually noticing Hill. The Packers cut him and New Orleans scooped him up, setting in motion a jack-of-all-trades career that saw Hill play quarterback, running back, tight end and more. He has thrown for 2,523 yards in his career, rushed for 2,551 and caught 110 passes for 1,034 yards.

Hill missed all of 2024 with a major knee injury that Payton described as a needing “a complete knee reconstruction” and then appeared in 13 games for the Saints last season.

Hill’s knee surgery was done by Dr. Karim Meijer, who now is the Broncos’ team doctor. Payton said Hill has traveled to Denver multiple times to be checked by Meijer, which also means the Broncos have a good handle on Hill’s health status.

“He’s super unique,” said tight end Adam Trautman, who played three seasons with Hill. “He was one of my friends in New Orleans. He’s super talented, obviously. He can do pretty much everything. He’s the true definition of a Swiss Army knife. We’ll see. Front office is in control of that, obviously.

“If he comes here, he’d be a great addition. You know he’d fit the culture.”

But not for the reasons you might think. It was not a slap in Sean Payton’s face. There is no need to put the quarterback and coach on a couch and let them talk it out.

What played out this week is not an example of a feud, but rather just the opposite. It is the secret sauce of their relationship.

Spoiler alert: Payton is hard to work for, as a player and a coach. This is why owner Greg Penner likes him. Payton creates high expectations and holds people accountable, which is the fabric of his elite culture building.

But Payton cannot help himself. He is not a vibes guy. He is a mood.

He takes jabs at opponents, media members, and, yes, on occasion, his own players. Earlier this week, Payton said he thought a doctor found “a condition that was, like, predisposed” when evaluating Nix’s ankle. What he meant, according to those in the know, was that there was stress on the bone, suggesting a fracture was inevitable. This came on the heels of Payton’s joke falling flat after the win over Buffalo when he said he would not have drafted Nix had he known about his previous ankle issues.

Nix, who placed his recovery time at 4-to-6 weeks, pushed back. This is what he does. Remember the sideline shouting match with Payton during his rookie season? How about the multiple times he has yelled at his coach to hurry up with the play calls this year?

“He doesn’t really even know that,” Nix said of Payton’s reference to previous ankle problems. “But I think it����ap going to be good to get back to work, start from ground zero. Work from the bottom up, get back to training. And there is nothing really that concerns me, nothing that scares me going forward.”

Nix stands up to Payton. His position gives him stature, and it is appreciated in the locker room when Nix holds his ground with the coach. It is viewed internally as creative friction, the same back-and-forth that has defined the most successful partnerships in Payton’s career. He and Drew Brees had their disagreements. They came to understand each other, and their sense of humor.

There is a reason that Payton referred to Nix as Ferris Bueller as a rookie. The kid is not afraid to tweak the coach, to color outside the lines. Payton demonstrated the same tendencies as a young play-caller with the New York Giants.

Payton will pop off. And Nix, often with a smirk, will return the volley.

That trust and dynamic clearly did not exist in the Payton-Russell Wilson arranged marriage. Wilson never challenged Payton publicly until last year on social media over a perceived slight when Payton praised Giants starter Jaxson Dart.

Football is not played in an office cubicle. Tom Brady screamed at his coaches. Peyton Manning and Jeff Saturday went nose-to-nose. Payton gets under people’s skin. And Nix is not afraid to give it back to him.

This is their connective tissue, not evidence of a fissure.

Bad Bill: Bill Belichick was not elected into the Hall of Fame on the first ballot. A few writers who did not vote for him explained his omission because of the process that pits coaches against senior players and contributors. The system stinks. But not voting for Belichick to relieve a backlog of candidates is flawed logic. Secondly, if Belichick was punished for Spygate and Deflategate, that would be understandable, save for this issue. The Pro Football Hall of Fame, unlike baseball’s, does not have a morality clause. Voters have not punished previous cheaters in this fashion, and definitely not a candidate with Belichick’s resume. Are they going to apply the same standard to Tom Brady? The worst part of the snub? Belichick will get in next year, meaning Mike Shanahan will have to wait another year, if not longer, before entering Canton.

Final thought: Nikola Jokic is back. The Nuggets went 10-6 in his absence, and with Oklahoma City returning to earth, there is no reason Denver cannot win the NBA Championship if healthy.

He’s just not entirely sold on the notion that Belichick is done coaching in the NFL.

“I’ll be honest with you, I miss him not being in the league,” Payton said Wednesday, . “I miss him not being in the league and I wouldn’t be surprised — and I would be somewhat hopeful that he ends up back in the league. We’d all be better for it. He’s somethin’.”

Belichick, of course, is a six-time Super Bowl champion in New England and just finished his first season as the head coach at the University of North Carolina.

Belichick got the nod over former Broncos coaches Mike Shanahan and Dan Reeves, former Seattle and Green Bay head coach Mike Holmgren and several others.

“I didn’t realize that coaches didn’t have to wait five years,” Payton said. “There’s a few planes right out here on the runway. One of them is Belichick, the other one’s Shanahan. There’s Holmgren. And it����ap just a matter of when they take off.”

Shanahan has made it deep into the process each of the past four years but has not yet been advanced as a finalist for consideration by the full Hall of Fame committee. Last year, a blue ribbon committee selected Holmgren as its coaching finalist, but Holmgren did not get enough support from the full body for enshrinement.

Payton has often called a week-plus coaching the NFC Pro Bowl team after his first year as a head coach a formative experience because Belichick was coaching the AFC team and he had a chance to pick the veteran’s brain.

“The timing was perfect,” Payton said. “I was in the NFC, he was in the AFC, and he was very gracious.”

The pair hosted a series of joint practices over the years and Payton always thought highly of how Belichick’s teams comported themselves.

“Honestly, if we at that time weren’t paying attention to what they were doing (in New England) — we looked closely at it,” Payton said. “Smart, tough, reliable football players. … I’d consider him a close coaching friend who’s had an impact on how we look at building a roster.”

One of the coaches he moved past might be familiar in ����apountry: Mike Shanahan.

Payton’s 171st regular-season win (152 in New Orleans and now 19 in Denver) lifted him past Shanahan and Tom Coughlin and into a tie for 17th all time.

Interestingly, Payton is tied with Pete Carroll, who also notched No. 171 on Sunday in his debut coaching for Las Vegas.

Payton will tie his foremost mentor in pro football, Bill Parcells, with one more win.

The Bo Nix Growth Meter and Sean Payton’s fourth-down gamble. Parker Gabriel’s 7 thoughts on Broncos’ season-opening win.

Monday, though, he recalled looking up to Shanahan as far back as his days playing for Eastern Illinois.

“He was the one guy that had made it out and made it to the NFL,” Payton said of his alma mater.

Now that Payton’s coaching in Denver, he sees Shanahan regularly.

“He’s been a tremendous, close friend and I would say confidant,” Payton said. “When I hear that, you don’t pay attention to it. Probably a week and a half ago or so in training camp (podcaster Kay Adams) brought up something like, ‘You’re three away from Parcells.’ And honestly, when I say this, I don’t know where that master list is, and it����ap not something you look at it.

“But it does put into perspective how fortunate and how long the career’s been and how many good players I’ve been able to coach.”

There are four active coaches in the top 18 of the wins list, and three of them coach in the AFC West, with Andy Reid (No. 4 at 273) joining Carroll and Payton, who are one win behind Baltimore’s John Harbaugh (No. 172).

Payton also said this should be Shanahan’s year to get into the Pro Football Hall of Fame, though this year is likely to be Bill Belichick’s turn from the coaching and contributor category.

Sean Payton lays out Hall of Fame case for former Broncos coach Mike Shanahan: “It’s all right there in front of you”

“This year, next year, but very soon he’s going in the Hall of Fame and probably should have been in two or three years back,” Payton said. “But that����ap coming, real quick.”

Payton is also hoping to hit another benchmark that his fellow Eastern Illinois grad accomplished in the 1990s.

“Let����ap hope I have a chance to win a second Super Bowl like Mike Shanahan,” he said.

We don’t talk about Pat Surtain II’s vision nearly enough. Great cornerbacks are football’s the biggest of the big-game hunters, dogging prey through darkness and chaos. PSII spies where a ball is headed seconds before it leaves the station. Talent borrows. Genius steals.

And as Champ Bailey, one of the best corners of all time, reminded me the other day, you can’t catch what you don’t see first. So when I asked Champ what Surtain, the reigning NFL Defensive Player of the Year, could do for an encore in 2025, Bailey hit it right on the nose.

Actually, right above the nose.

“(PSII) is probably smarter than he’s been throughout his career,” Bailey, the NFL’s all-time leader in pass break-ups and a Broncos cornerback from 2004-2013, told me by phone earlier this month. “But the only way you utilize that is by seeing what’s going on, seeing the plays develop, the route concepts, and having a better understanding of your role in the defense.

“… I’m sure (defensive coordinator) Vance Joseph is thinking about this: How do you put him in position to make plays? The best way to make plays is to allow him to see the ball.”

There’s just one problem: The better you are at cornerback, the fewer balls actually come your way. And Surtain is the best cornerback on the planet.

He was charted with 60 targets in 2024. That was after 91 in ’23 and 70 in ’22. Unofficially.

“We know this dude competes every play, whether the ball’s coming at him or not,” Bailey, the Pro Football Hall of Famer and analyst with Warner Bros. Discovery/TNT, said of Surtain. “And it’s going to come less and less the better he gets.”

The larger the legend, the smaller the windows. Yet the greats also have the vision — and foresight — to impact the action that’s actively avoiding them. In 2005, Bailey recorded eight interceptions, returning two for scores, and defended 23 passes.

The next year, he was thrown at just 35 times all season. Bailey wound up deflecting 21 throws and picking off 10 others. His 98 tackles, 84 of them solo, ranked third on a defense that had Al Wilson (113 stops) and Ian Gold (101) at linebacker.

Last winter, PSII became just the seventh cornerback to ever take home NFL Defensive Player of the Year honors from the Associated Press. No CB1 has ever won the award twice.

Bailey wouldn’t be shocked if Surtain, who turned 25 in April, became the first. So long as he follows two sage pieces of advice. 1.) Fight the boredom, kid. 2.) Then get out there and fight for the blankety-blank tackle.

“You could (be bored) if you allow it,” Bailey said. “But there are so many aspects of the game that are important.

“Like tackling, making sure you don’t miss tackles. You don’t want to ever be that guy that (they say), ‘He’s great, he’s going to shut his guy down, but he’s going to miss a tackle.’ You never want to be that guy with chinks like that.

“And (Surtain) is not that. He’s big. He has the size. I look forward to seeing him mix it up a lot more this year.”

Wideouts? Yeah, not so much.

PSII is 6-foot-2 with an 80-foot game, a 202-pound cudgel and the wingspan — and eyes — to erase half a football field. Box girders have more fat on them than

“(Pat) had such a great year. How do you build on that? I think that����ap focus,” Broncos general manager George Paton told The Post recently. “He wants to be Defensive Player of the Year again, I’m sure, but he just wants to win. So (that means) helping his teammates get better and prepare. Pat doesn’t say a lot, but he’s a great leader and they follow him. Winning. That����ap how his (2025) gets better.”

PSII is entering the prime of his career as the bulwark and apex to one of the fastest, frenetic, pocket-crunching, QB-mashing defenses in Broncos history.

Of the eight players who’ve won multiple NFL DPOY honors, seven did so a second time for a team with a winning record. When it comes to the postseason, legends make sure to see that train right through to the end.

“You can’t make a play on something you don’t see,” Bailey said. “Think about the picks (Surtain) had last year. Every time he got an interception, he was in a position where he could see what was coming.. He just saw the ball coming. And he’s an exceptional athlete.

“When you can anticipate, see what����ap happening, and then react the way he does, he’s going to make a significant amount of plays. I’m looking forward to (2025).”

Turns out that kind of vision goes both ways. When it comes to PSII, Bailey can see something else off in the distance, just past the horizon: Dominion. Domination. Clear as day.

He remembers them. All of them. How they moved. How they practiced. A twinkle lights his eyes as he thinks of those years, his legs crossed on a couch along the wall of an atrium in what’s now his son’s kingdom. The 72-year-old Shanahan deflects any talk of the Pro Football Hall of Fame’s snubbery with an aw-shucks grin. If such an honor ever happened, he says, it’d simply be a nod to that “special group of men” he’ll always remember.

“I mean, dogs,” Shanahan tells The Denver Post, smiling with the memory. “Guys that you said — we knew we were going to win. We knew we were going to win. And that’s the type of team we had.

“And when you have a makeup of a football team like that, then you realize that you got a chance to do something special.”

Minutes earlier, another football team like that had come strolling through the corridors at Levi’s, Shanahan’s familiar Broncos hitting another peak after a recent franchise history of valleys. Sean Payton is the seventh he’s had that he’s felt can win the Super Bowl, and quarterback Bo Nix and others are hardly shying away from the conversation. Shanahan, who now consults his son’s San Francisco franchise in a sort of film-junkie advisory role, had an up-close look at all of them and a chance to catch up with Payton in Thursday’s joint practice with the 49ers.

Shanahan has followed Payton’s football career since he was a quarterback at Eastern Illinois. He felt Payton was the right guy for the job when he was hired by the Broncos in January 2023. Shanahan knows Payton.

And he knows Payton’s public endorsement of his group means he ��������𱹱����it.

“That����ap the way Sean is,” Shanahan says. “Is, ‘Hey, I know we have the capabilities. You guys don’t know. But I do.'”

Shanahan and Payton have similar NFL team-building philosophies. On Monday, Payton indicated any chance at a Super Bowl had to start with a few foundational areas: quarterback, offensive line, defense, and, most importantly, ownership. Shanahan nods in agreement when these touchpoints are recited back at him.

“That����ap what they do have,” Shanahan says. “Which is fun to see.

“Especially in the situation they were in, losing draft choices; obviously, the cap the way it was, and draft choices, and everything,” Shanahan continues, referencing the $85 million decision to cut bait with Russell Wilson’s disastrous contract. “Now, you’re able to do that in a couple years — does not happen very often.”

Payton’s Broncos have the defense, Shanahan points out, saying he wasn’t quite aware ��Ƿ���good that defense was until he took a look at last year’s stats. They have the O-line, too, and a ground game that’s a work in progress. The maestro of the modern outside-zone dropped a few hints for Payton.

“They averaged 4.1 yards a carry last year, and probably didn’t run the ball quite as much as maybe they would’ve liked to,” Shanahan says. “But I guarantee you, if they’ve got the ability — he wants to go from 4.1 per carry, I know Sean, to, he’ll want 4.7, 4.8.”

They’ve got the quarterback, too, Shanahan believes. He spent ,

“Knows what to say at the right time,” Shanahan responds when asked about his impressions of Nix. “Knows how to handle teammates. Handles the highs and lows in a short time. Just very impressed with his skillset as well — arm strength, ability to make plays with his legs.

“And then, not afraid. And that����ap what you like. Young guy that����ap not afraid.”

And they have the ownership, finally, Shanahan says. He’s met Greg Penner, the string-puller whose investments have helped turn Denver into a free-agent destination.

Nothing is promised for February in the waning dog days of summer. But Shanahan speaks of these Broncos with the same swell as his group in Denver’s heyday, a swath of white hair ago.

“I think they’ve got everything that you look for,” Shanahan says, “in a championship team.”

This time, perhaps particularly so.

Miller made one of his regular treks back to the Front Range on Tuesday night to be on hand for a Wednesday Von’s Vision event.

This time, he doesn’t yet know where he’s going to be playing the 2025 season — though he’s sure he’ll be playing — so he had actual, fond thoughts about the idea of being at OTAs and summer training sessions.

This time, he returned to ����apountry on the same day an old friend was honored.

Miller got to Denver just a few hours after the team announced that Demaryius Thomas had been elected into the Broncos’ Ring of Fame in his first year of eligibility.

“Seeing ‘D.T. go in the Ring (of Fame) was incredible. That was my guy,” Miller said Wednesday. “We all knew that was coming. We all knew he was going in the Ring (of Fame). It����ap fitting for him — he had an incredible career here as a Bronco.

“I know he’s smiling down, big smile.”

The two are, of course, closely linked.

Thomas was one of two Broncos first-round draft picks in 2010 — he went No. 22 and then Tim Tebow three picks later — and then Denver picked Miller No. 2 overall the next season.

They made the Pro Bowl together four times, starred together on some of the franchise’s best teams and eventually won Super Bowl 50 together. Miller was the MVP of that win against Carolina after sacking Cam Newton 2.5 times. Thomas had just one catch for eight yards but finished his fourth straight season with 1,300-plus receiving yards and a ring.

Miller said that����ap the day he thinks of still when Thomas comes to his mind.

“Of course, we expected to win that game — every game you go into, you expect to win — but actually doing it and the confetti dropping and seeing D.T. smiling with his mom and his dad. You see him with Peyton Manning and DeMarcus Ware. He had a really special relationship with DeMarcus, too. Those are some of the memories that, when I think of D.T. going in the Ring of Fame, I think of him after the Super Bowl,” Miller said.

“Everybody was happy. That feeling lasted all summer — the summer of 2016 was incredible and seeing D.T. happy and smiling is the picture that I’ll have forever.”

Miller is hoping not to be at the Super Bowl 50 reunion the weekend of Oct. 19 “unless I’m playing for the Giants or the Broncos,” he said Wednesday. That’s when Thomas’ family will be in town to honor his entry into the Ring of Fame.

It����ap an honor that will come for Miller in the future, too.

In fact, he might just be the next player to make the Ring of Fame on his first year of eligibility, as Thomas did.

There are other deserving candidates. Aqib Talib’s got an interesting case after spending just four years with the club and several long-standing options like Ed McCaffrey and Al Wilson are also out there. But perhaps the only other first-ballot option in the coming years would be cornerback Chris Harris Jr. in 2028.

Otherwise, the number of elections in the next half-decade or more is likely to be small and the number of first-year entrants even smaller.

That will be another honor Thomas and Miller are likely to share, though it will be a while. If 2025 is Miller’s final year playing, he’d be eligible for the Ring of Fame in 2031. Tack on a year on the back end for each subsequent year he plays.

At 36, Miller doesn’t sound like he wants to be done playing. He’s got two Super Bowls and a rock-solid Pro Football Hall of Fame case already, but he’s within shouting distance of some incredible heights on the all-time sack list.

From his current 129.5, he needs 3.5 to hit the top 20 in NFL history. He needs 9.5 to surpass Ware. Just beyond that, 12.5 would get him to 142, a half-sack past Michael Strahan and tied with Lawrence Taylor inside the top 10 of all time.

That����ap one part of his legacy.

Von’s Vision and the off-field work is another.

All of it is still very much in progress for Miller, who can’t help but sometimes think back when he’s around here — but still very much has his eyes forward.

“I do think about (legacy) but then I don’t because I’m trying to do more and more,” he said. “I don’t have a lot of time to look up. When I do look up and I see ����apountry, this was an incredible period in my life.

“We’re still working. When I look up, I do look at my legacy and all the things we’re doing, but at the same time, we’re still trying to build.”

Caleb Lohner is such a fascinating pick to me. He’s like Julius Thomas with the basketball background but without as much football experience. Do you think he’ll get much playing time this year or will he be a project much like Thomas was his first few seasons in Denver?

— Mike, Denver

Hey Mike, thanks for writing in and getting us going this week. Lohner is definitely one of the most interesting incoming players for the Broncos this offseason. Take nothing away from first-round pick Jahdae Barron, but to me, running back RJ Harvey and Lohner are Denver’s most intriguing rookies as the group prepares to arrive in town to get their professional careers started.

I know Lohner didn’t start his last couple of years at Utah, but the guy is a legit Division I basketball player. You don’t play in 153 games and start 46, even with modest scoring production, if you can’t hoop.

It����ap entirely too early to know if he’ll play much or at all for the Broncos this fall. He’s one of the guys I’m most interested to get eyes on this weekend at rookie minicamp, but even that����ap only one small step toward Week 1 in September.

Denver has all of its tight ends back from last year and brought fullback Michael Burton back, too, so it’ll be interesting to see how the battle for roster spots shapes up. Sometimes developmental players like Lohner end up in an interesting spot as it pertains to the roster. The Broncos drafted him in the seventh round to ensure they didn’t have competition while trying to sign him as an undrafted free agent. And what teams perceive as a player’s market in the post-draft process sometimes influences decisions at the roster cutdown. For instance, undrafted running back Blake Watson made the roster last year and head coach Sean Payton indicated part of the reason was because Denver knew there were half a dozen teams or more that tried to sign him after the draft. That might impact the likelihood that a player clears waivers. Same thing could end up applying to Lohner this summer if he’s on the roster bubble.

It would obviously be a surprise if Lohner has the kind of polish and nuance to his game that allows him to play a big role right out of the gate. We’re talking about a guy who has played 52 snaps since middle school. At the same time, Utah thought enough of him to use him as a red zone threat last year, and his four catches each went for touchdowns. So, unlikely? Yeah. Impossible? Of course not.

Ideally, if you’re the Broncos, you’re able to let him learn and develop and then deploy him as he’s ready to roll. That may or may not take a little roster finagling this fall.

Do you think Denver will host the draft any time soon? I’d love it to come to our city. Maybe they’ll try and pair it with the opening of the new stadium?

— Ryan, Denver

Hey Ryan, yeah, good question. Never say never, but the impression I’ve got is that hosting a draft is not currently high on the Broncos’ priority list.

Contrary to some reporting that����ap floated out there over the past year or so, the Broncos and city of Denver did not submit a bid to host the 2027 NFL draft, which was just awarded to Washington, D.C. Side note, that����ap going to be awesome. Plus, 2027 could be when Arch Manning and Jeremiah Smith are available. Start your tanking preparations now.

������’s what Broncos president Damani Leech told The Post just about a year ago as it pertained to 2027: “There’s been no official submission on our behalf for hosting the draft. Now, it����ap a major NFL tentpole event and it����ap really, really exciting, but it����ap not something that we’re currently working on.”

My sense is that sentiment hasn’t changed regarding future years at this point, either. That doesn’t rule out the Broncos and Denver hosting one down the road, but they do have a lot of other irons in the fire currently with their current headquarters construction project, the decision-making process regarding their stadium and all the rest.

Any news about the Ring of Fame? I want to see Demaryius Thomas get his day.

— Tim M., Arvada

Hey Tim, thanks for writing. No news yet. Last year, the Broncos announced their class in late May, lining it up with one of the team’s OTA weeks. So it����ap getting to be the part of the calendar where the selection committee usually does its work.

Thomas is obviously going to be elected at some point and it wouldn’t be a surprise for it to happen this year. There are other deserving candidates eligible for the first time, too, like cornerback Aqib Talib, along with a few others. So maybe the question is just about whether Thomas, the Super Bowl champion and five-time Pro Bowler who died in 2021, gets his own year or if he goes in as part of a small class.

Last year’s class of safety Steve Foley and tight end Riley Odoms marked the first players inducted into the Ring of Fame in the Walton Penner Family Ownership Group era. It also represented the first time multiple players had been part of the same class since 2016.

The Broncos’ Ring of Fame committee includes CEO and owner Greg Penner/the team’s ownership group, Hall of Fame safety Steve Atwater, former vice president of communications Jim Saccomano, play-by-play announcer Dave Logan and former head coach Mike Shanahan.

When is Mike Shanahan going into the Pro Football Hall of Fame? It seems like he keeps getting snubbed despite his impressive resume. Bill Belichick seems to be the odds-on favorite for 2026, so maybe 2027 for Shanny?

— Lewis K., Lakewood

Hey Lewis, think you’re on the right track with Belichick in 2026 and then somebody else — Shanahan potentially — in 2027. He’s clearly more than deserving.

Mike’s son and 49ers head coach Kyle Shanahan put it pretty well this spring when asked about it at the NFL spring owners meetings in Florida.

“There’s a number of good coaches in line,” Kyle Shanahan said. “I think all of them will get in eventually. You could sit here and be upset about the order it goes or whatever, but I know he deserves it. I know other people do, too, and hopefully, he’ll be in sooner than later.”

The process itself for coaches and contributors has changed and is a tough one to really understand. The list of candidates gets whittled pretty far down and then a blue ribbon committee votes on a finalist to move to the full Pro Football Hall of Fame induction committee. Then the finalist has to get 80% of the vote. That����ap a high bar, and in recent years, coaching candidates have not cleared it. Mike Holmgren was picked as the finalist over Shanahan and several others last year, . The year before, the same thing happened to Buddy Parker.

It used to be that a coaching finalist put forth just had to get a ‘yes’ vote from the full committee. Now the coaches are grouped together with seniors and contributors and have to get 80%.

So, first you have to make it to finalist status and then you need the full group to vote you in. And likely everybody at the moment is waiting in line behind Belichick.

Hi Parker, what are your thoughts on Drew Sanders this year? It’s make or break for him, isn’t it? The draft gurus made it sound like he was a steal in the 2023 draft, but he hasn’t done a whole lot in Denver. And not a Broncos question, but who do you think will be the Browns’ starting quarterback in Week 1?

— Mark, Arvada

Hey Mark, thanks for the questions, as always.

I don’t know if I’d call it make-or-break, but it����ap certainly an important summer and upcoming season for Sanders. He obviously didn’t have any control over rupturing his Achilles last spring, an injury that cost him a big chunk of his second year.

When he returned to practice, he did so originally as an outside linebacker. But the edge group blossomed into such a strength that the Broncos not only traded Baron Browning, they also moved Sanders back to the inside for the stretch run.

So Sanders started out as an ILB, moved during the season to OLB, thought he was going to settle there, got hurt, returned as an OLB, and then slid back to ILB.

Now the Broncos say he’s going to be an ILB going forward.

If there’s a silver lining to new free agent signee Dre Greenlaw missing a chunk of the offseason program going forward due to a quad strain, maybe it����ap that Sanders will get a ton of reps. The inside linebacker group also features a rehabbing Alex Singleton, so Sanders will get all the work he can handle while the veterans try to get fully healthy.

We’ve seen the glimpses of Sanders’ traits and ability. He made plays sideline to sideline during training camp his rookie season. He recorded a sack as a sub-package blitzer on his first defensive snap of the 2024 season after missing the first 13 games.

But there’s a difference, obviously, between showing flashes and becoming the kind of player who can be left in the middle of the field on all three downs. Sanders, it����ap fair to say, hasn’t had a long or consistent runway to try to make that leap. Now he’s got it. Let����ap see what he does with it.

On the Browns, the amazing thing is they’ve added four quarterbacks since March. They traded for Kenny Pickett in March, signed Joe Flacco in mid-April and then drafted Dillon Gabriel in the third round of the draft and Shedeur Sanders in the fifth. The only guy who definitely won’t start Week 1 is the one with the massive guaranteed contract in Deshaun Watson, who is rehabbing a torn Achilles. Let����ap throw a dart against the wall and say Pickett Week 1 but at least two others over the course of the season — including Shedeur Sanders.