Sean Payton settled into a familiar, cozy setting at the Super Bowl in New Orleans last month and declared that his Denver Broncos, fresh off their first playoff appearance in nine years, were about to become “a problem” for the NFL — just like so many of the Saints teams he had coached in the city.
It matched the energy Broncos leaders displayed in the days after Denver’s playoff loss to the Buffalo Bills in January. Payton boasted he felt good about his team’s chances to have gone into Kansas City and knocked off the Chiefs in Round 2, had the Broncos only been able to find a way to escape Buffalo with a win. Owner Greg Penner later said the “absolute goal” for the Broncos in 2025 would be nothing less than ending Kansas City’s string of nine straight AFC West titles.
“We have really high expectations,” Penner said, “and everyone has to be in it together.”
What Payton knows, though, is you can’t truly become a problem until you fix your own.
And hunters don’t always have the luxury of playing it safe.
In agreeing to three-year deals Monday for a pair of former San Francisco 49ers defensive standouts — safety Talanoa Hufanga and linebacker Dre Greenlaw — the Broncos are betting they have addressed a thorny issue that popped up down the stretch last season. Denver, for all its well-earned defensive plaudits, was too vulnerable in the middle of the field. It had too many soft spaces top-notch quarterbacks could exploit.
Rarely did Payton seem more frustrated than he was after a December loss to the Los Angeles Chargers. In blowing their first chance to clinch a playoff spot, the Broncos let Ladd McConkey run wild. The rookie wide receiver seized on every blown assignment, galloping across the open real estate the Broncos left in front of him. It wasn’t the fault of any one player, but rather evidence that Denver didn’t have what it needed to shrink the field when it mattered.
At their best, Hufanga and Greenlaw are fast, physical tone-setters. They are the kind of players who can expand defensive game plans because of their ability to make plays across the field. In 2022, the 49ers had the NFL’s best defense, ranking first in points and yards allowed. Hufanga and Greenlaw were two of their unrelenting engines, players who can wreak havoc in the run game while also excelling at various levels in coverage.
In pursuing two of the better players available at their positions on the free-agent market, Denver has constructed a different vision for its big games to come. One in which McConkey doesn’t have as much room to operate. One in which a running back such as Buffalo’s James Cook can’t so easily reach the second level. One in which a more complete Broncos defense makes life, at the very least, more difficult for the elite quarterbacks within the division and the conference. The Broncos will return every player from one of the league’s best defensive fronts. They have the Defensive Player of the Year in cornerback Pat Surtain II and an ascending player opposite him in Riley Moss.
But to frustrate the best teams, you need difference-makers at every level. If the ideal versions of Greenlaw and Hufanga, or even close to it, are realized in Denver, the Broncos could now have that.
“There are a few important pieces, obviously, that will help us in a direction,” Payton said at season’s end.
The Broncos are also betting that the injuries that have plagued both players in the recent past won’t spoil the vision.
Hufanga has missed 17 games the past two seasons after suffering an ACL injury in 2023 and a torn ligament in his wrist last season. Greenlaw suffered a devastating injury in front of the football world when his Achilles tendon ruptured as he ran onto the field at the Super Bowl in February 2024. He tried to make it back at the end of last season, but he played only 34 snaps across two games before a calf injury sidelined him again.
Free agency in the NFL is a baggage claim carousel. There are no perfect players — well, maybe Saquon Barkley last season — but there can be perfect fits for players and teams that have a strong, yet discerning stomach for risk. And you aren’t dethroning the Chiefs or keeping pace with other AFC contenders without taking a few that pay off.
The concerns with Hufanga and Greenlaw are reasonable, but so is the Broncos’ belief that both players are young and talented enough to overcome the setbacks they’ve encountered the past couple of seasons. A solid chunk of the time Payton and Penner spent talking after the season centered on the positive results the team has had the past two years from a health standpoint. The Broncos were among the league leaders in games missed by starters in 2022 and were well down the list the prior two seasons, too. Since Payton arrived in 2023 and hired Beau Lowery to oversee the player health and wellness operation, the Broncos have had among the fewest games missed by starters.
“There are two years of proof,” Payton said. “For those prior … tough. That’s just what it was. They earned those numbers. When you have 134 players miss games because of injury, something’s wrong. Then when you have 30-something two years in a row, something’s right. So as to players being in here, (it’s) wanting to be here and feeling like, ‘I’m benefiting from my training here.’ When you can put those numbers up, that’s pretty substantial.”
None of that, of course, guarantees anything for Hufanga or Greenlaw — or any other player on Denver’s roster, for that matter. But it’s all part of an intentional process Payton has employed since becoming the team’s coach, the kind you have to have to solve problems at a contending level.
“We’re going to continue to build this way,” Penner said in January.
There are more problems for Payton and the Broncos to solve. The team had free-agent tight end Evan Engram in for a visit Monday, but no deal had yet been reached. The Broncos will evaluate options at that spot and at running back as free agency continues and measure those against what appears to be a deep pool of options in the upcoming NFL Draft.
And they clearly won’t be afraid to take calculated risks along the way.
(Top photo of Talanoa Hufanga: Darren Yamashita / Imagn Images)
