Broncos' young core of players is turning heads and recent ranking is proof

Travis Wakeman

Broncos' young core of players is turning heads and recent ranking is proof image

The Denver Broncos are on the way up. That seemed evident following a 10-7 season which saw the team snap a long playoff drought, but fans were likely hesitant to stand on that due to how poorly the franchise has performed since winning Super Bowl 50. 

The team made some terrific free-agent signings before adding the Jim Thorpe Award winner and a potentially high-impact running back in last week's draft and now, fans can confidently state that the Broncos are back. 

Brad Gagnon at Bleacher Report has taken notice and recently, put together a list of eight teams with the most exciting young cores of players in the league, ranking them in terms of excitement. At the very top of his list is the Broncos. 

"Youngens in the core: QB Bo Nix, WR Marvin Mims Jr., RB RJ Harvey, CBs Patrick Surtain II and Jahdae Barron

If your “young core” includes the Defensive Player of the Year, it’s gonna be hard to top. So yeah, Surtain pulls a lot of weight on his own. Now he’s joined by the first-round rookie Barron, which is just ridiculous. 

And then offensively you have Nix coming off an extremely promising rookie campaign in which he posted a 126.0 passer rating in his last three regular-season games, as well as the intriguing-yet-still-unproven Mims (who at least scored six times as a sophomore in ‘24), a rookie second-rounder in Harvey and another young wild card in rookie third-rounder Pat Bryant. 

It’s a damn exciting time to be a Broncos fan", wrote Gagnon. 

As discussed here, the Broncos could have a revamped version of the 'No Fly Zone' in 2025 to go along with an offense that is starting to build some steam. The Broncos had become a pushover, a shell of the franchise fans watched have so much success during the Pat Bowlen era, but they are turning into a team that no one is going to be eager to face.

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Travis Wakeman

Travis Wakeman has been covering the NFL since 2012 when he started with Bleacher Report. After reporting about the Broncos there until 2016, he joined the FanSided network as a site expert covering the San Diego/Los Angeles Chargers while simultaneously covering the Broncos at Broncos Wire when that site launched. He then took over the Broncos site at FanSided in March 2020 and covered the team there until spring of 2024. A lifelong Broncos fan and fan of the game, Travis is filled with sometimes useless NFL knowledge, but it always serves him well in any trivia contest. You can follow him on Twitter/X @traviswakeman10.