Keith Bishop sees his life in windows.
The most significant window for the former Broncos offensive lineman opened in early 1990. He was a backup left guard at the end of his 10th NFL season after losing his starting spot due to a back injury and viral meningitis. Shortly after the Broncos’ blowout loss to the 49ers in Super Bowl XXIV, he was scheduled to meet with coach Dan Reeves about his future.
Only the meeting got postponed.
“They said, ‘Well, you’re going to have to come back (and meet with Reeves),’” Bishop recalled. “And I go, ‘Well, I ain’t coming back.’ I had already got ahold of Baylor. When I had originally left, I had 12 credits to graduate. After 10 years, it was 27. I set up everything I needed to go. I had my stuff all packed and started driving to Waco.
“… I was going to finish my degree.”
The winding road that followed included a 20-year career in the DEA, more than a decade in his current job as Broncos vice president of security and time spent supporting military organizations and various causes — all of which built a legacy that led to the Broncos nominating Bishop for this year’s NFL Salute to Service Award.
The 67-year-old will be recognized during the Broncos’ Salute to Service game on Sunday against the Falcons at Empower Field. In 2022, Broncos fullback Andrew Beck won the award, becoming the first Denver player to claim the accolade that celebrates efforts by members of the NFL community to honor and support U.S. service members.
Now Bishop, who called the nomination an honor, could be the next. “I don’t know that I deserve it,” he added.
Those who know him best say otherwise.
Becoming a Broncos legend
Scott Davis of the Raiders and Broncos Keith Bishop mix it up during the Raiders vs Broncos game at Mile High on Sept. 25, 1989. (Photo by Brian Brainerd/The Denver Post)
Before Bishop became a decorated DEA agent who received the agency’s Administrator’s Award three times, and before he was a linchpin of the Broncos O-line during quarterback John Elway’s rise to fame, he faced another critical window.
Bishop, a star at Midland Lee High School in Texas, originally went to Nebraska. But after losing a battle for the starting center job before his sophomore season, he returned home to Midland. His mom was battling cancer at the time, and he was down on football.
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He considered quitting to work for his father’s home-building business but elected to transfer to Baylor instead. After sitting out a season, he played as a redshirt junior before blowing out his knee in his final season in Waco. He only played in the bowl game that year.
“I was a contractor with my father in Midland, so I was just going to do that, and my parents were like, ‘Don’t be stupid. If you can get your school paid for, go (to Baylor),’” Bishop said. “That experience toughened me. … Handling that, and the (knee) injury, it also humbled me, and it kept my ego in check the rest of my career.”
Bishop leaned on that lesson when he got to Denver after being drafted in the sixth round in 1980. He was a backup his first season, didn’t play in ’81 after suffering a foot injury in the preseason, and then was a reserve again in ’82.
But Bishop emerged as a full-time starter in ’83 and didn’t look back, eventually becoming the first Broncos offensive lineman to earn a Pro Bowl nod. That honor came in 1986 and ’87 when he helped the Broncos to their first two Super Bowl appearances under Elway. At one point the longtime captain was the highest-paid offensive lineman in the league.
Keith Bishop trains for the World’s Strongest Man Competition on June 19, 1981. (Photo by Glen Martin/The Denver Post)
His most memorable football moment was a comment that preceded one of the most famous possessions in Broncos history: “The Drive” in the 1986 AFC Championship game inside a raucous Cleveland Municipal Stadium.
“The Browns were looking at us from their defensive huddle as we had the ball on the 2-yard-line, and they were all laughing,” Bishop said. “That pissed me off. So I looked at the guys in our huddle and I said, ‘Look at them (expletive). We’ve got them right where we want them.’ And everybody just busted out laughing. I wasn’t trying to be funny.”
Elway and the Broncos marched 98 yards in the game’s waning minutes to tie the Browns. Denver eventually won on Rich Karlis’ field goal in overtime.
Fellow Broncos offensive lineman Dave Studdard, who played left tackle next to Bishop, says that moment exemplified Bishop’s “tough, mean and hard-headed” spirit. Those traits, along with leadership skills underscored by a quiet, humble demeanor, later served Bishop well in the DEA.
In a game against the Raiders a couple of years before “The Drive,” Studdard recalled with a laugh how the one-time World’s Strongest Man contestant picked a fight with All-Pro defensive lineman Lyle Alzado.
“About the second quarter or so, Bish came over and just smacked Lyle right in the mouth of his helmet,” Studdard said. “He hit him as hard as he could. Next thing I know, Lyle had Bish by the facemask, trying to hit him in the mouth (with his other hand). Bish was trying to break free and swinging back at him. … Stuff like that, he was never afraid to stick his nose in there.”
The DEA’s “Batman”
Former Denver Bronco Keith Bishop was awarded an Honorable Mention during the Parade Magazine’s America’s Top Police Officers luncheon at the International Association of Chiefs of Police Conference, on Oct. 6, 2009, in Denver. Special Agent Bishop led a DEA strike force in Houston, TX, against the international drug-smuggling Gulf Cartel. (Craig F. Walker / The Denver Post)
Off the field, Bishop made friends with the Denver police officers assigned to the team’s security detail.
He routinely went on ride-alongs. That piqued his interest in law enforcement. His dad’s background as one of General Douglas MacArthur’s sergeants during World War II also called him to service.
“Seeing those officers doing their jobs (during ride-alongs), in their element and the interaction they had with people, was very impressive,” Bishop said. “I enjoyed it. That was my chance to really see law enforcement from a perspective most people didn’t get to see.”
By the time Bishop finished his degree at Baylor in the summer of 1990, he had already spurned interest from the Raiders and Chargers. He started in the DEA Training Academy in January 1992 at 34 years old. The cutoff age for admittance was 35, and Bishop got in shortly before a three-year hiring freeze. The window to his next career nearly closed before Bishop squeezed in at the last moment.
His first assignment was as a street officer in Dallas, where he quickly proved to be a rising star.
“He never talked about the Broncos or his football career at the DEA — he was just focused on earning his way in the agency,” explained Martin Pracht, Bishop’s first boss in the DEA. “He was a tireless, focused agent. He just needed to learn the basics (of being an agent), and once he did, it was like, get out of his way.
“And there was no such thing with Keith as an eight-hour day. Sometimes we called him ‘Batman,’ because he literally never went home.”
Bishop’s career took him from Dallas to Washington, D.C., where he was assigned to the Special Operations Division, a premier multi-agency unit that targets high-level traffickers, terrorists and money launderers. He then went to Houston, where he worked as a group supervisor, before ending his career with more than three years of service in Afghanistan.
Cam Strahm, who worked alongside Bishop in the Special Operations Division, called him a “brilliant tactician.”
“He was personally offended that there were people out there who were trying to import drugs into the United States,” Strahm said. “He was offended that somebody thought they could get over on him. Talking to Elway and other guys he was around with the Broncos, he was the same way as a player. He was (Elway’s) bodyguard on the line, and with us he was a brutally tenacious investigator.”
Along the way, Bishop racked up achievements as an agent specializing in wiretaps, tracking and conspiracy investigations.
Early in his DEA career in Dallas, Bishop was part of a raid on a meth lab where he tackled a suspect who lit a rag and was poised to blow up the trailer and everyone in it. Later, in Houston, he helped bust the Gulf Cartel as part of Operation Dos Equis. The investigation into the Mexican drug cartel resulted in the indictment of 20 of its leaders, including a main boss serving life in prison, as well as the seizure of thousands of pounds of drugs and over $11 million in cartel money.
Along those stops and in D.C., Pracht said Bishop’s “reputation for bringing together various offices and different agencies was critical. He built coalitions to get things done.”
“He used unique capabilities on how to identify and track these individuals (in various cartels),” Pracht said. “He was able to work with private corporations, and leverage a contact with the Department of Defense to be able to get some tracking equipment that had previously been held back from law enforcement.”
That made Bishop a go-to expert for the CIA, FBI and other agencies.
“The intelligence community would seek out Keith and his guys,” explained Mike Chavarria, Bishop’s longtime DEA colleague.
Keith Bishop talks into his headset on Nov. 11, 2009, at Bagram Air Base in Bagram, Afghanistan, during the former Broncos lineman’s time with the DEA. (Courtesy of Derek Maltz)
All that skill and experience came to a head in Afghanistan, where Bishop united with Afghan security forces, U.S. military, other countries’ security agencies and Afghan citizens, to build what Pracht described as “his most significant coalition of workers.”
In addition to investigating cartels, Bishop’s team caught kidnappers, stopped suicide bombers and their recruiters, and averted IEDs and rocket attacks from killing American troops.
“He always embedded himself into the (Afghan) community,” Pracht said. “He had a big beard, followed Ramadan, tried to make them feel that he was part of them, and they were part of him. It was because of that trust that he was able to pick up things from the Afghan people that some of the intelligence agencies did not have access to.”
The work in Afghanistan, where Bishop was in charge of the DEA base in Kabul, proved perilous.
“I was talking to him (at the base), looking at his armored vehicle, and I said, ‘Those look like bullet holes there,’” said Tony Hinton, who worked with Bishop on a strike force in Houston and was his longtime DEA colleague. “He said, ‘Yup.’ They were in the middle of (a war) over there and he was on the front lines, even though he didn’t really have to be.”
Bishop’s team was ambushed multiple times, one of which led to a serious hernia. As a result, Bishop came back to Denver to have it surgically repaired by Broncos doctors, whom he trusted the most. And that is when his final window opened.
Bishop’s last window
Broncos head of security Keith Bishop, who is the team’s Salute to Service Award nominee, sits on a cart during practice Wednesday, Nov. 13, 2024 at Broncos Park Powered by CommonSpirit. Bishop is a former Broncos player and DEA agent who’s involved in the community and now the leader of team security. (Photo by Daniel Brenner/Special to The Denver Post)
After 20 years with the DEA, Bishop’s time with the agency was nearing a close. He had gotten remarried and promised his new wife and her family that he’d make her native Thailand their home base after he left the agency.
Then he got an invite over to Elway’s house — and his former quarterback broke out the Johnnie Walker Blue Label.
“We take a sip of scotch and he hit me broadside with the offer (to be the team’s VP of security),” Bishop said. “I said, ‘Can I think about it?’ He says, ‘Sure.’ We had another sip, and he goes, ‘Bish, what’d you decide?’ The window opens, and the window shuts. My last window was open and I took it.”
Bishop has served in that role since 2012. His job focuses on maintaining relationships with law enforcement and first responders, the military and the intelligence community to help safeguard the team’s players and personnel.
Aside from his day job, he remains active in the community.
He’s a board member for the Center for American Values, an organization devoted to honoring “the extreme sacrifices made to help sustain America’s values.” In addition, he supports other non-profits benefiting military causes such the United States Marine Corps Memorial Foundation in Golden and Freedom Service Dogs. For over a decade, he’s also opened the door for the Maltz cross-fit challenge at the Broncos’ facility that honors late Air Force Master Sgt. Michael Maltz and other fallen soldiers.
Participants of the Maltz Challenge pose for a photo at the Pat Bowlen Fieldhouse in Englewood, Colorado, after completing the cross-fit competition on March 15, 2019. Keith Bishop opened the door to the challenge being held at the Broncos facility in Dove Valley. (Courtesy of Derek Maltz)
“Bishop, the silent leader, made it happen with the Broncos organization for the Maltz Challenge,” said Derek Maltz, a former director of the DEA Special Operations Division and Bishop’s longtime agency colleague. “Even after he got done with his DEA career, he would never forget the warriors who gave their life to the mission. By him doing that, it caused other NFL organizations to step up to the plate.”
Henry Jones, a retired Denver police officer who is the president for the Center for American Values, says Bishop’s help is always just a quick phone call away.
“Once we were having a golf tournament to raise money for the Marine Memorial,” Jones said. “I called Keith and said, ‘Hey Keith, we need some autographs, some balls or whatever.’ You never hear, ‘We’ll see what we can do.’ Or, ‘I’ll get back to you.’ The first thing he always says to any of these requests is, ‘Roger. Done.’ That’s how he is.”
All of that, on top of his DEA career, underscored Bishop’s nomination for the Salute to Service Award. Fans can vote for him to become a finalist at NFL.com/SaluteFanVote until Nov. 30.
Colleagues and friends insist he never did any of his jobs for individual recognition. But as Bishop approaches another retirement in a few years, that credit has come due anyway.
As it turns out, there’s still more windows left. Only this time, they’re not for Bishop, but others instead.
“He brought up the level of everybody that he worked with, and I’m sure the same could be said of his career with the Broncos,” Hinton said. “He was a mentor to many. And now, his knowledge on intercepting and tracking is sprinkled around the country and the world with what he taught people in the DEA.”
Keith Bishop, left, holds up an American flag alongside DEA colleague Derek Maltz and DEA agents Mark Hamlet and Keith Weis on Nov. 12, 2009, near Ghazni, Afghanistan, during the former Broncos lineman’s time with the DEA. (Courtesy of Derek Maltz)
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