Troy Renck: When you retire, you move to Florida. When you get brushed up against by a defender in soccer, you flop. When you do your job well one day a year, you call yourself Santa. It’s the law. So, too, it seems, is making New Year’s resolutions. Most involve dropping weight, working out, things that inspire us to dream big and quit in two weeks. But sports are different. There is more staying power. So, Sean, with that in mind, what is the New Year’s resolution you want most for a Colorado sports team?
Sean Keeler: So many simple gifts, right? I hope the Broncos figure out how to land Bo Nix a Travis Kelce of his own. I hope Dick Monfort decides to hire baseball people who don’t already reside on his Christmas card list. I hope Mackenzie Blackwood and Scott Wedgewood are the Double Darcy who helps Nathan MacKinnon sleep happily again. I hope the locals appreciate how dang good Tad Boyle and JR Payne really are. I hope the Kroenkes give the good people of Commerce City a bit more bling inside and around — especially around — Dick’s Sporting Goods Park. But most of all, I hope that Jamal Murray bottles all that righteous anger he splashed on the Pistons and starts doling it out on the floor, a dagger at a time, for the next, oh, six-and-a-half months.
Renck: There are the obvious choices. The Rockies taking smart pills and cutting Kris Bryant, clearing the deck for at-bats for their young players, like Charlie Condon, beginning in April. Or CU football building off its success and staying relevant. How about Murray looking more like Bubble Jamal than Bitter Jamal, making the Nuggets a championship contender again? But after 10 years on the Broncos beat, my wish is simple, if not layered: A Denver playoff berth and three new offensive playmakers to make Sean Payton’s play-calling make more sense.
Keeler: Can I get an amen? The Broncos and Buffs were the tandem stories of 2024 in one of those rare autumns in which CU and CSU made the postseason while Mines and Air Force didn’t. I hope the Buffs and Rams have enough talent — and juice — to be bowl (and playoff) perennials. I hope there’s December football at Marv Kay Stadium again, because man, did I miss it. And I will never stop toasting the fact that we’ve got Sean Payton setting the bar on one side of town and Deion Sanders raising it on the other.
Renck: As a columnist, I root for the story. The Broncos returning to the postseason for the first time since 2015 makes for good copy. Even if Denver makes it and gets throttled by Buffalo, who cares? Better to be in the party than ask people what it was like. A playoff berth sets the tone for an entire year, reframing expectations going forward and restoring a hint of glory to a franchise that regularly made Super Bowls for three decades. But this New Year’s resolution cannot be distilled only around the idea of making the Broncos good again. It involves moves. Bo Nix is the future of the franchise. Is it too much to ask for the Broncos to draft a tight end and running back and sign an elite receiver? Payton features a Waffle House menu-sized playsheet that is full of genius that would work a lot better with elite ingredients. Nix has exceeded all expectations and it is easy to imagine a world where his ceiling rises because of better players around him.
Keeler: You know what Denver’s first summer without a championship parade in three years reminded us? Just how hard it is to get there. How many stars have to align. How many things have to go right. And how fast those title windows can slam shut. No Front Range heart is rooting for Murray to fail. Quite the opposite. They groan because they’ve seen the mountaintop, and they know just how essential the Blue Arrow is if they’re going to get there again. Because a Nikola Jokic comes around about as often as Halley’s comet. Because the Joker can only do so much. Because dynasties in the NBA are built on multiple superstars, not just one. If No. 27’s turning a corner again, we’ll drink a cup of kindness yet. And the first round is on me, my friend.
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