Broncos CEO Greg Penner outlines “really high expectations” for 2023

Justin Simmons and Courtland Sutton spoke with reporters just ahead of training camp’s start a year ago and leaned into the excitement surrounding the franchise. A new coach in Nathaniel Hackett. A new quarterback in Russell Wilson. New ownership about to be finalized.

The same pair took turns answering questions Wednesday at Denver’s training facility and, though they didn’t shy away from those feelings, they did strike a tone more in line with the business-like offseason conducted by this year’s new head coach Sean Payton.

“My goals are still the same,” Simmons said. “Team goals and team-wise, everything’s still the same. The day-to-day approach, I think for me, needs to be a little more amped up. You can’t think too much into the future, you can’t look into the past. It needs to be a day-to-day approach and that’s just how I’m approaching it this year.

“I still believe in the guys we have on this team and it’s a new team. That’s how it is. Each and every year it’s a new team.”

That’s the good news for this Broncos team. Last year’s version posted a 5-12 campaign that spiraled quickly.

CEO Greg Penner on Wednesday said he’s expecting a much different feel in 2023.

“One expectation is that Year 2 will be a little bit smoother than Year 1,” he said two weeks before the Walton-Penner Family Ownership Group celebrates its one-year anniversary of purchasing the franchise. “It was a great year, we learned a lot. Of course there are always going to be some surprises.

“Our expectations this year — we set really high expectations, work really hard to get better, put a good product on the field. Something that our fans can be proud of.”

Veterans reported Tuesday — everybody was in attendance — and the team got onto the field for the first time Wednesday in what was essentially a ramp-up workout. So this is only the very beginning of the 2023 campaign. So much so that Payton cut off a question about new edge man Frank Clark and said, “one practice, 90 minutes” to convey there was nothing meaningful to say at this stage.

All the same, the Broncos all convened back at the Centura Health Center in a way that reassured the new coach.

“I feel pretty good,” Payton said of his team. “You can see it with their weights and the workouts we did yesterday. I think they’re in good shape. Obviously we’ve got a month and a half here ahead of us, but overall it was good.”

Good, but full of areas for improvement.

“There’s eight notes here of things I want to make sure we’re on the same page about,” Payton said, pointing to his practice script. “We have a lot of coaches, a lot of trainers. We’ve got a great support staff, fantastic, we’ve just got to be on top of where they’re at on the field, what they’re doing when they’re out here and so we’ve got to clean up a few things there.

“Some of that is coaching the coaches and just making sure we’re on the same page.”

Players say they feel a similar rush to make progress.

“One thousand percent. I hate to be up here and be reiterating something we’ve been talking about the past couple of years, with us not taking care of business the past season,” Sutton said. “All we can control is moving forward now. I think the guys that have been a part of past seasons understand the sense of urgency that we have to have moving forward and passing that on to the rest of the guys that are new here. They understand the sense of urgency not only from us, but coach ‘SP’ has come in and let it be known that the main thing is the main thing. …

“Everybody understands what the top priority is and it’s good to be able to get back to work and get that taste out of our mouth and move forward.”

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