Ranking the Top 5 Denver Broncos Wide Receivers of All Time

The best

Denver Broncos

wide receivers in history are an interesting bunch who span the franchise’s history from its inception in 1960 all the way up to the early 2000s. We know all about the quarterbacks that made some of these teams great, like John Elway and Peyton Manning, but what about the wideouts who caught their passes?

The Broncos started as an AFL franchise in 1960 and struggled for the first decade-plus of their existence. It took 14 seasons for the club to produce a winning record and 18 to reach the

NFL

postseason, but once they did, better times were to come in the late 1970s and beyond.

Elway and Manning are the two QBs to win Super Bowls for the Broncos and three-fifths of this list played with one or the other. Still, there were some interesting signal-callers before and in between these two Hall of Famers, and some excellent WRs who played along with them.

The list of the best Broncos wide receivers of all time is short on Hall of Famers but filled with Pro Bowlers and champions. So, while the players on the list may not have been the best of their era, they gave Denver exactly what it needed to get the job done.

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1

Rod Smith

For more than a decade, Rod Smith was the favorite target of John Elway and several other Broncos QBs

The best Broncos wide receiver of all time is Rod Smith, who played with the organization for 12 seasons, from 1995 to 2006. His 849 receptions, 11,389 receiving yards, and 68 touchdowns are all franchise records that stand to this day. And while he is not in the Pro Football Hall of Fame, he is in Mile High’s Ring of Fame.

Smith was an undrafted free agent out of Missouri Southern in 1994 (he didn’t appear in a game that year) and was primarily a kick and punt returner in his first two seasons. Like so many of his brethren, though, he broke out in Year 3, catching 70 balls for 1,180 yards and 12 touchdowns.

For the next five straight and seven of the next eight seasons, Smith topped 1,000 yards and led the league in receptions (113) in 2001. He made three Pro Bowls in his career and earned a pair of Second-Team All-Pro squads.

Smith was the Broncos’ leading pass-catcher for nine straight seasons, including the team’s two Super Bowl-winning seasons in 1997 and 1998. Whether it was John Elway, Brian Griese, or Jake Plummer throwing him the ball, Smith was always his QB’s safety blanket, and that was huge in Denver.

2

Demaryius Thomas

When Payton Manning showed up in Denver, he unlocked the greatness in Demaryius Thomas

As a wide receiver in one of the last triple-option offenses in college football at Georgia Tech, Demaryius Thomas was a little raw coming out of college but still became a first-round pick of the Broncos in the 2010 NFL Draft.

The 6-foot-3, 225-pound wideout rewarded the Broncos with eight and a half good years catching passes in Denver. Thomas was decent in Year 1 and better in Year 2, but as so many receivers do, Year 3 marked his true arrival on the scene.

During that campaign — not coincidentally the first season Peyton Manning wore a Broncos uniform — Thomas racked up 94 receptions for 1,434 yards and 10 touchdowns.

Over the next four seasons, Thomas never dropped below 1,000 yards and led the team in receiving six times in total. While Thomas led the Broncos’ pass-catching corps, the WR made five Pro Bowls and two Second-Team All-Pro squads.

As Denver struggled to rebuild in the post-Manning era, Thomas eventually became surplus to requirements and the team traded him to the

Houston Texans

in 2018. He left with 665 catches, 9,055 yards, and 60 touchdowns. Those are good for third, second, and second in franchise history.

3

Lionel Taylor

The Broncos lost a ton of games early on in franchise history, but Lionel Taylor was a major bright spot

Ahead of the franchise’s inception in 1960, the team signed

Chicago Bears

linebacker Lionel Taylor and converted him to wide receiver. That transition worked out pretty well.

As a split end, Taylor was a pass-catching machine, leading the AFL in receptions in four straight years and in five of six seasons from 1960 to 1965. In his second season, he became the first player in professional football history to record 100 receptions in a single campaign.

During his seven-year stint in Colorado, Taylor put up four 1,100-plus-yard seasons and also led the league in yards per touch twice. He made three AFL All-Star Games and four First-Team All-AFL squads while playing for the Broncos.

Ultimately, Taylor’s biggest issue was that, despite his incredible exploits, the team never had much success. The Broncos’ best record in Taylor’s seven seasons, six of which he led the team in receiving years, was 7-7 in 1962. Overall, Taylor was a paltry 26-69-3.

4

Brandon Marshall

His time in Denver was short, but Brandon Marshall was incredible in the Mile High City

There are Broncos wide receivers who have played for longer and have put up better stats over time than Brandon Marshall did during his four seasons in Denver. However, with apologies to WRs like Haven Moses, Vance Johnson, and Riley Odoms, none of those players were better than Marshall.

A fourth-round pick in the 2009 NFL Draft out of Central Florida, Marshall started his career buried on the depth chart behind veterans like Rod Smith and Javon Walker. Plus, with Jake Plummer as the primary starting QB, the Broncos passing game wasn’t that great anyway.

Toward the end of that season, though, rookie first-round pick Jay Cutler took over, and the former Vanderbilt QB would take over the reins full-time in 2010. That’s when Marshall blew up.

Over the next three seasons, Marshall averaged 102 catches, 1,236 receiving yards, and eight touchdowns per season. He made the Pro Bowl in two of those seasons and the 6-foot-5, 232-pound pass-catcher looked like the next dominant WR for both the Broncos and the NFL.

Unfortunately for the team, the player, and all the fans, Marshall’s time in Denver did not end well. Suspensions, freak injuries, butting head with head coach Josh McDaniels, and overall erratic behavior — much of which were possibly byproducts of borderline personality disorder, a mental health issue Marshall announced he’d been diagnosed with in 2011 — led to the Broncos trading the WR to the

Miami Dolphins

in 2010.

5

Ed McCaffrey

Before he was Christian’s dad, Ed McCaffrey was a Broncos staple

Today, Ed McCaffrey is best known as the dad of

San Francisco 49ers

superstar running back

Christian McCaffrey

. However, from 1995 to 2003, the wideout made a name for himself as a go-to guy in Denver.

The skinny wideout out of Stanford was a third-round pick of the

New York Giants

in 1991 and was mostly a depth piece for his first three seasons in the Big Apple and one in San Francisco.

When McCaffrey got to the Mile High City, he started increasing in yards and catches every season before hitting a three-year streak from 1998 to 2000 where he went for 99, 124, and 149 catches and 1,053, 1,018, and 1,317 yards. That last season, the WR made his only Pro Bowl and earned his one Second-Team All-Pro appearance.

The Pennsylvania native hung up his cleats in 2003 with 462 catches, 6,200 yards, and 46 touchdowns with the Broncos. Only Smith, tight end Shannon Sharpe, Thomas, and Taylor are ahead of him in catches and yards with just the first three before McCaffrey in TDs.

All stats courtesy of Pro Football Reference unless stated otherwise.

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