The

Denver Broncos The Denver Broncos are a professional American football franchise based in Denver. The Broncos compete in the National Football League (NFL) as a member club of the league's American Football Conference (AFC) West division. The team is headquart ...

are an

American football American football (referred to simply as football in the United States and Canada), also known as gridiron, is a team sport played by two teams of eleven players on a rectangular field with goalposts at each end. The offense, the team with ...

franchise Franchise may refer to: Business and law * Franchising, a business method that involves licensing of trademarks and methods of doing business to franchisees * Franchise, a privilege to operate a type of business such as a cable television p ...

based in

Denver, Colorado Denver () is a consolidated city and county, the capital, and most populous city of the U.S. state of Colorado. Its population was 715,522 at the 2020 census, a 19.22% increase since 2010. It is the 19th-most populous city in the Unit ...

. Founded by

Bob Howsam Robert Lee Howsam (February 28, 1918 – February 19, 2008) was an American professional sports executive and entrepreneur. In 1959, he played a key role in establishing two leagues—the American Football League, which succeeded and merged with ...

on August 14, 1959, the team was one of the founder members of the

American Football League The American Football League (AFL) was a major professional American football league that operated for ten seasons from 1960 until 1970, when it merged with the older National Football League (NFL), and became the American Football Conference. ...

(AFL), which began in

1960 It is also known as the "Year of Africa" because of major events—particularly the independence of seventeen African nations—that focused global attention on the continent and intensified feelings of Pan-Africanism. Events January * Ja ...

, before

merging Merge, merging, or merger may refer to: Concepts * Merge (traffic), the reduction of the number of lanes on a road * Merge (linguistics), a basic syntactic operation in generative syntax in the Minimalist Program * Merger (politics), the comb ...

with the

National Football League The National Football League (NFL) is a professional American football league that consists of 32 teams, divided equally between the American Football Conference (AFC) and the National Football Conference (NFC). The NFL is one of the ...

(NFL) ahead of the 1970 season, when the Broncos became part of the

American Football Conference The American Football Conference (AFC) is one of the two conferences of the National Football League (NFL), the highest professional level of American football in the United States. The AFC and its counterpart, the National Football Conference ...

(AFC)

West West or Occident is one of the four cardinal directions or points of the compass. It is the opposite direction from east and is the direction in which the Sunset, Sun sets on the Earth. Etymology The word "west" is a Germanic languages, German ...

division; they have been in the same division ever since. As of the end of the 2020 season, Denver has completed 61 seasons (playing in over 970 combined regular season and playoff games), and has appeared in eight

Super Bowl The Super Bowl is the annual final playoff game of the National Football League (NFL) to determine the league champion. It has served as the final game of every NFL season since 1966, replacing the NFL Championship Game. Since 2022, the game ...

s; although they lost in each of their first four Super Bowl appearances, they have since won three of them, most recently

Super Bowl 50 Super Bowl 50 was an American football game to determine the champion of the National Football League (NFL) for the 2015 season. The American Football Conference (AFC) champion Denver Broncos defeated the National Football Conference (NFC) cha ...

. The franchise has experienced three major periods of success. The first was from to , when the Broncos did not have a losing season (a season when the team has more losses than wins), and won two AFC West division titles, and one AFC championship. The second began in and ended in . During this period, the Broncos had just two losing seasons, were AFC champions five times and were

champions for two consecutive years. This second period of success is best remembered for

John Elway John Albert Elway Jr. (born June 28, 1960) is an American professional football executive and former quarterback who is the president of football operations for the Denver Broncos of the National Football League (NFL). Elway played college f ...

being the team's

quarterback The quarterback (commonly abbreviated "QB"), colloquially known as the "signal caller", is a position in gridiron football. Quarterbacks are members of the offensive platoon and mostly line up directly behind the offensive line. In modern Ame ...

. The most recent run of success began in 2011, lasting until their victory in Super Bowl 50 at the end of the 2015 season. The five-year stretch was primarily spearheaded by the 2012 free agent acquisition of the then four-time League MVP former

Indianapolis Colts The Indianapolis Colts are a professional American football team based in Indianapolis. The Colts compete in the National Football League (NFL) as a member club of the league's American Football Conference (AFC) South division. Since the 2008 ...

quarterback

Peyton Manning Peyton Williams Manning (born March 24, 1976) is an American former football quarterback who played in the National Football League (NFL) for 18 seasons. Nicknamed "the Sheriff", he spent 14 seasons with the Indianapolis Colts and four with th ...

, and included five AFC West titles, two AFC championships, as well as the Super Bowl. From their inaugural season in 1960 until , they did not make either the

AFL playoffs For its first nine seasons, 1960 American Football League season, 1960 through 1968 American Football League season, 1968, the American Football League determined its champion via a single playoff game between the winners of its two divisions (al ...

NFL playoffs The National Football League (NFL) playoffs are a single-elimination tournament held after the regular season to determine the NFL champion. Currently, seven teams from each of the league's two conferences qualify for the playoffs. A tie-breaki ...

and had just two winning seasons. The Broncos were the only charter AFL franchise to never have a winning season during the AFL's 10 years of existence (although the team finished at 7–7 in

1962 Events January * January 1 – Western Samoa becomes independent from New Zealand. * January 3 – Pope John XXIII excommunicates Fidel Castro for preaching communism. * January 8 – Harmelen train disaster: 93 die in the wors ...

), with their first winning season not occurring until 1973, their fourth year as a member of the NFL's AFC. They also experienced their two seasons with the fewest wins ever, winning just two of 14 games in both and . The Broncos have been AFC West champions 15 times, winning the division for five consecutive seasons from 2011 to 2015, and have also earned wild card berths into the playoffs seven times, for a total of 22 playoff appearances. They have been conference champions eight times (tied with the

Pittsburgh Steelers The Pittsburgh Steelers are a professional American football team based in Pittsburgh. The Steelers compete in the National Football League (NFL) as a member club of the American Football Conference (AFC) North division. Founded in , the Steel ...

, and two behind the

New England Patriots The New England Patriots are a professional American football team based in the Greater Boston area. They compete in the National Football League (NFL) as a member club of the league's American Football Conference (AFC) AFC East, East divisio ...

who have the most AFC championships) and Super Bowl champions thrice.

Seasons

Footnotes

References

General * * * * Specific {{DEFAULTSORT:List Of Denver Broncos Seasons

seasons A season is a division of the year based on changes in weather, ecology, and the number of daylight hours in a given region. On Earth, seasons are the result of the axial parallelism of Earth's tilted orbit around the Sun. In temperate and pola ...