*according to a thoroughly unscientific survey of listeners to the Broncos’ flagship radio station for four hours on a chilly, wet autumn afternoon in Denver.
It started with a Twitter post — a “tweet” — by Roy S. Johnson, one of the better sportswriters of our time. Acknowledging Allen Iverson’s formal retirement the previous evening, Johnson offered his list of the “five greatest 76ers ever.”
His list: Dr. J, Moses Malone, Charles Barkley, Allen Iverson, Wilt Chamberlain.
We substituted “Broncos” for “76ers” and took calls, emails, tweets, whatever, for parts of four hours on 850 KOA.
A margin of error should certainly be built into the results. It’s a small sample size, its demographics unknown, etc. Still . . . here are the five greatest Broncos ever, according to this admittedly approximate methodology:
John Elway
Terrell Davis
Floyd Little
Randy Gradishar
Shannon Sharpe
The results (votes in parentheses):
- John Elway (47)
- Terrell Davis (31)
- Floyd Little (24)
- Randy Gradishar (20)
- Shannon Sharpe (18)
- Steve Atwater (14)
- Tom Jackson (12)
- Ed McCaffrey (11)
- Rod Smith (10)
- Jason Elam (8)
- Karl Mecklenburg (7)
- Louis Wright (7)
- Steve Watson (6)
- Otis Armstrong (4)
- Rich Jackson (4)
- Dennis Smith (4)
- Lyle Alzado (3)
- Haven Moses (3)
- Lionel Taylor (3)
- Billy Thompson (3)
- Al Wilson (3)
- Gary Zimmerman (3)
- Champ Bailey (2)
- Keith Bishop (2)
- Pat Bowlen (2)
- Rubin Carter (2)
- Simon Fletcher (2)
- Rulon Jones (2)
- Rich Karlis (2)
- Gary Kubiak (2)
- John Lynch (2)
- Peyton Manning (2)
- Craig Morton (2)
- Tom Nalen (2)
- Matt Prater (2)
- Tim Tebow (2)
- Billy Van Heusen (2)
- Steve Antonopulos (1)
- Marlin Briscoe (1)
- Tyrone Braxton (1)
- Willie Brown (1)
- Barney Chavous (1)
- Dave Costa (1)
- Ken Criter (1)
- Bucky Dilts (1)
- Steve Foley (1)
- Alex Gibbs (1)
- Tom Graham (1)
- Bobby Humphrey (1)
- Mark Jackson (1)
- Charley Johnson (1)
- Vance Johnson (1)
- Dave Logan (1)
- Tim McKernan (Barrel Man) (1)
- Red Miller (1)
- Riley Odoms (1)
- Trevor Pryce (1)
- John Ralston (1)
- Steve Ramsey (1)
- Bill Romanowski (1)
- Bob Scarpitto (1)
- Neil Smith (1)
- Jim Turner (1)
- Rick Upchurch (1)
- Norris Weese (1)
- Sammy Winder (1)
- Honorable mention: Darrent Williams
BlitzKrieg 
October 31st, 2013 at 1:15 pm
I really don’t know how Floyd got on here. I know he was the best we had for a while, but his stats just do not warrant it. I hate to say this but for the Hall of Fame either.
October 31st, 2013 at 1:42 pm
Please tell me, Jeff, that you actually saw him play. If you had, you’d know that he was one of the best running backs of his era. When he retired he was 6th on the all-time rushing list and ran behind a line with 1/4th the talent the late 90s lines had. He was every bit as good as TD, if not better.
October 31st, 2013 at 5:45 pm
David Stowell…Agreed!