Colorado's 10 Greatest Teams
Honorable Mention to the University of Colorado Buffaloes. Their football team's 1990 National Championship is a bit dubious, but they've won 27 Conference Championships, most recently in 2001 in the Big 12, and the Pac-12 South Division as recently as 2016. Their basketball team made the NCAA Final Four in 1942 and 1955.
Honorable Mention to the Colorado State University Rams. They've won 15 Conference Championships, most recently in 2002 in the Mountain West. They've won 5 bowl games, none major, the last being the 2013 New Mexico Bowl. Their basketball team's best performance was in the Elite Eight in 1969.
Honorable Mention to the U.S. Air Force Academy Falcons. Unlike Army and Navy, the Air Force didn't even exist as a separate entity until 1947, so they didn't have an Academy football team until 1955. The Colorado Springs-based Academy won the Western Athletic Conference in 1985, 1995 and 1998, and won the Mountain West Conference's Mountain Division in 2015. They've won 12 bowl games, none major, the most recent being the 2016 Arizona Bowl.
Their basketball team has been much less successful, only making 4 NCAA Tournaments, the last in 2006, although they did win the Mountain West regular season title in 2004.
Honorable Mention to the 1985 Denver Gold, who made the Playoffs in the last season of the United States Football League.
Now, the Top 10:
10. 2003-05 Denver Broncos. They made 3 straight Playoffs, and in 2005 won the AFC Western Division and reached the AFC Championship Game, but lost to the Pittsburgh Steelers. It would take another 6 years to get them back into the Playoffs.
9. 1967-70 Denver Rockets. In the 1st 3 seasons of the team that was renamed the Nuggets in 1974, they made the ABA Playoffs, and reached the Western Division Finals in 1970.
8. 1974-79 Denver Nuggets. They made 5 straight Playoffs, reached the Division Finals in 1975 and the last ABA Finals in 1976, and reached their 1st NBA Western Conference Finals in 1978. The Nuggets also had good Playoff runs in 1982-88, 1993-95, and 2008-09.
7. 2007-09 Colorado Rockies. They went an a 21-1 run that included a National League Wild Card Game win over the San Diego Padres, an NL Division Series sweep of the Philadelphia Phillies (the 1st postseason series win in team history), and an NL Championship Series sweep of the Arizona Diamondbacks, before getting swept in the World Series by the Boston Red Sox.
After having a sub-.500 season in 2008, they bounced back in 2009, winning the Wild Card, before the Phillies avenged their 2007 NLDS loss. The Rox also made the Playoffs in 1995 (only their 3rd season) and 2017.
6. 1977-79 Denver Broncos. Since the Nuggets were an ABA team, this was the 1st Denver (or Colorado) pro team to really get the nation's attention. 1977 was the year that Mile High Stadium debuted in its full 76,000-seat, fully triple-decked configuration, and it still couldn't fully contain "Broncomania," as the Orange Crush defense managed to break the Oakland Raiders' stranglehold on the AFC Western Division, reach the franchise's 1st Playoff berth in its 18th season, and then beat first the Pittsburgh Steelers, and then the defending World Champion Raiders, in the Playoffs.
But they lost Super Bowl XII to the Cowboys. They won the AFC West again in 1978, and made the Playoffs in 1979, but lost in the 1st available round each time.
5. 1986-91 Denver Broncos. This was the team that made someone (I forget who) say that Broncos fans had come to resemble "a dyspeptic rattler." Meaning they had become as disappointed, and as angry about it, as, say, Boston Red Sox, Chicago Cubs, or New York Rangers fans -- and, soon, Buffalo Bills fans.
But the 1986 AFC Championship Game, that thrilling overtime win in Cleveland, showed Rocky Mountain sports fans that there would always be hope. They beat the Browns again in Denver in the AFC title games in 1987 and 1989. But they lost all 3 Super Bowls, by increasing margins. After a bad season in 1990 (as well as one in 1988), they got back to the AFC title game in 1991, but lost to the Bills. It began to look like the Broncos -- or, at least, John Elway -- would never win that elusive Vince Lombardi Trophy. That may be why the Avalanche's 1996 Stanley Cup win was so surprising: Given that, a year earlier, no one even knew that Denver would even have an NHL team, everyone still figured the 1st Denver team to win a World Championship would be the Broncos. However, their time wasn't long in coming.
4. 2010 Colorado Rapids. They won the MLS Cup after 3 straight seasons out of the Playoffs, but couldn't really follow it up. They also reached the Final in 1997, and reached the Semifinals in 2002, 2005, 2006 and 2016.
3. 2011-16 Denver Broncos. They became a perennial Playoff team again, after going back to orange jerseys, but keeping the number font and the purple helmets. They won 5 straight AFC West titles from 2011 to 2015, and, after bringing in Peyton Manning, stunned the New England Patriots (something Manning had previously had lots of trouble doing with the Indianapolis Colts) to reach Super Bowl XLVIII at the Meadowlands.
But a horrible 1st play from scrimmage began one of the worst Super Bowl performances in recent memory, and the Broncos got slaughtered by the Seattle Seahawks. Ironically, it was the Colts, with new quarterback Andrew Luck, who beat them in the Divisional round in 2014. But in 2015, they beat the Steelers and the Patriots at (whatever you want to call the new stadium, most people just give it the old stadium's name, Mile High Stadium), and beat the Carolina Panthers in Super Bowl 50. Like Elway, Manning retired a World Champion.
2. 1996-99 Denver Broncos. Coach Mike Shanahan's Broncos went 13-3 in 1996, and lots of people figured this was it, especially since their Division Playoff opponents were the Jacksonville Jaguars, in only their 2nd season. Surely, the Jags' luck would run out. It didn't.
But things were changing in 1997, and not just the Broncos' uniforms, from the blue helmets with the orange D and the orange jerseys to the purple helmets with the charging white horse and the purple jerseys. Terrell Davis was brought in, and, finally, John Elway had a great running back to diversify the offense, and control the ball to give the great defense enough rest.
They avenged the previous year's defeat to the Jags, then beat the Kansas City Chiefs at Arrowhead and the Pittsburgh Steelers at Three Rivers, to reach Super Bowl XXII. Davis overcame a literally blinding migraine to become the 1st player to score 3 touchdowns in a Super Bowl, and Elway led the team to an upset of the defending champion Green Bay Packers.
The following year, they won their 1st 14 games before dropping their last 2, and then beat the Miami Dolphins and the Jets to reach Super Bowl XXXIII. The Broncos beat the Atlanta Falcons -- coached by Dan Reeves, boss of the Broncos' AFC Champion teams of the 1980s -- to send Elway into retirement as a back-to-back World Champion.
This was, almost certainly, the most satisfying team in Colorado sports history. But it wasn't the best.
1. 1995-2003 Colorado Avalanche. For sustained excellence and star power, even the Broncos can't match this squad. Sure, the Quebec Nordiques were already regular-season Division Champions when their new owner bought them and moved them to Denver, so it wasn't like they were an expansion team -- as were the Kansas City Scouts, who in only their 3rd season were moved to become the original Colorado Rockies, made the Playoffs once in 6 years, and were bought and moved again to become the Devils.
In their 1st season, 1995-96, they won the Stanley Cup, sweeping the Florida Panthers. It was the 1st World Championship by a Colorado team. In their 1st 7 seasons, 1996 to 2002, they made the NHL Western Conference Finals in all but 1. In 2001, they won the Cup again, taking Game 6 at the Meadowlands and Game 7 at the Pepsi Center to come from behind and beat the Devils, perhaps getting revenge on Dr. John McMullen for moving the Rockies in 1982.