Is it time for the Broncos to move toward a new practice facility?

INDIANAPOLIS — The Walton-Penner group paid $4.65 billion for the Denver Broncos last summer. And while every NFL team is a mansion, even among those, there are fixer-uppers.

The Broncos are one of them.

And the NFLPA’s survey of its players revealed that this week.

Now, that survey reflects what existed before the Broncos sold for the highest amount to date in North American professional sports. According to the NFLPA’s website, they collected the data from March 1 to April 1 of last year — when the Broncos were on the market.

But it showed areas in which ownership could have an impact. And to be certain, it already made one key change.

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EXIT LANDOW, ENTER LOWERY AND DALRYMPLE

The recent hiring of Beau Lowery to supervise athletic training, strength and conditioning and nutrition was spurred by new coach Sean Payton. So, too, was Payton’s reunion with Dan Dalrymple, the strength-and-conditioning coach in New Orleans who will handle the same role in Denver.

But it’s significant that the areas that fall under his jurisdiction are spots in which the Broncos were middling in the NFLPA report card:

• Food service/nutrition: D, T-22nd of 32 teams
• Weight room: B-plus, T-13th
• Strength coaches: A-minus, T-17th
• Training room: C-plus, T-17th
• Training staff: B, T-28th

That’s an average ranking of 19.4 among 32 teams.

Not good enough.

And certainly not what Carrie Walton Penner noted at ownership’s first UCHealth Training Center press conference in August, when she laid out a full commitment to “making sure that the Denver Broncos are the best team to play for, to work for and to cheer for.”

Being the best team for which to play means taking care of those donning the helmets and shoulder pads. At this, the NFLPA survey of players revealed that the Broncos had fallen short. A niagara of injuries revealed further issues in this regard.

It’s to the credit of the Walton-Penner group that they are proactive. They didn’t overreact within the season, but they collected data, consulted with experts — including NFL chief medical officer Dr. Allen Sills — and made a change.

For an ownership group willing to spend $400,000 to resod Empower Field at Mile High for a single game’s use, their wherewithal is not a surprise.

But the NFLPA survey revealed that this should only be the beginning.

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HOME SWEET HOME?

The Broncos just completed their 33rd season at what is now known as UCHealth Training Center. And during the final years of Bowlen stewardship — through Pat Bowlen directly and then through the Pat Bowlen Trust — management spent deep into eight figures to upgrade the complex.

In the past decade, the club built a field house, used the earth dug up to create a berm on which fans could sit for training camp, constructed a plaza to accommodate fans arriving for training camp and completely renovated the main building at team headquarters. New offices were built. The auditorium was expanded. A full-service cafeteria opened. And the locker room and training room were revamped to maximize the space available.

But that could only do so much. The design of the building has a couple of flaws. First, with the locker room at the center of the first floor, it’s boxed into that specific spot. Expansion to a size comparable to the stadium locker room is — at best — difficult within the constraints of the building. Second, the building was constructed without a way to get from the entry at the south end to the cafeteria toward the north end without going through the locker room.

So, the Broncos’ facility gurus and contracted architects did their best with what they had.

But players who played for other teams and who come from colleges with leviathan-sized-and-equipped facilities noticed.

Thus, the Broncos’ locker room received a D-plus — tied for 22nd in the NFL.

It could have been worse, certainly. Denver doesn’t have a rat infestation in its laundry hampers, like Jacksonville. It doesn’t have trouble having enough warm water, like Washington.

But players surveyed did note that there aren’t enough showers or bathroom stalls. The lockers need to be bigger.

Simply put, there’s not enough room in the Broncos’ locker room. And just seven years after its massive renovation, it received a below-average grade.

Meanwhile, four teams received A-plus grades for their locker rooms. It’s not a coincidence that all four — Minnesota, Miami, Las Vegas and Dallas — have facilities constructed in the last seven years. And across the board, those four teams had the NFL’s highest average grades in the NFLPA report card.

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A CHANCE TO MAKE A DIFFERENCE

Now, here’s the thing: The players have faith in the Walton-Penner group to make necessary changes. When subsequently asked whether they had confidence in ownership to fix problems, 100 percent of all Broncos players surveyed said, “Yes.” The afore-mentioned field resodding justifies the players’ belief.

Further, part of ownership’s overall evaluation of the organization includes the facility.

And it’s possible that after 33 seasons, the Broncos have outgrown their home. A larger roster, a bigger practice squad, a more massive coaching staff, ballooning business staff … all of it reveals that this isn’t 1990 anymore.

This brings an opportunity, of course.

The facilities built by the Vikings and Cowboys include some combination of hotels, retail and apartments. Dallas has a 12,000-seat indoor facility — the Ford Center — to host Cowboys practices, high-school football games and other events. Conference USA has held its men’s and women’s basketball tournaments there since 2018. Minnesota has a 6,000-seat stadium that hosts high-school football, lacrosse and a local women’s soccer team.

These are more than just football headquarters. They’re community centers for suburban cities.

But the most important thing they did is provide world-class facilities for players and teams that had outgrown their venerable homes of decades. The Vikings moved to their new facility after 37 seasons at Winter Park. The Cowboys decamped to The Star in Frisco, Texas after 31 campaigns at Valley Ranch.

The Broncos’ 33-season run at UCHealth Training Center fits in neatly between those two.

There’s only so much the Walton-Penner group can do to make a competitive difference in a salary-capped league. All of that “so much” is in everything else that makes a football club go.

“As Carrie [Walton Penner] said, we want this to be a great place to work,” Greg Penner said last August. “We want our players to come here and feel like they’re supported, and this is a great place to play [and] grow as individuals. Those types of characteristics are really important to us and so, that’s where we start from.”

And what the NFLPA’s survey revealed is this: Making the players feel supported could mean it’s time for a new headquarters.

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