John Elway is building a track team on the offensive side of the ball

DENVER — John Elway’s building a track team. That track team, however, will play on an NFL field.

In 2019, the Broncos had Diontae Spencer, Phillip Lindsay and first-round pick Noah Fant as speed weapons. Spencer, however, played in less than seven percent of the offensive snaps.

That wasn’t enough for John and the Broncos. It wasn’t nearly enough.

Elway began the offseason by signing Melvin “Flash” Gordon. His nickname, “Flash” pointing to the running back’s quickness and speed.

That was a nice first addition. By the time the draft came around, Elway went all-in.

With his first pick, the Broncos snagged their No. 1 receiver on the board. A significant reason Jerry Jeudy topped their list? “Speed,” according to Elway. Jeudy’s 4.45 40-yard dash time was nearly a tenth of a second faster than Courtland Sutton’s 4.54 40.

Again, that was nice, but not enough juice for Elway and Pat Shurmur’s offense. In the second round, the Broncos doubled-down on receiver and got a turbo-boost in speed selecting K.J. Hamler. The reason? Hamler can “really, really, really run,” Elway stated.

“Hamler was a target for us in the second round because of his is explosiveness and speed, he’ll be able to really stretch the field for us,” Elway stated. “We felt like we needed another speed guy and that was Hamler… A guy, as Vic [Fangio] would say, scares the heck out of defenses.”

Denver’s new 5-foot-9 receiver made the bold statement that if he wasn’t injured at the combine, he would have been “in the conversation” for breaking John Ross’ 4.22 40-yard dash record.

And, once again, John still didn’t have his fix. That’s a main reason why with their first pick on day three of the draft, the Broncos selected Drew Lock’s former college teammates, Albert Okwuegbunam.

“Albert O,” as he was called at Mizzou, not only ran the fastest 40-yard time at the Combine in 2020, he ran the second-fastest 40 time for a player at least 6-foot-5, 250 pounds since 2003, according to NFL Research.

“The ability to stretch the field all over. It’s going to put a lot of strain on the concerns and safeties,” Albert O. told the Denver media on what he brings to the Broncos. “I’m too fast for a linebacker and too big for a D.B.”

The Broncos now have two of the fastest tight ends in the NFL with Okwuegbunam and Noah Fant — who clocked in just after his new teammate with a 4.5 40.

Remarkably, John Elway has made Courtland Sutton, Denver’s unquestioned No. 1 receiver in 2019, look slow. In fact, now, two of Denver’s tight ends are faster than the Broncos’ Pro Bowl receiver.

If there’s one thing the Broncos offense has lacked more than anything — other than a quarterback — during the dark ages of the last four years, it was team speed. Now, in just one offseason, they have it in spades.