With sweat still dripping down his brow and the adrenaline still coursing through his veins, Brandon Marshall cast a wide grin and traveled back more than two years to tell of how this all started.



“A lot of people don’t know but Peyton is the reason I’m here,” Marshall began, looking out to the crowd of reporters encircling his podium at Levi’s Stadium. “When I got picked up on the practice squad, I was playing my tail off at practice. He was one of the ones that noticed me. He would ask the coaches, ‘Who is this guy? Who is this guy Brandon Marshall? We have to get him up.’



“I told Peyton before the game, I said, ‘Man, I want to win this for you.’ I’ve been feeling that way all year.”



It was the night of Feb. 7, 2016 and the Broncos, with their league-leading defense and future Hall of Fame quarterback Peyton Manning, had just toppled the Carolina Panthers to win Super Bowl 50.