Why Riley Odoms belongs in the Denver Broncos Ring of Fame

Since the Denver Broncos joined the NFL in 1970, just 13 of their players earned multiple first-team All-Pro nods. It’s rarified territory.

Of those, 12 are eligible for the Ring of Fame. Just two of those 12 do not have their names on display or pillars outside of Empower Field at Mile High: Ryan Clady and Riley Odoms.

Clady hasn’t waited long. He only became eligible for the Ring of Fame last year. Riley Odoms, on the other hand, has been on the outside looking in for 34 years of eligibility.

The No. 5 overall pick in the 1972 draft, Odoms didn’t disappoint. The 6-foot-4, 230-pounder made his first of four Pro Bowl selections by his second year. In 1973, he led the Broncos in receptions and yards as the team had its first-ever winning season. He followed that up in 1974 by just becoming the club’s second first-team All-Pro since joining the NFL.

At the time of Odoms’ retirement following the 1983 season, he ranked third all-time in receiving yards by a tight end. His 5,755 yards trailed only Mike Ditka and Jackie Smith at that point. Plenty of tight ends have come along to surpass them in the pass-intensive four decades since then. But Odoms still ranks a healthy 22nd all-time for receiving yardage by a tight end.

Obviously, the Ring of Fame is not the Hall of Fame. But when you consider that the only two tight ends with more receiving yards at the time of Odoms’ retirement are in Canton — and that all of his production came with one team — it seems fair to believe that Odoms belongs in some place in pro football that ends with the words “of Fame.”

And to this day, the 41 tight ends all-time with at least 5,000 receiving yards, Odoms’ average of 14.5 yards per catch ranks fourth, per pro-football-reference.com.

Odoms was also remarkably durable. He opened his career by playing in 116 consecutive games before a broken arm sidelined him for the final three weeks of the 1979 regular season. Despite that injury, he returned for a wild-card playoff game at Houston.

Recent years saw the team “clean out” some of the Ring of Fame backlog. As a result, contributors like original Bronco Gene Mingo, returner extraordinaire Rick Upchurch, all-time leading sacker Simon Fletcher and 1977-80 head coach Red Miller all received their deserved induction.

It’s time to do the same for Odoms. He set a Broncos standard at tight end that only Hall of Famer Shannon Sharpe exceeded. The 73-year-old deserves to have his lengthy wait end with an orange blazer.

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