Every NFL team celebrates its victories, especially if the team is successful and generating ongoing momentum. That’s definitely the case with this year’s Denver Broncos, who have come up with a celebration that’s very different, to say the least.
The Broncos players call it “Club Dub,” and Nick Kosmider of The Athletic revealed how works in a recent piece. It involves the use of a smoke machine in the post-game locker room, which can be problematic for some of the players.
“In college, you come in and you’re blasting the music, but here it’s the smoke with the music,” said Broncos safety Devon Key. “Sometimes you walk in the locker room, and you can’t see anything. You’re searching for your locker and everything before you even process, ‘Hey, we just won the game. It’s time to celebrate!’”
Linebacker Justin Strnad also had a memorable version of this experience. Ironically, it happened after Denver’s loss to the Indianapolis Colts, which ended with a field-goal fiasco at the end of the 29-28 loss that cost the Broncos the game.
“When we hit the field goal against Indianapolis, the first one, I guess the smoke started rolling into the locker room,” the linebacker said, referring to haze produced by a fog machine the Broncos use as part of their postgame victory celebrations. “When the (leveraging) penalty happened, we actually came into the locker room and people were trying to wave the smoke out. Obviously, I wish we had won, but that was a funny memory. It was a crazy time, for sure.”
Chaos is often a designed part of this particular celebration. When the Broncos beat the Carolina Panthers last year, the fog machine tripped the fire alarm system in the bowels of Empower field, according to Kosmider. The blaring siren was quickly shut down, but white lights were still flashing when coach Sean Payton made his way to the auditorium where his post-game news conferences are held.
It shouldn’t be all that surprising that Payton has his hands all over this, and he’s actually done it before. When he coached the New Orleans Saints, the team bought a $30,000 sound system to pair with a fog machine and a light display that created a nightclub atmosphere.
“We felt it was important, especially on the road, that everyone that could possibly hear our locker room celebrating (was) like, ‘What is going on in there?’” Payton said when he was hired as the Broncos’ coach in 2023. “That is creating culture with the right people, with the right details.”
It also feels like something that might make for bulletin board material for Broncos opponents, but if it works, it works. The Broncos won’t get a chance to use the pyrotechnics in their road game against the Las Vegas Raiders on Sunday, but if they have their way it could play a big role in subsequent home games against the Green Bay Packers and Jacksonville Jaguars.