Horse Tracks: Greenlaw knows he ‘belongs’ in Denver

The former Niners linebacker wanted to play with the Broncos’ defense — but also to support the up-and-coming Bo Nix.

Good morning, Broncos Country!

Dre Greenlaw knows what it feels like to belong somewhere, what it feels like to really be wanted.

He knows that because he has experienced the opposite.

As an 8-year-old, Greenlaw began a six-year stint bouncing around the foster care system, eventually landing at a boys’ home.

But as fate would have it, Greenlaw’s talent on his middle school football team got him noticed by a high school football coach down the road.

Brian Early was immediately impressed with Greenlaw’s upbeat personality and polite nature, as well as his football prowess — in spite of such tough circumstances. Early began mentoring Greenlaw before ultimately adopting him in 2011 at age 14.

“He did not know that he didn’t have it great, and you would not know that just in the way that he carried himself and handled himself,” Early told the NY Post in 2024. “We all know that 99 percent of the kids in that [foster] situation…they don’t turn out like Dre turned out.”

But Greenlaw definitely turned out — first playing on a football scholarship at the University of Arkansas, then getting drafted by the 49ers in the fifth round in 2019, then going to back-to-back Super Bowls with the Niners.

And now to the Broncos.

“I was a foster kid growing up and there wasn’t a lot of times that people wanted me,” Greenlaw said Monday, adding that the Broncos and Sean Payton made it very clear in free agency that they wanted him. “So it made me feel special. Made me feel like this is a place where I needed to be.”

And Greenlaw sees great things in the near future with his new football family.

“[The Broncos] have had one of the best defenses for quite some time now. I know last year they really took that [up a] notch, and I just wanted to be a part of that,” Greenlaw said. “I wanted to be where I was accepted, where I was wanted. This is the right place for me.”

Sean Payton certainly thinks so, pointing out that “there’s an intensity to how he plays.”

Greenlaw insists he just loves playing football.

“Yeah, I’ve gotten that before for sure,” he said. “You never know when it’s going to be your last chance on the field, your last chance to play, so you want to make a statement anytime you can. I just love doing it.”

Greenlaw also insists that he and fellow linebacker Alex Singleton are going to be a problem for opposing teams.

“I see a lot of the same leadership qualities in Alex,” he said. “Alex is a vocal guy when he needs to be. He’s also a tackling machine as well. Just having somebody like that, …somebody who is going to go out there and that’s going to battle, that’s going to fight, that’s going to give it all they’ve got every play.”

But it wasn’t just the Broncos’ defense that Greenlaw was interested in.

It was also the Broncos’ young quarterback.

Payton noted that this has been a big change for Denver compared to two years ago when he first arrived as head coach.

“You’re selling a playoff team with a young, aspiring quarterback,” Payton said, noting that two years ago he was “selling a vision” — and that’s a lot harder than selling a known entity

“There’s a fist pump on the way home in my car,” Payton said of his reaction to landing Greenlaw and fellow Niners defensive back Talanoa Hufanga. “So yes, part of it is the movement of the program. You’re seeing that this is a place where guys want to be. …Part of that’s the quarterback. I think two years ago, I don’t know that we [would] win that battle.”

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