On June 13, 2013, Austin Schlottmann of Bren­ham, Texas, com­mit­ted to stay in-state and play col­lege foot­ball at TCU. His deci­sion made, he began talk­ing to the Horned Frogs’ staff about one of his high school team­mates — receiv­er Court­land Sutton.

“I tried to talk the coach­es at TCU into giv­ing him an offer so he could come play with us, but I guess they didn’t see it,” Schlottmann said.

The Horned Frogs passed, but SMU offered Sut­ton a schol­ar­ship and he signed on Feb. 5, 2014. In games against TCU in 2014–16, he had a com­bined nine catch­es for 228 yards.

“We saw it for four years and he def­i­nite­ly made his pres­ence known,” Schlottmann said.

Years lat­er, the high school team­mates are Bron­cos team­mates and the NFL is see­ing what Schlottmann saw in high school and col­lege — a legit­i­mate play-mak­er who enters the sea­son open­er against Ten­nessee com­ing off his 1,112-yard/six-touchdown break­out season.

“Court­land was always a stud,” Schlottmann said. “And he’s absolute­ly the same exact per­son. Hasn’t changed a bit. Just wants to go out there and be the best on the field and he’s doing a great job at that.”

Play­ing in his third offen­sive sys­tem and with his third start­ing quar­ter­back, Drew Lock, in as many pro sea­sons, Sutton’s role is to con­tin­ue his upward tra­jec­to­ry while lead­ing a young group that includes first- and sec­ond-round picks Jer­ry Jeudy and KJ Ham­ler. Most of all, it’s about show­ing the Pro Bowl appear­ance was only a start.

“You nev­er want to get to a spot where you get to go to the Pro Bowl and are like, ‘I’ve arrived,’” Sut­ton said. “I looked at (mak­ing the Pro Bowl last year) as motivation.”

Leader on, off the field

Dur­ing a recent prac­tice, Sut­ton wore a micro­phone for the team’s web­site. The video pack­age was a class in Receiv­ing Tech­nique 101. He gave tips to Jeudy about how to use his hands while run­ning a route and gave Dion­tae Spencer a few point­ers about foot­work. It was pay­ing things for­ward, NFL style.

When Sut­ton was draft­ed in the sec­ond round two years ago, he joined a receivers’ room led by vet­er­ans Demary­ius Thomas and Emmanuel Sanders. Sut­ton observed, learned and took men­tal notes. How to pre­pare. How to run cer­tain routes. How to set up defend­ers. How to grind.

Thomas was trad­ed to Hous­ton in Octo­ber 2018 and Sanders tore his Achilles’ in prac­tice a month lat­er, pro­pelling Sut­ton to No. 1 sta­tus for the final four games. Last Octo­ber, Sanders was trad­ed to San Fran­cis­co and Sut­ton — already the top receiv­er — took over the room. He took the afore­men­tioned obser­va­tions and applied them to hone his style. (Sut­ton also learned how not to lead from last summer’s inci­dent in which Sanders, who wasn’t even prac­tic­ing, was yap­ping at the receivers and end­ed up in a heat­ed con­fronta­tion with Sutton.)

“I always knew he had (lead­er­ship traits) in him com­ing out of col­lege and it was one of the things I real­ly loved about him,” receivers coach Zach Azzan­ni said. “But you have to grow into that and earn that, espe­cial­ly with the room he walked into with two vet­er­ans — he didn’t have to (lead), which was great.

“Him and I talk con­stant­ly about lead­er­ship oppor­tu­ni­ties and things dur­ing the day he can do to lead and say and do. By doing that, it makes him more account­able to him­self and that helps him and every­body around him. He has a pres­ence about him. He’s one of those guys peo­ple are drawn to.”

Dur­ing the coro­n­avirus-caused short­ened train­ing camp, Sutton’s lead­er­ship has been even more impor­tant. The rook­ie receivers got less than 20 prac­tices and no pre­sea­son games before fac­ing the Titans.

“I’ll give those (old­er) guys cred­it,” said offen­sive coor­di­na­tor Pat Shur­mur, sin­gling out Sut­ton, Tim Patrick and Dae­Sean Hamil­ton. “They’ve real­ly put their arms around the young guys and they’re try­ing to bring them along. It’s very impor­tant the old­er guys help lead the younger guys.”

‘Sauce’ to his game

Can a 1,000-yard receiv­er fly under the radar? That could be the case for Sut­ton ear­ly this sea­son because of Jeudy’s draft sta­tus (No. 15 over­all) and expec­ta­tions (lofty). But for Lock to have suc­cess in his first full year as a starter, he could lean on Sut­ton, know­ing a 50–50 pass is more like a 75–25 attempt and Sut­ton under­stands lever­age and angles to draw penal­ties even on uncatch­able passes.

Lock start­ed the final five games (4–1 record) a year ago and Sut­ton caught 22 pass­es dur­ing that stretch. Lock’s first touch­down pass, 26 yards against the Charg­ers, went to Sut­ton when he basi­cal­ly put it in Sutton’s zip code for him to make the play. His sec­ond touch­down pass, five yards against the Charg­ers, was a side-armed throw to Sutton.

Fast for­ward to the open­ing prac­tice of train­ing camp last month. Lock’s first two com­ple­tions were to Sut­ton. A week lat­er, Sut­ton ran an in-break­ing route, left his feet and con­tort­ed his body to catch Lock’s pass that was slight­ly behind him. Sut­ton made it look effort­less and makes the type of plays that ener­gize an entire offense and maybe an entire sideline.

“He has ‘it,’” said for­mer NFL receiv­er Nate Burleson, now an ana­lyst for NFL Net­work and CBS. “He has the fla­vor. He has the ‘sauce’ as I like to call it. And he plays angry. I see that a lit­tle bit in Mike Thomas, Julio Jones at times, Jarvis Landry — Court­land will make a 10-yard catch to move the sticks and is yelling and scream­ing about mak­ing a play and I’m the receiv­er sit­ting on my couch in my box­ers eat­ing Chee­tos and I’m scream­ing, too, because I love that type of energy.”

The Bron­cos’ offense des­per­ate­ly needs an ener­gy and pro­duc­tiv­i­ty boost. The improve­ment of tight end Noah Fant in his sec­ond year and the arrival of Jeudy won’t take pres­sure off of Sut­ton (he applies much of that him­self), but should make defens­es think twice about putting two defend­ers on him.

Even with the atten­tion, Sut­ton ranks favor­ably among receivers draft­ed in 2018. His 114 catch­es are third behind Carolina’s D.J. Moore (142) and Atlanta’s Calvin Rid­ley (127), his 1,816 yards are sec­ond behind Moore (1,963) and his 10 touch­down catch­es are tied for sec­ond behind Rid­ley (17). Last year, Sut­ton caught touch­down pass­es from three quar­ter­backs — Joe Flac­co, Bran­don Allen and Lock. Yes, he is learn­ing anoth­er new offense, but at least Sut­ton has a five-game foun­da­tion with Lock on which to build.

“He start­ed get­ting real­ly good at under­stand­ing the whole con­cept of a play last year and he’s going to take the next step this year know­ing all of the posi­tions on the field, know­ing what the quarterback’s reads are and see­ing defens­es a lot quick­er than he did in the past,” Azzan­ni said. “The game with­in the game — those are the things he’ll take the next step with.”

Those next steps could put the Bron­cos back in the playoffs.

Making Big Plays

In 2018, Court­land Sut­ton had 19 of the Bron­cos’ 66 “explo­sive” (gain of at least 16 yards) catch­es (28.8%) and last year, he had 26 of the team’s 69 “explo­sive” catch­es (37.7%). A catch-by-catch recap:

2018 (yards): 20, 25, 16, 21, 42, 41, 28 (TD), 42, 21, 21, 22, 39, 30, 30 (TD), 16, 27, 25, 20 and 19. Sut­ton had at least one “explo­sive” catch in 11 of the Bron­cos’ 16 games.

2019 (yards): 26, 18, 24, 25, 16, 16, 52, 27, 70 (TD), 41, 18, 41, 18, 33, 25, 19, 21 (TD), 48, 43, 27, 26 (TD), 33, 33, 27, 19 and 18. Sut­ton had at least one “explo­sive” catch in 14 of the Bron­cos’ 16 games.