After traveling the long road back to Super Bowl contention, the Broncos’ next step is the steepest climb.

It’s not a hop, skip and a jump to a championship.

It’s more like a giant, don’t-look-down leap of faith and fortitude.

“I will not use that (phrase): ‘Take the next step.’ You go back to the start of the race,” Broncos coach Sean Payton said Tuesday. His tone was humble when reviewing how his team’s season ended three points shy of the Super Bowl in a home loss to New England.

“All 32 teams,” Payton added, “have to go back and meet their parents, eat their oranges and get ready to start again. That’s really important.”

Truer words have never been spoken.

After losing 10-7 to New England without starting quarterback Bo Nix and top rusher J.K. Dobbins, both sidelined with freak injuries, it would be tempting to raise a glass to a championship in the Broncos’ future and take a big gulp of orange Kool-Aid.

But that’s not how the NFL works.

Nothing is given. Everything is earned.

Traveling down the long road to the Super Bowl rarely gets easier, no matter how many times a talented football team embarks on the journey.

“We are not satisfied,” Broncos CEO Greg Penner said.

Denver is hungry for more.

Even better: With the burden of Russell Wilson’s dead money finally off the books, the Broncos could have as much as $30 million under the salary cap to upgrade the roster.

The owner’s word is solid gold when Penner insists his front-office management team will be smart but aggressive in the pursuit of new talent where it’s needed most (offensive playmakers, inside linebacker).

Seldom does a team hoist the Lombardi Trophy without first experiencing heartache. Long-term residents of Broncos Country can talk for hours about the suffering both John Elway and Peyton Manning were forced to endure.

But here’s the thing, and as Payton noted, it’s an important thing.

The heart might grow stronger from the suffering, but those battle scars are no guarantee of future success.

NFL history is painful proof of that harsh reality.

Can you handle the truth? Let’s dive in.

Over the past 25 NFL seasons, 50 teams have come oh-so-close to making the Super Bowl, as the Broncos valiantly did in the season that concluded with Denver edge rusher Nik Bonitto certain his team was better than New England.

By simple math of the league’s playoff bracket, the past 25 seasons have produced 50 teams that finished as the dissatisfied runner-up in the conference championship games, as the Broncos did when they walked  through the snow to a somber home locker room.

Of those 50 teams in the past 25 years that finished one win shy of making a trip to the Super Bowl, how many went on to earn a championship in the season immediately following that big disappointment?

Only six. Six of 50. A mere 12 percent of the talented NFL teams hardened by a loss in the AFC or NFC Championship Game.

Among the six teams that recovered within a year from the agony of defeat in the tourney semifinals, the champs include the Steelers, led by quarterback Ben Roethlisberger during the 2005 NFL season and the 2012 Ravens, inspired by the “last dance” of linebacker Ray Lewis. (Not to re-open old wounds, but both those teams won a playoff game in Denver on their way to a championship.)

Who else in the past quarter-century has gone from conference runner-up to Super Bowl winner in a single year? Well, maybe it’s no surprise this difficult feat has been pulled off twice by unquestionable Hall of Fame quarterbacks Tom Brady (2014, 2016) and Patrick Mahomes (2019, 2022).

So what the Broncos will attempt to do in 2026, with the added burden of a first-place schedule in a league that embraces parity, is not impossible, but there’s a nearly 90% rate of failure.

“The part that stinks,” Nix said, “is that you may not have some of the same teammates and coaches around. And that’s kind of sad.”

Roster churn isn’t fun, but it’s essential.

While I’m absolutely convinced the Broncos would be boarding a plane for the Super Bowl this weekend if Dobbins stayed healthy, does the team gamble on bringing him back as No. 1 running back with his injury history?

What’s ahead of the Broncos is grown-man’s work, but it also reminds me of the child’s game called Chutes and Ladders. No matter how far a team climbs, a playoff loss results in a long slide down, sometimes to nearly Square One.

“We’re going to have to start over again,” Penner said.

Denver isn’t good enough to run it back and expect that will be good enough to win a championship.

The Broncos not only must get better, but steel themselves with the mentality that nobody in the NFL is given a head start on the long road to the Super Bowl.