It began with more than 3,000 square feet of exposed red brick on the backside of a vacant commercial building off Market Street. Slabs jutted out from fused concrete at incongruent angles, no single smooth patch on the beast’s scales.
Gus Rey needed approximately 35 spray-paint cans of a particular shade of Bronco baby-blue, many more gallon-sized cans of paint than could squeeze into his car, and a scissor lift that swung him 25 feet in the sky.
He also needed a consistent handle on his sanity to successfully pull off his mural of Pat Surtain II.
“I knew it would kick my (butt),” Rey reflected last Saturday while gazing up at the wall in downtown Denver. “And it did.”
Rey, a laid-back local artist secretly commissioned by the Broncos a few months ago, painted a mural of Nikola Jokic in RiNo to honor his third MVP last year. It was, at that time, the largest public piece he’d ever designed. His Surtain mural, honoring the cornerback’s Defensive Player of the Year trophy, was roughly 10 times larger.
It took a week, at first, of talking to 25 businesses around downtown and pleading for wall space. Then came a lengthy process in the months to come of Rey scribbling massive doodles in a highly visible parking lot just a few blocks from Coors Field. He felt the eyes of passersby prematurely deciding that whatever he was painting was going to suck.
It all culminated in a day when a slightly nervous Rey welcomed Surtain to the finished site — the Broncos cornerback carrying little idea that someone was illustrating three gigantic versions of his likeness in downtown Denver.
It was “surreal,” Surtain smiled a few days later.
“He was really gracious, and he was super nice,” Rey said of Surtain.
“And I think he just felt, like, really grateful that — he’s making an impact on Denver, you know?”
Artist Gus Rey poses in front of his recently completed mural of Denver Broncos star Pat Surtain II in downtown Denver on Tuesday, June 3, 2025. (Photo by AAron Ontiveroz/The Denver Post)Adorned in orange block lettering, on the right side of Surtain’s mural, is a simple message: Why Not Be Great? Words from Surtain’s own lips in a February video on the Broncos’ social media. Words that Rey used to leave a broader impact, as that baby-blue paint slowly chips from the Denver wind in the years to come.
Entering his fifth season, Surtain’s already skyrocketed to DPOY heights reached by only six other cornerbacks in NFL history. And he still feels, as he told reporters Monday, that he can “always get better.” It’s a scary proposition and nearly impossible. No defensive back has ever won multiple Defensive Player of the Year trophies.
But the 25-year-old Surtain is younger than any DB who’s won the award, set on this path since he was 5 years old while learning the craft from his father, Patrick Surtain Sr. His current Broncos deal stretches through 2029. And a larger-than-life Denver legacy — both in trophy cases and local classrooms — has already splashed across a massive stretch of brick in the heart of the city.
Surtain has stamped himself to this, with the final words of that February video, crafted by the Broncos for the NFL’s DPOY announcement.
I’m just getting started.
“His ceiling is as high as anybody that’s ever played the game,” legendary Broncos cornerback Champ Bailey told The Denver Post in early April.
“If he gets any better than he is now, he’ll be mentioned among the greats,” Bailey continued. “There’s no doubt about it. You win Defensive Player of the Year this young, and you’ve got more years ahead of you — I still don’t feel like he’s peaked yet.”
For seven years, Atlanta-based trainer Oliver Davis II has tutored some of the best cornerbacks in the NFL: the Colts’ Kenny Moore, the Panthers’ Jaycee Horn, the Dolphins’ Jalen Ramsey. Surtain, Davis estimated, was about the only top talent in recent defensive back classes whom he hadn’t worked with. That is, until late April, when Surtain showed up for an Arizona workout with rising Philadelphia Eagles star Cooper DeJean.
Toward the end of the session, Davis lined up as a receiver opposite Surtain to drill press coverage. On every rep, Davis noticed, Surtain’s technique was exactly the same. Jam Davis at the breastplate as he broke into a route. Move his hand, split-second, from Davis’ chest down to his hip. Robotic.
Eventually, the 22-year-old DeJean spoke up.
“Why are you doing that?” the Eagles cornerback asked Surtain, as Davis recalled.
Surtain explained. The eyes and hands are connected, he told DeJean. So his eyes should be on a receiver’s hips. Let your hands linger too long on the chest, and risk drawing a flag from officials.
“We were all saying the same thing,” Davis recalled. “Like, ‘Bro, I don’t ever think I’ve seen nothing like this before.'”
Davis filmed the workout for his YouTube channel. In the weeks since, he said, both young kids and NFL veterans have begun picking up Surtain’s hand positioning.
That repetition and attention to detail are what extend Surtain’s ceiling, according to Davis. There are other cornerbacks with his 6-foot-2 height, 4.4 speed or ball skills. There are few with his discipline. Anal about doing things right, as Davis put it.
“It’s not just his gift that he got from God, but he’s actually working on it,” Broncos rookie CB Jahdae Barron said of Surtain after he was drafted in April’s first round.
“He’s actually dedicated to what he’s putting in,” Barron continued. “He knows if he puts in a lot, the reward is bigger. It just showed this past season for him, and I know he’s going to continue to stack.”
Denver Broncos cornerback Patrick Surtain II during a Patrick Surtain II Foundation fashion show in Arvada, Colorado on Monday, June 3, 2024. (Photo by AAron Ontiveroz/The Denver Post)The city of Denver has embraced Surtain and championed this journey since he was taken ninth overall in 2021’s NFL draft. His larger goal, too, is to give that love back. He spoke to reporters Monday night in the lobby of the Vehicle Vault in Parker, where his Patrick Surtain II Foundation hosted an annual gala to benefit Denver-area high schools. As Surtain envisions building “bigger and bigger events” with his foundation, as he said, Monday’s auction raised over $100,000 for grants to support STEAM teachers in Denver and awarded four separate grants of $2,000 to teachers for classroom supplies.
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“I mean, you can make a short-term impact in your football career. But what’s forever lasting is — what you do in the community, what you put out there, what you do for people around you and giving back.”
Rey’s mural, in downtown Denver, was theorized and crafted as a specific ode to Surtain’s 2024 season. There are three silhouettes of the Broncos’ cornerback on that brick wall. The first is a side profile of his full-field sprint last October when he picked off a pass from the Raiders’ Gardner Minshew and ran it back 100 yards for a touchdown. Rey has wound that play back over and over again over the past few months, eventually sketching out a set of faded white Xs and Os in the background of the mural — the exact alignment of Surtain’s break on the ball from the line of scrimmage.
Greater, though, it’s an ode to Surtain’s ascension in Denver, a story with years of chapters that remain.
“I would be like, ‘Okay, yeah, you’ve accomplished X, Y, Z,'” Davis said. “‘But you’re only 25, bro.
“Do something that’s never been done before.'”
Artist Gus Rey’s recently completed mural of Denver Broncos star Patrick Surtain II in downtown Denver on Tuesday, June 3, 2025. (Photo by AAron Ontiveroz/The Denver Post)Want more Broncos news? Sign up for the Broncos Insider to get all our NFL analysis.
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