Disgruntled receiver Courtland Sutton doesn’t know a Slurpee from Shinola, much less what it takes to be a true Broncos great. He will never shine with the talent of Steve Foley or Riley Odoms, two legendary players welcomed Thursday into the team’s Ring of Fame.

Sitting on his duff in a contract dispute while Denver teammates huffed and puffed through another day of spring workouts, Sutton let his thumbs do the work, hopping on social media to offer Odoms and Foley congratulations, then casually mention that being inducted into the Ring of Fame and winning Super Bowl are among his big goals, as well.

So what’s the catch? Sutton is refusing to get down to football business until after being shown the money by a team already overpaying him.

And there, in a nutshell, is a major problem with this sad current group of orange-and-blue wannabes playing for a franchise that hasn’t sniffed the NFL playoffs since winning a championship nearly a decade ago.

Sutton wants to be the straw that stirs the drink. But he doesn’t have enough of the right stuff that Foley and Odoms brought to the Broncos.

Odoms earned selection to the Pro Bowl four times from 1972-83, a 12-season period in which he led all NFL tight ends with 5,755 receiving yards. As a defensive back, Foley was a cornerstone of the Orange Crush defense during the late 1970s and remains the team’s career leader in interceptions (44) to this day.

“This was the 7-Eleven Slurpee cup era,” Broncos coach Sean Payton said. He recalled how teenage boys like him in the Disco ’70s would buy a frozen drink at the convenience store as much for the glorious mug of Nolan Ryan or O.J. Simpson imprinted on the plastic cup as the brain-freeze-inducing, imitation-cherry concoction slurped through a straw.

“Yeah, Coach Payton told me about that,” Foley said, when I asked him if his face was ever immortalized on the container of a soft drink. “I don’t know about a Slurpee cup. But I do remember everybody on the team with our pictures on Orange Crush cans.”

Despite providing the Broncos with production decidedly less than an elite No. 1 wideout, Sutton has refused to participate in spring practices with the Broncos, while seeking the respect of a contract extension that could pay him in excess of $15 million per year.

Yes, it’s all about the money in pro sports. But the only way a player earns that respect is on the field.

Football doesn’t care what you did yesterday. Tomorrow is all that counts. And it’s on the player to remove all doubt, as Foley knows all too well.

Let me tell you a story about Foley I don’t think you will hear anywhere else as we salute his election into the Ring of Fame.

He did not grow up in New Orleans with dreams of becoming a defensive back in the NFL. Foley played quarterback at Tulane, where as a junior he led the Green Wave to a 9-3 record, including a victory against 14th-ranked Louisiana State, as a dual threat that passed for 824 yards and rushed for 601 yards in an era when football was more about five-day bruises than posting five touchdowns on the scoreboard before halftime.

“We started 5-0 my senior year at Tulane, when I broke my ankle and never finished the season,” Foley said.

The Broncos took him in the eighth round of the 1975 draft, taking a flier on the chance they could turn Foley into a cornerback.

Refusing to forsake his love of playing quarterback, Foley instead took his talents to the Jacksonville Express of the upstart and wacky World Football League, a weird place where Dave Roller of the Southern California Sun could record a season-high 17 sacks, then be named to the all-league team as an offensive tackle.

Well, not only did the Express also decide Foley was better suited to breaking up passes as a DB than throwing them as a QB, the whole darn league drowned in a sea of red ink and folded midway through his rookie season in the WFL.

That didn’t stop Foley from showing up for Broncos training camp at Fort Collins in 1976, with next to zero professional experience as a defensive back, but cocksure he deserved to be a starter on a team that already had Louis Wright and Billy Thompson as stalwarts in the secondary.

“During my rookie year, I told the Broncos I was thinking of quitting, because I couldn’t stand not to play,” Foley said. “I wasn’t cocky or overconfident. I wanted to play. It wasn’t because of the adulation, but because of the competitive spirit of playing football. I went to my coach and told him: ‘I’d rather go do something else than sit on the bench, when I think I should be starting.’”

Say what?

But Foley had the game to back up his bold words. An injury midway through the season gave him the opportunity to get in the starting lineup against Dan Fouts and the San Diego Chargers.

Defensive coordinator Joe Collier warned Foley that with Wright at left corner, Fouts would be looking to feast on an inexperienced defensive back as the weak link in Denver’s defense.

“Nothing like a little pressure,” Foley recalled. “But by the grace of God, I got two interceptions … a game ball and we won that game.”

And the rest, as they say, is Ring of Fame history.

An intrepid Broncomaniac with money can burn can find a complete set of 64 vintage Orange Crush cans minted in 1978, featuring the mugs of Foley and Odoms, as well as a baby-faced Tom Jackson and Haven Moses with his magnificent afro, for a mere $1,400 on eBay.

“You don’t play for honors,” Foley said. “You play for your teammates and the love of the game.”

How many current Broncos are truly worthy of being honored with the plastic immortality that only a cup of Slurpee is capable of bestowing?

Well, there’s cornerback Pat Surtain II.

That’s one. And that’s it.

Sorry, Mr. Sutton.

Before getting back in the NFL playoffs or getting a raise, you and a bunch of teammates should concentrate on picking up your game.

The Broncos’ problem? They don’t have enough Slurpee Cup Guys.