When former star receiver Lionel Taylor ventures out to a casino near his home in Rio Rancho, N.M., he sometimes wears a Broncos hat.

Apparently, it gets noticed.

When Taylor played for the Broncos from 1960-66, they never had a winning record, much less made the playoffs. Now, Denver has gone eight straight seasons without a playoff berth, the last seven with a losing mark.

“I’ll wear my Broncos hat to the casino and everybody turns around and moves away from the machines where I’m playing,” Taylor, 89, said with a laugh. “They don’t want any bad luck.”

Whether it’s bad luck or bad players, the Broncos haven’t made the playoffs since the 2015 season, when they won Super Bowl 50. They’re in the midst of the second-longest playoff drought in team history.

From 1960-76, the Broncos went 17 seasons without a playoff berth. When they finally broke through in the 1977 season and went to the Super Bowl, that began a 39-year stretch in which they made the playoffs 22 times and went to eight Super Bowls, winning three.

Since the 24-10 win over the Carolina Panthers in Super Bowl 50, Peyton Manning’s final game, the Broncos have used 13 starting quarterbacks. They’ve had six head coaches, including Gary Kubiak, who won that Super Bowl and then steered Denver to a 9-7 mark in 2016 before stepping down.

Now, though, there is more optimism than before most of the recent losing seasons. Coach Sean Payton, who won Super Bowl XLIV with the New Orleans Saints in February 2010, is in his second season and has a hand-picked quarterback in Bo Nix, the rookie who will start the Sept. 8 opener at Seattle.

“I think everybody in a sense is starving for it,’’ wide receiver Courtland Sutton, who has been with Denver since 2018, said of ending the team’s drought. “You know the work that’s been put in. … I think everybody’s understanding the sense of urgency that this organization has had. I think the (Walton-Penner) ownership group has done an amazing job of giving us what we need. Coach Payton and the coaching staff has done a great job preparing us.”

Since taking over the Broncos, Payton often has compared the situation to what he had in New Orleans, where he became a head coach for the first time in 2006. The Saints then had missed the playoffs five straight years and were coming off a 3-13 season.

“There were times in New Orleans where there were a lot of (excuses of not having won),’’ Payton said. “There were some, maybe sins of the past that we can’t control with this team. I think one of the attractions to this job, though, was the tradition and the success organizationally over the years. … I think there was an attraction, at least for me, being somewhere where it was significant, it mattered and it’s important.”

Payton took over the Broncos in February 2023 after he had coached the Saints for 15 seasons and spent the 2022 season as a Fox studio television announcer. His hiring broke a string of four straight Denver head coaches with no previous experience in that job.

After Kubiak departed, Vance Joseph went 11-21 in two seasons, Vince Fangio 19-30 in three years and Nathaniel Hacket was 4-11 to start 2022 before being fired with two games left. He was replaced on an interim basis by Jerry Rosburg, who went 1-1.

“I get it,’’ Joseph, now Denver’s defensive coordinator, said of the team’s drought. “It’s been a long time since this team’s been in the plyoffs, but things are being done right. Coach Payton’s come in and has changed the culture. It’s not the same team it was, even last year. We’re young, but it’s a smart, tough, confident group. Our deal right now is just keep improving. Keep improving and let the wins prove in our words.”

At least the Broncos’ current playoff drought isn’t even half as long as the one they had after entering the AFL in 1960 and then joining the NFL in 1970.

“Obviously, it was frustrating,’’ said punter-wide receiver Billy Van Heusen, who played with Denver from 1968-76. “That’s the best way to describe it. It was discouraging. We saw improvement. We got better as a group but we just couldn’t push to the finish line.”

Only late running back Floyd Little, with 117, has gotten into more games in a Denver uniform without being on a playoff team than the 109 Van Heusen played. Van Heusen joked that he’s “glad I’m in second place and not leading it.”

Van Heusen, 78, has continued to live in Denver where he works as a realtor and continues to closely follow the Broncos and attend games. He is now seeing some optimism.

“I’m sure to the people it’s frustrating,’’ Van Heusen said of the current drought. “The Broncos have the best fans in the NFL and the most loyal fans… But they’ve got the right quarterback now. I’ve been to several practices and Bo Nix, he’s got an arm. He can throw. … I think they’ve brought in the right people and Sean Payton knows how to coach.”

Payton has an NFL career coaching record of 160-98. He was behind the decision to release quarterback Russell Wilson, 35, and take an $85 million salary-cap hit and then bring in Nix, the No. 12 pick in the draft out of Oregon. He also sought to beef up a defense that was humiliated in a 70-20 loss at Miami in Week 3 last season, although it did get better later in the season.

The top defensive moves were acquiring end John Franklin-Myers from the New York Jets and signing free-agent safety Brandon Jones. The Broncos, as they did on offense, sought to get younger on defense with moves such as releasing Pro Bowl safety Justin Simmons, 30, and not re-signing lineman Mike Purcell, 33.

“We’re a young team and that could be dangerous in two ways,’’ said safety P.J. Locke, who came to Denver in 2019. “There’s a bunch of guys that don’t know anything or a bunch of guys that are hungry. … At the end of the day, I mean, obviously, you want to get back to winning.”

Taylor, who following his playing career was an assistant coach with the Pittsburgh Steelers and Los Angeles Rams, sure wants to see that. Taylor joked that when he wears a Steelers or a Rams hat to the casino, nobody moves away from him.

He longs to once again wear a Broncos hat with pride.