The Denver Broncos signed unrestricted free-agent running back Ron Dayne on Friday, April 1, 2005.

Dayne, 5-10, 245 pounds, enters his sixth NFL season and has played his entire career with the New York Giants, who selected him in the first round (11th overall) of the 2000 NFL Draft. The 1999 Heisman Trophy winner at the University of Wisconsin, Dayne has played 62 career regular-season games (14 starts) in the NFL and recorded 2,067 rushing yards on 585 carries (3.5 avg.) with 16 touchdowns. Additionally, he has posted 23 career receptions for 134 yards (5.8 avg.).

The 27-year-old Dayne played 14 games (2 starts) for the Giants in 2004 and rushed 52 times for 179 yards (3.4 avg.) with one touchdown. He compiled 1,460 rushing yards from 2000-01 to mark the highest total recorded by a Giants running back in his first two years since 1990-91 (Rodney Hampton).

Dayne established an NCAA Division I-A career regular-season rushing record (6,397 yds.) at Wisconsin and, including bowl games, became the first player in college football history to rush for more than 7,000 career yards (7,125 yds.). In addition to earning consensus All-American and first-team All-Big Ten honors as a senior, he won the Heisman Trophy, Doak Walker Award and the Maxwell Award. A first-team All-American at Overbrook High School in Berlin, N.J., Dayne was born March 14, 1978, in Berlin.