Coached by Wayne Bennett and captained by Darren Lockyer, they finished the regular season 3rd (out of 15) despite ending the year with another long losing streak which continued into the play-offs and saw them knocked out once again.
With Gorden Tallis' retirement at the end of the previous season, the Broncos' captaincy was passed onto star fullback-turned-5/8th Darren Lockyer.
In round 1 of NRL season 2005 Lockyer led the Broncos out for the first time and won 29-16 against the North Queensland Cowboys, the team that knocked them out of the finals in their last match the previous year.
Three weeks later, the Broncos suffered their worst defeat in the club's history with a 50-4 loss to the Melbourne Storm at Olympic Park.
At the end of the 2005 season, after five successive years without a grand final appearance, Bennett decided to have a cleanout of the coaching staff, removing such long-time allies as Gary Belcher, Glenn Lazarus and Kevin Walters.