The next regular season win for the Denver Broncos will be the team’s 400th in its history.
That is a lot of wins for a team that started off its existence at the bottom of the rag bag of the American Football League.
This week’s opponents, the Tennessee Titans, began life and play as the Houston Oilers, and the other six original AFL teams were the Boston (now New England) Patriots, Buffalo Bills, New York Titans (now Jets), Los Angeles (now San Diego) Chargers, Dallas Texans (now the Kansas City Chiefs), and the Oakland Raiders.
Without any question, the lowest of the low back in the early 1960’s were the Broncos and Raiders.
When Denver reaches that 400th win, the Broncos will become the third original AFL franchise (and by the way, AFL expansion teams Miami and Cincinnati have not reached 400 wins) to hit the 400 win mark.
The first two were Oakland and New England.
The Patriots originally were owned by Billy Sullivan, and eventually the Sullivan family, well back before Robert Kraft purchased the team.
Billy Sullivan had been the sports information director at Notre Dame, and according to historical books on the AFL, when the AFL was formed he was awarded the Boston franchise essentially based on a letter of credit for $25,000. Times were a little different then.
A lot of the tickets were sold to walk up crowds, and paid for by cash (remember, Barron Hilton, owner of the Chargers, was just then at the beginning of starting the credit card business with his creation of Carte Blanche, so ticket sales were still primarily a cash business).
Anyway, tales from the day and from Boston players and employees say that the money went into a shoe box, the shoe box went to the bank on Monday, and everybody ran like the wind to cash their paychecks as soon as they received them.
And here the Patriots are, with 400 regular season wins, along with three Super Bowl wins.
The city of Oakland only got a franchise after Minneapolis backed out of the AFL when given a promise of joining the National Football League one year later. When Minneapolis backed out there was a hectic search for anybody and any city that could field a team, and along came Oakland.
For the first three years of play, the Raiders franchise was actually far worse than Denver—it was the arrival of Al Davis in 1963 that changed the Oakland fortunes for the better.
The Raiders did not begin with a stadium, or park, of any kind whatsoever, or even with the name “Raiders.” One of the 16 or so individuals who owner the team was Chet Soda, who favored addressing everyone he met as “Senor”—much as Babe Ruth called everyone “Keed.” The name “Senors” came from a fan contest, almost certainly rigged by Soda, as it was a good friend of his who won.
A few months later the owners reconsidered, had another contest, and the Raiders were born.
But they still had to play in a borrowed stadium their first year, playing all their 1960 “home” games in San Francisco’s Kezar Stadium before onlookers, fan groups not even large enough to be called crowds. When they moved into their own home, it was Frank Youell Field, which did not even seat 30,000.
And here are the Raiders, with three Super Bowl titles of their own, along with those 400 wins.
And now, the Broncos already have two Super Bowl wins of their own, and are on the precipice of their 400th franchise win as well.
All three teams were among the afterthoughts of the AFL, but they now own eight combined Vince Lombardi trophies and over 1,200 combined regular season wins.
Sometimes the runts of the litter turn into the biggest dogs in the yard.
Tags: AFL, Broncos History, Jim Saccomano
And we are back to the Rag Bag now!
400 would be a serious MILE HIGH STONE!!! Too bad it is an away game – then again we still need to win to make it happen! LOL
GO LUCK!
GO BRONCOS!!!
I have an eerie feeling that the story the next few weeks will be how long until we win our 400th game, but that is a big number, of course in 51 years that ends up like winning less than 8 games a year, including playoffs and the fact that seasons had less games back then too. Over the long run it all averages to even football though, like real bad records to mediocre the first 15 years, real good in the late seventies, then mainly mediocre again until Elway’s second year, then good til the end of the eighties, then bad again during the early 90s, great in the late 90s, and mediocre after that other than a couple of years, so all and all even steven in the win and loss team history departement as far as I’m concerned, a little bit of everything for everyone. Let’s get back to winning days, starting with this 400th win.
Since I don’t believe in jinxs; finally getting to 400 wins will be a good reminder that the future will soon be our present.
Soon, we will be discussing the QQ again, and determining the best draft picks and setting our roster. I can see why coaches just look at the next game after each loss or win.
So, for now, let’s be optimistic about getting the next win in Tennessee!!!!!
Titans: 27 Broncos: 13
I got this as a CLOSE Defensive battle this week. I’m leaning on opptomism and calling it:
BRONCOS: 21
TITANS: 20
Althought somewhere in the pit of my stomach – I feel a loss coming. We seem to have our difficulties on the EARLY AM games and it’s probably going to be HOT and HUMID. I bet our guys CRAMP-UP and we have issues!
Anyway, still got to pick the BRONCOS – I was impressed with LAST years win there and I’d love to see it happen AGAIN!!!
GO BRONCOS!!!
We held CJ to under 100 yards last season, actually it was more like 50 yards. I feel our run defense, while not all that great, has improved over last year and I think we can shut down CJ again.
My biggest fear is, pending on whether or not Champ plays, is Hasselbeck thrashing our pass defense. Britt, Washington, not to mention CJ out of he backfield, and Hasselbeck that isn’t a bad passing attack combo. Lets face it we gave up 300+ yards and 2 TDs to a rookie QB and WR. We’re not going against a rookie QB and WR this weekend. That kind of has me a little scared.
Thats alot of wins, 400. Now how long will it take until we achieve that number?
I have a feeling this might be the ever elusive 400 with the team we possess now. But I maybe wrong.
I just wanna know if its too much to ask to make it to 500 before the raiders …that would truly make me happy and is a more recognizable milestone lol. TRB
precisely schnieder .. precisely. It all hinges on Champ and Doom … the Shutdown DB and the Doom bringing sack master. Because without them our pass D is anemic at best. Which is while Ill wait before I predict becasue indeed, if a rookie QB/WR combo could torch us that bad, no doubt vet QB a BAMF WR and a speed demon at RB can torch us. I mean, all they would seriously need to do is what tape on how the Raiders worked us with their running game, replace McFadden with an even fast CJ and we may have problems. But Johnson aint had the potion so far this year. Guess thats what happens when people focus on hammering out contracts instead of football. TRB
Moreno, Doom, Champ, DJ, and Lloyd are all back at practice today!
yay!
Indeed Bro … and there is now a blog about it as well.
Broncos will win this one I say 27 to 20 Broncos!!!
Broncos are a better team this year than last, especially with their new
coach in the mix. 400th win will be this weekend!
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