The longest running team sports programming in American sport and/or television history is Monday Night Football.
The Broncos once earlier played the late game on MNF to open the season, a game at Oakland in 2008.
But for Broncos fans this will be the first time Denver ever has opened the season with the “late” Monday night game at home, kickoff slated for approximately 8:20 p.m. Mountain Time. That means East Coast football fans will be watching the great Broncos-Raiders rivalry starting at 10:20.
Mile High City fans now recognize Monday Night Football as a commonplace occurrence on the Broncos’ annual schedule—this is Denver’s 20th straight year on MNF, and that is the longest current streak in the National Football League.
The Raiders hold the all-time longest streak of consecutive years on Monday night, from 1970-’97, while Denver’s active streak began in 1992 and continues through this season.
The next three franchises with the longest MNF streaks are Dallas, Green Bay and Miami, each of which at one time had runs of 19 consecutive years playing in the prime game on Monday night.
There is some irony in the fact that the Broncos have the second longest streak ever, and the longest active streak at this time, in that once upon a time local fans wondered if Denver would EVER make a Monday night appearance.
In fact, the weekly halftime highlights package on the Monday night telecast regularly excluded the Broncos in the pre-1973 period, with the excuse being that Denver was so far away that the film could not get back to New York in time.
Of course, that excuse was ridiculous, with the greater likelihood—since admitted to by some of the original game producers—being good old East Coast bias, benefitting teams that play in the Eastern Time Zone and punishing the one team in the Rocky Mountain Time Zone.
But 1973 was a breakthrough year for the Broncos, not only with a 23-23 tie against Oakland on Monday Night Football, but the 1973 campaign generated the first winning season ever in Broncos’ history. Up until that point of time, the Monday Night Football game with the Raiders was witnessed by the largest television audience ever to have seen a live TV sports event from Denver, so that game was historic not only for the Broncos but for the Mile High City.
Since then, of course, NFL history has been written over and over, and the Denver Broncos have authored many of the chapters.
Looking at the big picture, from the 1970 NFL/AFL merger until the present, the Broncos rank third in Super Bowl berths with six, sixth in number of winning seasons with 24, fifth in overall wins with 376 as well as fifth in regular season wins with 359, and Denver has played in eight conference championship games, tied with Minnesota for sixth most in the NFL.
At home, only Pittsburgh (227) has more wins from 1970-2011 than Denver’s 218, and the Broncos are the only non-expansion team in history to have sold out every home game it has ever played as members of the National Football League (the expansion Houston Texans have sold out all their games thus far, but are still in their first decade of play).
Adding the team’s success to majestic sunsets and mountain vistas have made Denver a prime television attraction in the NFL—along with the occasional snowfall to add drama and color, of course.
Denver has an overall MNF record of 27-34-1 and a home mark of 20-10-1, so the Broncos’ home victory percentage on Monday Night Football is an exemplary .667.
The Broncos have come a long way from being the team in the Rockies that never had a winning record and was “too far” from New York to get game highlights shown on the weekly Monday telecast.
Now, the Monday night schedule would not be the same without the Broncos on it at some point, as attested to by this Monday’s game marking two full decades of consecutive years with Denver being featured on the greatest primetime sports series in American history.
WE ARE REBUILDING. If this is not rebuilding a team, I know nothing about construction, LOL. And to wish we are not rebuilding is asinine, look at what that approach has done for us for the last 12 years. ONE playoff win, that’s what!
if we were rebuilding tebow would be starting
So you base a rebuild on one player, you must be joking…
We are too accustomed to “instant gratification.” If we want to become a successful franchise again we’ll need to bite the bullet and go through the growing pains of rebuilding through multiple drafts. The fans only want to win now, I’d rather work on becoming a great franchise again and suffer for some less than spectacular season then just have a winning season here and there and never make it back to the big show.
Bay I was thinking about it and as an optimist with some good information I think we could easily start out 4-1 going into the by week. Oakland as we know is a must win to give us momentum going into Cinci.
The next 2 weeks we are playing 2 teams with rookie QB’s and I am positive that VonDoom will make life miserable for them.
The week of Green Bay will be our loss. I think we are improved but not enough to take on a reigning SB champ with the core players being the same especially at Lambeau.
And our forth win will come against the Chargers being that historically they have had slow starts to their seasons mix in that they did not get a full training camp and we are playing them early we have a chance to beat them.
Yeah, that’s what Elway is doing, good thing zhao has nothing to do with it, LOL.
Mikey, Hasselbeck in Tennessee is no rookie and I see that one as a very tough one, they will be out to avenge last year’s game they feel was stolen from them.
But you are drinking the kool aid and that’s perfectly understandable, good for you, hope it works out as well as you see it.
I think some people get “rebuilding” confused with “starting the rookies” or “throwing away the season.” Rebuilding refers to acquiring talent throughout the draft. Then once you have a good group of starters you keep drafting key positions to replace the guys that leave. Packers prime example as everyone has said, they had a bunch of starts go down and the backups stepped up. I agree with Elway and Fox’s plan to accomplish this.
It is somehow reassuring you don’t have us beating the Packers at Lambeau though, because I have a looney bin place around Austin I was gonna recommend to you otherwise, LOL.
23-17 Broncos, 9w 7l on season, I allways have a good time reading your blgs bay, sndvl, they go well with my coffee. Kyle can bennefit the broncs givin the chance, i like his prospects way better than the youngster, and he is a good mentor. He is not bitter about being a teacher as others may have been., besides, what is life with out a little optimism……. LETS GO BRONCOS!!!!!
i agree brian not throwing away the season when it is week one, orton is better for us right now to win this season perhaps get into the playoffs i like what efx is doing for the most part not sure what they were thinking with waivers as we had our choice of picks but the draft was good
Bay: Cool. Good to know.
As to the toughness of schedule thing, every year is different. Look at the chiefs. Sure they won 10 games last year, but I doubt they win more than 6 this year. We will have to see what those teams actually look like come game day.
I expect good things for the broncos.
You don’t get better by only playing the “bad” teams.
Its kind of like playing Madden on “Rookie” and saying you’re awesome at Madden.
Playing a tougher schedule will force us to be on top of our game. We need to bring it every week espeically staring this week.
There is a lot of parity in the league though so those alledgely “bad” teams aren’t just pushovers.
@ Brian. I agree. Again look at the Last years chiefs. They only beat one team with a winning record all year. They made it to the playoffs and got spanked.
I’d love to see us make the playoffs, but it only means something if we are competitive once we get there. I don’t necessarily mean winning, but at least putting up a good fight. Unlike the chiefs last year.
Ok, no reason to wait for the deadline, here is my 2011 season record prediction: 6-10
Raiders W
Cinci W
at Tenn L
at G-B L
SD L
at Miami W
Detroit L
at Oakland L
at KC L
Jets L
at SD L
at Minn W
Chicago L
N-E L
at Buff W
KC W
The way I see it is by the 11th game we are 3-8 and on a 0-5 losing streak so Tebow comes in to get some more maturation and finishes the season 3-2.
CopyCat, I had the same predictio but I had a couple of games switched.
And for anyone freaking out about that, I went with my optimistic prediction, the brain says 5 wins but the heart pushed it to 6.
21-14 Broncos win this Sunday Bay did you get my season prediction
8-8
(╯°□°)╯︵ ┻━┻
Lets get angry and take out the Raiders!!!!
ok cool
Bay!
Chicago? Really? please switch it! LOL!
I promise you here in Illinois (2 hrs. west of chicago) things are not pretty in Bear camp. WR? They don’t know when Barber will return? Heck, Chicago had UNBELIEVABLE field position over the last 2 – 3 yrs becasue of that FREAK Hester returning the ball and STILL sucked in scoring points and that was with a shortened field. Now let them start on their own 20 and see what happens because of the new kickoff rule.
C’mon buddy, erase it! Do it! Von Doom will make Cutler’s return horrible! Switch it! Bay may the force be with you!
GO GET EM’ BOYS!
I thinnk GB is playing tonight. If so, I am going to watch that game a bit to see what they have. I think that most of the teams we are scheduled against this year are going to underestimate our defense, and that will be in our favor for sure.
Two things that could come into play for Bays prediction.
-The Detroit game, there is a good chance Stafford will be out by then so that should be a Win at home.
-The Second Oakland game, Al davis being who he is will start Pryor midseason and we will destroy him.
There is two Possible scenariors that could put Bays season predicton at 8-8 hahaha
You guys get to post yours, I get to post mine, let’s do the gloating at season end, ok, haha.
About Chicago, I think Cutler has way more motivation to beat us than us beating him, half the guys don’t even know anything about that.
Hey bay did you put my scenarios into play haha
Bay!
I gave the squirrel 16 nuts and asked him to place them in the their respected columns!
After several beverages later, the squirrel and I has settled on 12-4
It was a lenghty process that involved duct tape, gorilla glue and three 2×4′s but in the end the squirrel and I have agreed 12-4 should be enough to either make us both football genius’s or well…….something else!
Lol Seweatherman, I can put in the superbowl vid to show u what they had. Altho lets not forget … they showed up in the superbowl and playoffs but i believe they made it into the playoffs on a wild card. So they are superbowl good, but that doesn mean that during the season they all that. I believe they were like a 9-7 or 10-6 team.
We are rebuilding … the problem is that now, no body like to use the word rebuilding, because the term is associated with pretty much giving up, but we are rebuilding. Its all about having your cake and eating it to because otherwise Tebow, the first round draft pick, only guy with a contract after this year … would be starting … but No VET wants to hear the words rebuilding … not good for morale, and the coach wants to win as well.
Wow Bay, I was surprised u didnt have us losing to miami … I think your optimism just wanted to make it less of a losing streak lol. I personally think we Beat the Bears … not unless they have figured out their Oline Whoas by then. Von Doom will eat cutler for dinner. TRB
Sorry forgot….
GO GET EM’ BOYS!
TRB VonDoom is going to eat a lot of them for dinner.
Broncfalls, you left yourself open for ridicule or genius since you are the only 12-4 so far.. you and the squirrels, haha.
TRB, yeah a couple games will filp flop, the Miami and Chicago ones could definitely do just that but I would still get 6-10 either way….
Tonights game is going to be a good one. Just a little taste of things to come.
I don’t care about who is qb or our schedule. We all seen good team lose one week to a bad team n come back next week n win. We just have to hope the ball bounces our way this year. With fox as our coach that looks like a player coach that could go a long way. We all remember what mcdaniels would do on the side line he would demoralize our players n that never helps. I just hope for an exciting season. Bring the pain broncos!!!
New unbelievable blog!
bay picked us to win so it should be a great week….
Someone let me know it I’m wrong. Was it Orton at QB when the raiders kicked our ass 59-14 last year? Was it Orton at QB when he fumbled the first series of downs for a raider score & in the second series of downs he threw an INT for another raider score? Please someone let me know if I’m right or wrong. Thanks.
Hey Bay only Dumerville needs to remember…Cutles will pay.
Bay – we mostly lose in Miami, you predict a win just wondering why?
They don’t have a QB and it’s not hot anymore at the end of October, but yeah, that one could go either way. What I do is look at the “maybes” games and pick one to win it, one to lose it, in this case like we could win both the Bear game and Miami game but most likely not both so I make one a loss ( to the Bears) and I gave us the win in the Miami game, but the general idea is that what’s important to me for the season record prediction is evening things out, not the individual games, just trying to tell you how I go at figuring out this madness. Really the only game I see us win for certain is the Cinci one, after that the Buffalo and Detroit ones could go either way, with the one in Buffalo on Christmas eve, so I picked us to win one of those, happened to be Buffalo because Detroit is stronger than they are, the Bears Miami games same thing just talked about that, KC and Oakland we split, because we are not much worse than they are, SD is still considerably better so we lose both of those, at Tennessee it’s the revenge factor from last year game and they have Hasselbeck now so we lose that one, and we lose at GB no explanation needed there, same with N-E, Minnesota is the one that could go either way but I went with my heart and gave us the win to make us 6-10, had I gone with my brains with McNabb there I pick we lose that one too for 5-11. I’m just a softie, haha.
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