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.
Lets see the game planning come together this Monday, and we’ll romp on the Raiders. Let’s hope the special teams can gel.
Wow never had a first post before. So excited for monday!!!!!
Never mind the first post thing. Got beat to it lol
Great post Jim,didn’t know we had the most consecutive Monday Night appearances in a row,with 20…..that’s Kool!!!!
From 1970-2011 we are 2nd with 218 home wins,2nd to the Steelers’ 227,if we hadn’t had all the losses the past couple of years we would be in 1st place!
I love watching the Broncos play in Primetime,at least I know I’ll get to watch the game!
ILMSDB history!!!!!!!!!
I am EXCITED for this season and MOST of all for our Defense!!! It looks like it’s going to be a fun year = I love it when my team can sack the opposing QB!!!
GO BRONCOS!!!
Outside of our division foes I can’t stand Pittsburg. I was at the Monday night game against them 2 years ago and developed a instant hatred that night due to their large fan presence in OUR stadium. By far the most opposing fans I’ve ever seen at Mile High.
I’m going to this game on Monday and want a clever idea for a sign so I vet on TV. Any ideas?
agreed bfe on the home losses thing. come on boys this is OUR turf! You cant let the raiders run you outta your own back yard thats just downright unacceptable.
and 3G Steelers fans are EVERYWHERE. literally they are like pests they just rudely show up at other peoples stadiums, kick theyre feet up and act like they own the damn place. spoiled snotty elitest pr!@ks they are
I’m ready for some bronco football!!! I wish I could be there live. but watching them in action monday will be awsome too. Bring the pain to the nation broncos make hurt like we did. Show no mercy!!!
Let’s start increasing that .667 percentage starting Monday night. Go Bronc’s Go Defense!
make the fader hurt*
First thing is first! We HAVE to stop that run first. If the run gets bottled up then it’ll force them into passing situations! Do that and our defense should be in GREAT shape to take them down by generating turnovers. Whether it be via 3 and outs or fumble/int….either way stop the run, force them to pass and let it play right into our hands.
…oh and Kyle…you have to lead them to the end zone! You can do it #8!
GO GET EM’ BOYS!
3rdG…I’ll be there too and was thinking the same thing! Was thinking about making a sign for Von Doom…I’m sure all you guys on here can come up with some creative ideas…right?!
Help us out!
RAIDERS
ARE
DOOMED
or,
MILLER TIME
AT MILE HIGH
or,
DOOMINATOR
RAIDERS’
TERMINATOR
or,
VON & DOOM
RAID THE RAIDERS
or,
BRONCOS
DOOMINATE
RAIDERS
or,
DENVER THE
DOOMINATRIX
or,
BRONCOS
AFC WEST
AUTHORITY
I mean its easy, I could go on and on, just imagination is all, made many signs over the years….
After Doomsday…….it’s Miller Time!
DOOM N GLOOM!!!!!
Broncos did pretty good against the run, but I wasn’t to happy with the pass defense. That was all preseason. Lets see how they do against the Raiders. This game starts the regular season. I sure hope the Broncos kick their a–. There are two teams I hate to see the Broncos lose to & thats the raiders #1 & the cowboys #2. Can’t stand these 2 teams.
You better fear because V.D. is here..haha!
ORANGE DOOMSDAYS CHARADE PARADE!!
VON DOOM!!!!!
BLACK SUNDAY IS RAIDERS DOOMSDAY!!
Doom & Miller the QB Killer!
LMAO!!
CRUSH THE SILVER AND BLACK WITH ORANGE-CRUSH ATTACK!!!!
Doom+Von=Dead Before Dawn!!!
Raiders will need protection ’cause the Broncos got V.D.
lol
Nice one bfe
Crazy!!
If you really want to have a shot at your sign being on TV, it needs to have the ESPN letters on it, and that always makes the task more difficult, but here is a cool one that they might be interested in shooting if we are winning at the end:
Elway
Saves
Pat Bowlen’s
New Broncos
And make sure the have those ESPN letter larger and make them stick out with a brighter color than the other letters.
And if I see it Monday night on TV, I’ll know it was a baylinorcrush creation, so make it look good, LOL.
make sure to have…
Brilliant!!
Millers on the left & Dooms on the right!!!!
The Broncos are ready for Monday Night!!!!
Lol…you guys are hilarious! I’m definitely going to have to use some of those! Thanks for the awesomely creative ideas…It’s gonna be hard to pick just one or two of them…might have to make double-sided signs. You guys need a good nickname too so I can give a shout-out…think of something…
No artificial filler from Doom and Miller!
It’s an all Natural Beatdown!!!!!
Von Doom: Quarterback Kryptonite!
“It’s the Raiders, so there’s really no revenge,” linebacker Mario Haggan said. “It’s a division rivalry. You don’t like them, period. Revenge is every time you play them.”
It’s gonna be a good game in any case. Just can’t wait. This 12th will determin my mood for a week. lol
How about this one:
Elway
Says it’s
Payback
Night!!
Nice to see a lot of different names on here … must be Doom and Miller Time …
Elvis
Says
Pay attention, his
Number is 58!!!
Doom and Von = All Night Long!
Von Doominator, “I’ll Be Back”
Orange Crush – Yeah. We will punch you in the face!
Doomsday. Thall shall Von away! (German accent. This one might be a stretch haha.)
Welcome to McDaniels. May I take your order? Would you like 1 or 2 pro-bowlers to go with your order? Yes I can throw in draft picks as well. Anything to drink? Of course you can have koolaid. What do we make it with? Terrible decisions and failure. That will be one 7th round TE and a QB with a neckbeard. Please pull up to the next window….(last year’s sign. sorry I ramble lol)
Doom and Miller. Good Call.
58 and 92. Lookin great and they ain’t through!
Von Doom Turf Pillows. Comfortable Pillows for the Frequently Sacked QB.
Here Comes the Doom!
Elvis Dumervil and Von Miller. The Thriller. Cause it’s a Thriller Night.
Yeah I am out of ideas. I tried to contribute to this conversation haha.
Even
Superman
Paid to see
voNdoom
ILMSDB on MNF
(we all know ILMSDB is a blog original!!!)
……Elvis
……Sacked
camPbell…
agaiN……..
Came across this snippet on the interwebs:
“If the Broncos win eight games, it will require a magnificent effort. Eight wins will mean big-time overachieving.”
It kind of pisses me off. We were 8-8 the year before that. With a rookie – and as it turns out terrible – HC. I mean, I could probably list about 10 things that were disadvantages for the 2009 broncos, and still they won 8 games.
The 2010 broncos were essentially the same team as 2009. The major difference was the loss of Doom, who is perhaps the most important – if not most skilled (that honor definitely goes to Champ, but a dominant pass rusher makes more of a difference than a shutdown corner, I think)- part of our defense.
Now in 2011, not only do we get Doom back, we got Miller and Moore too, who both look to be immediate impact players – Miller more so imo. I could list a few more reasons, but I don’t see why this team should expect to win less than 8 games.
8-8 would be par, imo. But maybe I am just drinking the koolaid.
Like em BFE … After Doomsday its miller time lol … and Also the
“Millers on the left & Dooms on the right!!!!
The Broncos are ready for Monday Night!!!!”
That totally sounds like it should be a line in the song:
“ARE YOU READY FOR SOME FOOTBALL, MONDAY NIGHT PARTY! Millers on the left & Dooms on the right, The Broncos are ready for Monday Night!!!!”
Also love all the VD jokes lol … lotta creativity on the blogs today … beats the convos we have already argued into the ground …. keep it up folks. The broncos need your energy. TRB
These are all great!!! Thanks you guys!
0723 – your McDaniels drive thru order ramble is hysterical…
You obviously can’t read too much into preseason games. Heck, winning them is often a sign of weakness, as the best teams have established starters they play minimally, and establish playbooks they don’t need to try out. yada yada yada
Having said that, my point is that in the preseason, our 1′s looked especially dominant vs the run. It was the rare running play that went for more than 2 yards, and many were negative, thanks to the stellar play of miller, doom, mays, DJ, and the generally aggressive and swarming defense that Fox and Allen are installing.
So since the Raiders only strength is their run game, it seems to me Fox/Allen may have the perfect recipe for dominating the raiders.
We will see how it turns out on the 12th, and boy I cant wait!!
0723 – I second what Ihearttebow says … mcdaniels drive thru is hilarious. You are missing some ingridients in that koolaid, but overall funny stuff lol.
While preseason stats rarely mean anything, I found it interesting that the Raiders allowed to most yardage during the preseason. Broncos offensive yardage was around 5th.
45YEARBRONCOFANSTILLONSTRIKE!!!
And really pumped for prime time!!!
Forgot to mention it last night, it never fails, if I go out on the boat for a couple of days, I come back to hardly anything but the QQ, and nearly everyone is biting hard and regurgitating the same things that have been said for 6 months, a subject absolutely now as boring as any considering the circumstances and no one even bothers to step up to stop the madness, real disappointing really. It’s not about the QQ right now it’s about the Bronco team. Fox will tell us when the QQ comes back into play, now there is anything but a QQ, it’s burried 6 ft under.
So yeah the ideas for the signs thing was refreshing.
But let’s start out in a fresh direction this morning, one that no one has even gone to here before.
All we’ve been discussing at times is how we have the third toughest schedule in the league, granted we do when adding up last year’s teams’ records everybody plays, but here is my point:
All that matters is our division, right?
Well here is the truth of the matter:
All 4 teams in our division play the exact same teams in 14 of their 16 games except of course that they play us and we play them…
The only 2 games each play that are different are these:
KC plays the Colts and the Steelers
SD the Jaguars and Baltimore
Oakland Houston and Cleveland
Denver Cincinnati and Tennessee
Well you tell me, who really has the tougher schedule, KC of course, and in fact we actually have the EASIEST schedule in our division!
The only reason they say we have a tougher schedule than KC, SD and Oakland is strictly because each of those teams play us twice and we had a 4 win record last year, that’s why, that’s the mathetical truth to this b.s .we’ve been fed all along.
We do not have the third most difficult schedule in the league, we have the easiest one in our division!
So from now on please let’s all spare ourselves the we have the 3rd hardest schedule crap excuse for all season no matter how tough it gets, if we finish at the bottom of the division we will have no one to blame but ourselves.
Sorry for taking away a big excuse, haha, but of course we’ll probably have the injuries one to go with, LOL.