Jim Saccomano

“Who’s got next?” is a common playground expression, referring to the concept that the winner keeps the field while awaiting the next challenger, the next would-be champion.

Watching the Denver Broncos’ exciting 31-28 Sunday night win over Pittsburgh gave me a great press box view of the crowd, and it was exciting to watch the swirl of colors in the stands.

Broncos fans showed a lot of orange — blue too, to be sure, but it does not show up as well at night — but the orange sure did, while the Steelers’ yellow was unmistakable even when in the minority.

Plus, fans would stand and wave orange pom-poms or yellow towels, as the circumstance warranted, so there was a continuous wave of orange and yellow, up and down, flags swirling at 360 degrees.

And one of the things you just can’t help but notice is how many people wore jerseys to the games, or even don them just hanging out around town. 

Old player jerseys, new player jerseys, vintage jerseys, throwback jerseys, alternate jerseys, they have become a fashion statement for the young and the would-be young (I think I fit into the latter group).

As you look at the jerseys, with any sense of perspective, you notice that the pattern of popularity is always adjusting to the reality of this moment.

New players come, new stars are born, and it can really happen fast.

And that’s what we started to see some of Sunday night for the Broncos.

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Sometimes you just can’t say anything at all in the way of an explanation for what we have watched.

The National Football League is structured for parity.  We all know that, and most games reflect scores that show one team that barely won and one that barely lost, with a half-dozen scenarios that could have changed the result, sometimes several times over.

But once in a while we witness a game that just starts off bad, gets worse, and before we know it is not even recognizable as being representative of the way we expect a team to play.

There is no sense in looking back at the Chargers game with any eye toward saying that if this had happened, or that had happened, the results would be different.

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Everybody who saw the Broncos’ heart-stopping 15-14 win at Buffalo was astonished, captivated, electrified and stunned by the finish.

This is my 30th year with the Broncos, and I have never seen a finish like that.

Neither had anyone else among a veteran press corps whom I informally polled after the game.

Game-winning field goals at the final gun are nothing new in the National Football League, but for the kick to take place in that amount of time, without any clock stoppage, is remarkable.

Basically, the Broncos ran two plays in 18 seconds, the pass from Jay Cutler to Javon Walker, and then, with no clock stoppage, the offense left the field and the special teams took the field, lined up without flinching, snapped, and kicked.

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