I returned from a ten day fly fishing expedition to remote Alaska to find the world has greatly changed. Bronco Bear has moved to somewhere near Sandy Eggo, McCain has selected our very own Saralicious to be his running mate, and aftershocks continue to rumble through the roster after the reduction to 53.

As I reflect on this reloading season and the changes to the Denver Broncos two things stand out. The first is character. All of the “Me First” players are no longer with this team. They have been replaced by men of character who value the accomplishments of the team above their own. I had the privilege to see a real life Mean Joe Green commercial moment. Each day at the end of practice during training camp four players and one coach are selected to sign autographs for the fans for about ten minutes. Kenny Peterson was one of the players selected after the afternoon practice on August 11th. Most of the players went back to the Bronco Headquarters building and then to the autograph area adjacent to the temporary team store. Kenny stayed after practice a little later to have some discussion with a coach and as a result he cut directly across the practice field. A young boy of maybe nine years and his Mom were walking toward the exit. He was a thin boy in a tattered orange Bronco jersey. It was obvious he worshiped the Denver Broncos. Kenny cut directly in front of the boy and his mom and the little boy looked up with eyes the size of dinner plates. Kenny was pulling off his gloves about then and he looked down at the boy and said “It looks like I wore these out today, here kid, Why don’t you take them?” I will be a Kenny Peterson fan forever.  I bet the boy will be also.  The next morning I was impressed with the play of Marquand Manual. Hamza was out for some reason and Marquand did an excellent job of filling in. At the end of practice I was surprised to see him walk directly over to me. I was the only person there with note pads and writing furiously during practice and I was relieved to see he wasn’t walking over to me. He walked up to a pretty young lady and a small girl of maybe 24 to 30 months old. He picked up the little girl and said “Well Hi Madison! You sure look good in your new shoes and new shades”. I could not hear all of her reply but she gave him a big hug and said something like “Hi Daddy, are you coming home now?” I certainly don’t know, but I would postulate that Manual does not have nine offspring with nine different women in several different states.

The second thing I noticed was the hard-hitting, tough nature of this team. I was fortunate to watch some truly epic battles between Dewayne Robertson and Chris Kuper. As I watched I had the feeling these men were not only out to prove that they belonged on this team, they were playing hard to make each other better. I observed this attitude of giving 100% on every play throughout the practices and in the preseason games. This was borne out in the Dallas preseason game. Even though DallasDenver on both sides of the ball they never could really push us around. was much larger than

Many thanks to Bronco Bear for posting for me while I was computer challenged. Also, many thanks to Denver Diehard for introducing me to Jerry Sturm at The South. BTW, if you haven’t heard Diehard sing you are missing a real treat.

In the eyes of the old Firstfan this reloading season is a success. I would love to join Zappa and Mike Clark in la-la land but I have serious concerns at linebacker and defensive tackle. I don’t know what our record will be this year, but I am awfully proud to be a fan of the Denver Broncos.

Bring on the raiders! Go Broncos!!