FanPost

With age comes experience

An interesting point developed from the Broncos all-time team voting we did a little while ago -- players from our Super Bowl team are regarded much higher than their forgotten predecessors. My question is whether this has more to do with us adding credentials to the Super Bowl victors or the idea that many of us are just too young to remember much further back than that. Our Super Bowl victories are just a little more than 15-16 years ago. Kids who are learning to drive weren't even born when we won our rings. Add to that the fact that most of us really don't start to follow the game enough to follow more than a handful of players until we're at least around 10 -- and you have 25 year olds who might not even recall the players on our Super Bowl teams that clearly (without studying their history at least).

This post isn't meant to insult anyone or divide us by age. I know there are plenty of guys here younger than me who know a whole lot more -- not only about the game but about our team and its history. But in the same breath, the earliest stars I followed are John Elway and Karl Mecklenberg. While I know how great Randy Gradishar and the Orange Crush were (and have watched countless hours of their footage), I'll never have the experience, nor the appreciation that people who lived that era have. And this experience undoubtedly affects my perspective of who the greats on our team are. When I'm asked to recall some of my favorite players of all time, my mind automatically goes to the Elway era and starts listing off many guys who were on our Super Bowl teams.

So my intentions with this post are two-fold:

My main focus was having a post where we can have a poll and determine the average age of an MHR poster. Are we a bunch of young guys who never witnessed the Orange Crush? Or do we have plenty of members who witnessed the glorious mustard and brown AFL days? How skewed is our vision?

Secondly, I'd like to give members a chance to talk about who they grew up watching. How those players compare to the Super Bowl champs in their eyes. If you're too young to recall the Super Bowl team: How do you view those players compared to the guys on the field you grew up with? How do you view them in relation to the other stars on our ring of fame that you've had to look up and watch video on?

I hope everyone around here finds this kind of thing as interesting as I do. My favorite posts on this site have always been from those who witnessed our team before my time. Hearing (err reading) them list off the names of players with the same passion that I do with Elway, Davis, Mecklenberg, Rod Smith, Atwater, Lynch, McCaffery, Sharpe gives me the chills. I'd love to share their knowledge and passion for those teams -- and reading about it is as close as I'll ever get. So please, share everything that you're willing. And thank you in advance to everyone who does!

This is a Fan-Created Comment on MileHighReport.com. The opinion here is not necessarily shared by the editorial staff of MHR.