The 2009-2010 NFL season marks the 50th anniversary of the American Football League. For those of you that don't the story of the AFL I will sum it up for you in a few lines. In the beginning there was the NFL then in 1960 came the AFL, a competitor league with a wide open scoring style of play. The league had 8 teams. The eight teams were the Boston Patriots (New England Patriots), Buffalo Bills, Houston Oilers (Tennesse Titans), Miami Dolphins, New York Titans (New York Jets), Cincinnati Bengals, Dallas Texans (Kansas City Chiefs), Denver Broncos, Los Angeles Chargers (San Diego Chargers) and the Oakland Raiders. The league played between 1960 to 1969. In 1966 it was determined that the upstart league would merge with the NFL but that did not happen until 1970. In 1970 when the league did merge the AFL became what is known as today's AFC and most of the NFL became known as the NFC. Together the AFC and NFC make up the modern day NFL.
In order to celebrate the birth of the AFL the NFL has allowed (forced in Denver's case) the original AFL teams to wear their throwback AFL uniforms. During the 1960-1962 season the Denver Broncos wore a mustard yellow and brown uniform that included striped vertical socks. The good fans of Denver tolerated those monstrosities for two seasons until Broncos ownership allowed the fans to burn them and adopted the orange and blue which represents the Denver horizon during sunset. Decades later the Broncos decided to go with the modern day darker blue and orange combination.
I have read many articles, blog and message boards regarding the throwback jerseys of the AFL teams. I have found that everybody including myself are in complete agreement that the Denver Broncos throwback jersey is by far the worst. I was surprised to find out that some people prefer the second generation orange and blue jerseys when compared to today's version. I wholeheartedly disagree with the notion of the second generation jerseys are better than our modern day jerseys. I am far form being a superstitious person but let me add the Broncos did not win a Super Bowl until they made the switch to the latest version of uniforms. If I am not superstitious then why is what I just typed important? The answer is perception. The brown and mustard uniforms were a joke as was the team. The bright orange and royal blue was likeable and safe but the team just couldn't win the big one. The modern day jerseys bring up memories of John Elway holding up the Vince Lombardi Trophy not once but twice. The perception of success breeds expectations and expectations breed success.
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