Woody Paige: Broncos will cap grudge match Sunday with a reunion, then blowout of the Raiders

The Battle of the Grudge is throwback, go-back, blow-by-blow-back Stop The Streak Sunday.

The Denver Broncos will play the Oakland-Los Angeles-Las Vegas Raiders. To Coloradans, this is Heaven vs Hades, Orange Crush vs. Black Hole, Good vs. Evil.

The two original American Football League franchises have confronted each other 129 times in the raging rivalry. But one of the two postseason games is the most memorable, monumental and momentous. The Broncos beat the Raiders in the 1977 season’s NFL Conference Championship on Jan. 1 at Mile High Stadium 20-17.

My column in the old Rocky Mountain News shouted: “SUPER NEW YEAR! Ring out the old – the Raiders – and ring in the new – the Broncos. Denver’s Destiny Darlings are headed to the Super Bowl.’’

Bring back the Broncos.

The Broncos are honoring, belatedly, the players and the coaches – only linebackers assistant Myrel Moore is alive – from the historic Super Seventy-Seven, inducting tight end Riley Odoms and cornerback-safety Steve Foley into the Ring of Fame and presenting linebacker Randy Gradishar with a Pro Football Hall of Fame ring. And Craig Morton, who led the Broncos then at quarterback and led the Broncos now in holding this event, deserves special mention.

Duh Raiders are entering an inferno. What happens in Denver will stay with Las Vegas.

The Broncos could win by 100 points.

I wrote that line once before in 1988 when “turncoat’’ Mike Shanahan returned to Mile High after the Broncos’ mastermind offensive coordinator was stolen by Al Davis to become the Raiders’ head coach.

At the end of the first quarter the Broncos were ahead 24-0. Shanahan told me much later that he said to an assistant on the sideline: “At this rate that (bleeper) may be right.’’

But the Raiders recovered. On one play when legendary John Elway, who was the closest friend of his former coach, threw a pass that Shanahan had warned his cornerback about just before, the ball was intercepted. Rather than immediately crossing the field, Elway ran past Shanahan and gave him “the finger’’.

The two teams were tied at 27 at the end of regulation in the spectacular Monday Night Football game, and the Raiders won in overtime with a field goal.

In the first Monday Night game in Denver history, in October 1973, the Broncos and the Raiders concluded at 23-23.

They have met a record 19 times on Monday night with a 9-9 record and one tie.

That’s typical in the series that started in 1960, although the Raiders have had two runs – 14 straight victories over the Broncos from 1965-1972 and now, eight triumphs in a row. The Broncos also won eight consecutive games from 2011-2015. When Shanahan returned as head coach (years after Davis dumped him in his second season), he and the Broncos dominated the Raiders. Because Davis didn’t financially fulfill Shanahan’s contract, Mike once offered a backup quarterback $100 if he would fling a football at Davis in warmups. The QB barely missed.

But then, against the Broncos. Davis was suspected of having bugged the visiting locker room and over-watering the field at Oakland Alameda Coliseum. Davis once sued Broncos owner Pat Bowlen and was accused of ratting out the Broncos on salary cap violations involving Elway and Terrell Davis. The two owners were not close friends.

Overall, the Raiders hold a 73-54-2 series advantage.

Nobody wants the Broncos to rip the Raiders more than Shanahan and Moore, who were coaches with both teams. “Worst time I spent in my career was with the Raiders. Hated them,’’ Moore told me earlier this year. When I had a short visit recently with Shanahan, a soon-to-be Hall of Famer, at the restaurant that bears his name, I mentioned the Raiders. He sneered. Last year the Raiders prevailed on the day the Broncos added Shanny to the Ring of Fame.

The late Lyle Alzado began his pro career in Denver for eight years and finished with the Raiders for four seasons, and Hall of Fame cornerback Willie Brown was traded from the Broncos to the Raiders. Several others have played with both.

Only Garett Bolles and Courtland Sutton were with the Broncos when they last won in 2019.

But the Broncos are wearing the throwback uniforms of 1977 and will go back to winning Sunday in a blowout.