Broncos Buck a Trend to Become America’s Team

The 2006 NFL television schedule was released Thursday, and the most popular, on-demand and watchable team in the land is ... the Denver Broncos?

Leading the league with 11 nationally televised games this coming season? The Broncos.

Tied for the league lead with four prime-time telecasts? The Broncos.

Helping to kick off the NFL Network’s new package of live televised games, the debut coming on Thanksgiving evening? The Broncos.

Did we miss something in the off-season?

Did John Elway announce he was coming back?

Are Bronco games required viewing for the Jake Plummer Beard Club for Men?

Imagine if the Broncos had done more than just talked about signing Terrell Owens. Owens went instead to the Dallas Cowboys, which is why they rank second to the Broncos with nine nationally televised games.

With 11 national games, the Broncos have nearly three times as many as the Super Bowl champion Pittsburgh Steelers, who have four.

That AFC championship game final score again: Steelers 34, Broncos 17.

The Steelers and the Broncos share the lead in prime-time telecasts, four, with the Seattle Seahawks (they went to the Super Bowl), the New York Giants (they have Eli Manning) and the Oakland Raiders (they have a new coach).

The Broncos will help break in the NFL Network’s regular-season coverage by playing at Kansas City on Thanksgiving night, thus contributing to more Turkey Day bloat as the third leg of the league’s Thanksgiving triple-header. Other games that day will be Miami at Detroit on CBS and Tampa Bay at Dallas on Fox.

The NFL Network’s eight-game package -- five games on Thursday, three on Saturday -- includes a Dec. 21 matchup between the Minnesota Vikings and the Green Bay Packers, one of three prime-time games for the Packers.

The NFL Network’s news release touts the game as “Brett Favre’s Home Finale,” indicating the NFL Network obviously knows something we don’t know, so why haven’t they reported Favre’s coming back yet?

(Then again, a little white-out and that news release can easily read: “Big Game For Aaron Rodgers.”)

NBC is back in the NFL game, swooping in to scoop up the league’s Sunday night package when ABC lateraled Monday nights to ESPN. And what did $650 million buy NBC this season?

The Manning Brothers Bowl (Indianapolis at the Giants, Sept. 10), the T.O.-Keyshawn Johnson Shout-Off (Dallas at Carolina, Oct. 29), Adam Vinatieri’s return to Foxborough (Indianapolis at New England, Nov. 6) and seven appearances by To Be Determined.

That last bit is a byproduct of the league’s new season-ending flexible TV schedule. Fox on Nov. 26 and CBS on Dec. 31 also have national telecasts to be determined, depending on the late-season appeal of available matchups.

In all, 30 teams will be featured at least once on national television.

The only teams not making the cut are the Tennessee Titans and the Houston Texans. Evidently, a few networks forgot that the Texans are a matter of days away from drafting a running back named Reggie Bush.