ENGLEWOOD, Colo. — Recognition that something was off came instantly.
The shipment of the Broncos’ helmet decals with their throwback logo featuring an emboldened, orange “D” and an upright bucking bronco snorting a visible white cloud had just arrived. Chris “Flip” Valenti, the Broncos’ longtime equipment manager, knew there was a problem. Instead of a blue, or transparent, background to the horse inside the “D,” the backdrop mistakenly was white.
Valenti is a Picasso of sorts when it comes to Broncos’ uniforms, logos and decals. He has been known to tinker here and there. A stripe here and there, a slightly different shade of orange.
On the one hand, the new white background on these just arrived throwback helmet decals – which the team used from 1968-1996 -- helped pop the orange “D.” Problem was, the white background also made the white buckin’ bronco disappear.
With the Broncos-Bills game on the NFL Network expected to draw between 10 and 15 million viewers, as it would be the only game played in the special, Saturday afternoon time slot, Valenti wasn’t about to trot out the imperfection.
The easiest solution was to notify the supplier in Texas of the mistake, have them correct the logo and ship it back to the team. Only because the game was played on Saturday instead of Sunday, there wasn’t enough time. Broncos kicker Brandon McManus wasn’t the only victim of the 24-hour earlier-than-normal start time.
Valenti also considered local suppliers, but there was risk that these decals would not hold up through the high-speed collisions of an NFL game.
He then settled on a much more difficult fix. When the final and only practice of the weekend ended on Thursday, Valenti found an exacto knife and wearing shorts, a T-shirt and his customary flip-flops – hence the nickname, “Flip” – meticulously cut the white background out from inside the D. He did this for each of the approximately 60 helmets. The fire-breathing, buckin’ bronco popped again.
All this for one Color Rush game. The Broncos will return to their current, meaner-looking bronco -- with no "D" -- logo for their remaining two games of the 2020 season.
Should the Broncos pull off an upset and beat the Bills on Saturday, here’s hoping coach Vic Fangio gives “Flip” a game ball.
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