Broncos "D" Logo Variance AND 1967 & 1968 Denver Broncos

Here's my next update for the Broncos.

While this is a smaller one, it's still important.

I'll start with the changes to both 67 & 68. You have the (white) pants stripe wrong. It was orange flanked with blue.

You can see in these photos from 1967 (first, color) and 1968 (second & third, black & white) that the stripe is orange flanked with blue. The black & white photos show the light color on the inside with the dark color outside.







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Now on to the "D" Logo Variance.

From 1968-92 the Broncos used the logo on the left, from 1993-96 they used the logo on the right.

One key note here is the black outline around the horse in each of them.



Also, here's the photographic proof where I first discovered it: Broncos "D" Logos (Please note that the photos from the helmet are from a lamp helmet and the logo on the lamp varies because of this, below are photos from an ACTUAL helmet representing that which was used in the 70's.)

BREAKING DISCOVERY!!!

Going through my history of the Denver Broncos DVD I've found that the Broncos wore both sets of white pants in 1968. They apparently carried over the blue/orange/blue pants from the 1967 season but then switch to the orange/blue/orange pants sometime in the middle of the season. Both reference pictures are of Marlin Briscoe who only played for the Broncos in 1968. If you look carefully at all the players in the first one, especially #22, you can clearly see his pant strip is orange flanked by blue. However, in the picture after that, which was later in the season, you can see clearly that Briscoe's pants have the blue stripe flanked by orange.

In the second set of pictures you'll notice that the 1967 pre-season uniforms you have are incorrect. The 1967 pants were clearly white with the blue/orange/blue stripe, preseason and regular season. However, the preseason jerseys you have are wrong. The white one is almost correct, the only difference being there's no name on the back. However, the colored jersey is not a carry over from 1966, in fact it's just a plain blue jersey with white numbers and no name.

Are you sure the plain blue jersey in the last sreenshot are preseason jerseys and not just training camp jerseys?

Mako wrote:Are you sure the plain blue jersey in the last sreenshot are preseason jerseys and not just training camp jerseys?

The screenshots are from practices. However, if you think about it logically, why would they use the away jersey in practice but instead of the orange jersey, they have just a blue one for practice, it just doesn't make sense.

Occam's Razor; the simplest conclusion is usually the right one.

I have an extensive photo library of the Broncos, along with multiple books and dvd's, there's no photo evidence of them using the orange jerseys with blue sleeves beyond 1966 (except the obvious 1994 throwbacks), so common sense would dictate based on the screenshots above, the blue jerseys were used for preseason along with white jerseys from 1966.

OK, WD1983, here goes…

Thank you for the photo evidence for the pants stripes. Not only will I rearrange the color scheme for 1967 to match the photos, but I'll be adding the B-O-B stripe combo for 1968. I will also be making the stripes of equal width. On that topic, do you have any photos showing the width of the stripes on this era’s orange pants? We've been under the impression that the center stripe was thicker than the outers.

Next, while I appreciate your enthusiasm for your team (and this project), I have to tell you that the two D’s, while easy to see blown up to the size you have in your post, when shrunk to sizes comparable to the rest of our site, these differences will either not be able to be seen or at least next to impossible to see.
The only 2 other cases I can come close to comparing these differences to would be a) the Falcons when they went from red to black in 1990 enlarged the feather lines on the wing to extend to the logos edge and b) the claim by some that at one point the smaller cross-bar on San Francisco's F was not attached to the upright. While worthy of note, the differences simply will not show at the scale we are using.

Unfortunately, I need to remain overly leery about the ‘preseason’ pictures. I have to agree with ‘mako’ that these do not look like game photos but rather training camp pictures. The cars parked next to the field along with the road sign for an eatery in the background make me believe these are all training camp pictures.
a) The solid blue shirts are likely training camp jerseys as ‘mako’ suggested. Could they have worn them in Preseason games? Sure. But did they? Do you have any game photos of these jerseys against other teams?
b) While the white jerseys could well have gone nameplate-less in the Preseason, these training camp pictures are unfortunately not game pictures and so we cannot take them as gospel. Hypothetically, if “John Doe” played for the Broncos in 1966, a year where the team DID wear nameplates, why would they remove his for the 1967 Preseason the following year? Is it possible that not all of the players in training camp/Preseason had no nameplate? Sure. But again, we’d need game proof.
c) As a graduate of the University of Miami, I still see, to this day, annual practice footage from Spring ball where both offense and defense are wearing different generic jerseys, while both sides are still sporting the ‘swoosh-ified’ pants they wore back during the ’01 championship season – 10 years after the fact. So, while they are wearing those other pants in training camp, just like the removed nameplates on the white jerseys, these camp photos aren’t enough to change what we have. Sorry,

I’m sure Tim will want to ring in with this as well. This was before my time and I relied solely on his descriptions for the graphics to create for each year. I am unaware of what footage he is basing his combinations on. I’m just trying to be honest with you. It is entirely possible that we will make a discovery, like you did with the second pair of 1968 pants, that shows game action of some of the features that you describe.

I will run the changes to the 1967 and 1968 pants with Tim based on your evidence and the changes should get made accordingly. I look forward to hearing back from you about the orange pants of 1968-71 and any additional adjustments we can make.

Bill Schaefer wrote:OK, WD1983, here goes…

Thank you for the photo evidence for the pants stripes. Not only will I rearrange the color scheme for 1967 to match the photos, but I'll be adding the B-O-B stripe combo for 1968. I will also be making the stripes of equal width. On that topic, do you have any photos showing the width of the stripes on this era’s orange pants? We've been under the impression that the center stripe was thicker than the outers.

Next, while I appreciate your enthusiasm for your team (and this project), I have to tell you that the two D’s, while easy to see blown up to the size you have in your post, when shrunk to sizes comparable to the rest of our site, these differences will either not be able to be seen or at least next to impossible to see.
The only 2 other cases I can come close to comparing these differences to would be a) the Falcons when they went from red to black in 1990 enlarged the feather lines on the wing to extend to the logos edge and b) the claim by some that at one point the smaller cross-bar on San Francisco's F was not attached to the upright. While worthy of note, the differences simply will not show at the scale we are using.

Unfortunately, I need to remain overly leery about the ‘preseason’ pictures. I have to agree with ‘mako’ that these do not look like game photos but rather training camp pictures. The cars parked next to the field along with the road sign for an eatery in the background make me believe these are all training camp pictures.
a) The solid blue shirts are likely training camp jerseys as ‘mako’ suggested. Could they have worn them in Preseason games? Sure. But did they? Do you have any game photos of these jerseys against other teams?
b) While the white jerseys could well have gone nameplate-less in the Preseason, these training camp pictures are unfortunately not game pictures and so we cannot take them as gospel. Hypothetically, if “John Doe” played for the Broncos in 1966, a year where the team DID wear nameplates, why would they remove his for the 1967 Preseason the following year? Is it possible that not all of the players in training camp/Preseason had no nameplate? Sure. But again, we’d need game proof.
c) As a graduate of the University of Miami, I still see, to this day, annual practice footage from Spring ball where both offense and defense are wearing different generic jerseys, while both sides are still sporting the ‘swoosh-ified’ pants they wore back during the ’01 championship season – 10 years after the fact. So, while they are wearing those other pants in training camp, just like the removed nameplates on the white jerseys, these camp photos aren’t enough to change what we have. Sorry,

I’m sure Tim will want to ring in with this as well. This was before my time and I relied solely on his descriptions for the graphics to create for each year. I am unaware of what footage he is basing his combinations on. I’m just trying to be honest with you. It is entirely possible that we will make a discovery, like you did with the second pair of 1968 pants, that shows game action of some of the features that you describe.

I will run the changes to the 1967 and 1968 pants with Tim based on your evidence and the changes should get made accordingly. I look forward to hearing back from you about the orange pants of 1968-71 and any additional adjustments we can make.

I'll address everything here...

1. Different "D" Logos: I know it's miniscule, but I do notice and it is a difference. Looking closely you can see some of the differences. Also the fact that they both had a black outline is more noticeable than no black.

2. 1968-71 Orange Pants: I have a picture here that should help with what you're looking for. I've added the photos to the end of the post.

3. The Plain Blue Jersey: I said in my previous post that the caps were from practice, not a game. I've looked and not a single individual has a name on the back of their jersey, whether they're offense or defense. The reason I added it is because I have no evidence of them wearing the 1966 orange jersey beyond that season, and I've looked. I may even make a trip to the library and look at old newspapers to see if I can find anything, but those screen caps are all the evidence I have. If Tim has evidence that proves that wrong, then I stand corrected. I am not making the claim that I know they wore the blue in preseason games, but that it would make sense based on the evidence at hand. Why wear the white jerseys but not the orange ones in practice?

Digging deeper in my computer I found 2 photos I sent to Paul Lukas at Uni Watch in February (IIRC)

First game of the 1967 season, Cookie was back in Colorado after one season in Miami. He took the field wearing number 30...





EDIT: I was thinking it was preseason... my bad!

Can someone confirm the player in these photos is Cookie? pro-football-reference.com has him wearing 34 but I have seen other players listed with the wrong number (or at least, not listed with the numbers I'm sure they was wearing in a certain game I saw.)

WD1983,

On 8/5/67 the Broncos played the Lions wearing the 1967 helmet with the 1966 orange jerseys. This was one of the first (maybe THE first) NFL-AFL interleague preseason games ever.

While I can't dig up the photo right now (it is in one of my NFL Encyclopedic History books), this was the basis for that combo on the 1967 page. Since you appear to have a vast collection of Bronco photos and films, please check and see if you might have a pic from this game and can confirm.

As for the minute variances on the helmet "D", let me chat with Bill on that and see whether we decide to include the differences or not.

We thank you for your extreme help and interest so far on the Broncos side of things, WD1983!

I agree, I think Bill wasn't saying he was opposed to displaying the helmet changes, just merely that they wouldn't show up at the size we have the graphics at. But what if we did a detail, like we do with patches and manufacturers logos where we blow it up? But then do we have to do it on just the '92 and '93 years (the year before and after the change) or do we have to show it on all 68-92 and 93-96 helmets. That opens up a hornet's nest of having to show details of all helmets, doesn't it? (If they had never changed it in 93, but kept the same helmet from 68-96, why does the helmet logo detail become more important simply because it was changed in 1993?)

Then do we have to show more blow-ups of all intricate logos? What about the change in the Steelers' lettering in the 1970s on the helmet logo?

I think maybe a comment in the 'About the Template' helmet section with an accompanying graphic showing the difference between the 68-92 logo and the 93-96 logo might work, but if we start messing with including a logo detail on the graphics themselves, we're opening up a Pandora's Box.

Rob,

I believe you echo Bill's and my thoughts on the Denver 'D' issue to the...um..."T!"

timmyb wrote:Rob,

I believe you echo Bill's and my thoughts on the Denver 'D' issue to the...um..."T!"

I understand what you guys mean, it's up to you. If it were me, I'd change them individually on each graphic, but that's how I am, not suggesting you guys should.

The detail is important to me, that's why I went through the trouble of getting the logo perfect. At the very least I think you should change the graphics so the black is shown, because while miniscule, it is noticeable.

Also, here's the picture from the book you mentioned. The library I went to doesn't have any microfiche beyond 1987, so I have to go down to the big Denver library. I had to take a picture of this since the book is for reference only and unable to be checked out.

WD1983, thank you for all your posts and sharing your photos with us, as I also am obsessed with Bronco uniform history. However, I must respectfully point out that I think you are mistaken about the 1967 (and part of '68) pants stripes. The following photos show that the striping pattern was indeed orange-blue-orange. It's a bit hard to see in the first jpg (from 1967), but when you view the original photo, which I scanned from a book, the pattern is clearly o-b-o. The second photo is more obvious:





It appears that the blue of the pants stripe was a lighter shade of royal than had previously been used. Coupled with the reddish-orange hue used in this era, you can see why in B&W photos the pants stripes appear as dark-light-dark, which one might easily interpret as blue-orange-blue -- especially considering that that is what they had been before. Open the photo of the '67 Jets game (from WD1983's original post) and blow it up, though, and you'll see that the pattern is actually o-b-o. (The first color photo of Briscoe in WD's original post is, to me, so muddy as to be inconclusive.)

I also don't know of any evidence to suggest that the Broncos wore the plain blue practice jerseys in any pre-season games. We DO have evidence (and my own recollection, as I was at the game) that the Broncos wore the '65-66 jerseys and pants with the '67 logo-less helmets for at least one home pre-season game, against the Lions. (That was the contest before which Alex Karras exclaimed that he would walk back to Detroit if the Lions lost. Final score: Broncos, 14-7; the first time the AFL ever beat the NFL.)

Thank you to Timmy B. and the other guys for starting this amazing site, and thanks again to WD1983 for all your great pics and insights.

Just bumping this thread to see if we can get a discussion going. To recap: I think the site was actually correct with its initial depiction of the Broncos pants stripes for 1967 -- they should be orange-blue-orange. Have never seen any conclusive photographic evidence that they were blue-orange-blue in either 1967 or 1968 (regular seasons). Thanks!

One more bump. To re-re-cap: I believe the site initially was correct about the Broncos pants stripes for 1967 -- they should be orange-blue-orange -- and is now incorrect (blue-orange-blue). What say you, moderators?

OK, gonna try ot bump this yet one more time... I believe the site initially was correct about the Broncos pants stripes for 1967 -- they should be orange-blue-orange -- and is now incorrect (blue-orange-blue). I have posted photos to back up my opinion earlier in this thread. What do you guys think?

OK, darkhaha, I'm kinda confused.

Currently we have for 1967 (with the logoless blue helmets) b-o-b pants stripes. In the game photo vs San Diego, the only stripe combos I can see are b-o-b. To me this 'jives' with what we have.

For 1968 we included both the b-o-b and o-b-o pants sets as it was determined that both were worn for that season. The 1968 game photo (vs Miami, I believe) shows the QB (#13) in o-b-o pants handing off to Briscoe (#15) who is clearly wearing b-o-b striped pants.

I'm not sure what you are saying we have wrong since both of these photos confirm what we have.

I hope will it be more evident from the zoomed-in crop I have provided below, but the pants stripes in the 1967 Chargers game were NOT b-o-b, but o-b-o:



As I explained in my original post, there's a reason for the optical illusion that has lead to this confusion:

"It appears that the blue of the pants stripe was a lighter shade of royal than had previously been used. Coupled with the reddish-orange hue used in this era, you can see why in B&W photos the pants stripes appear as dark-light-dark, which one might easily interpret as blue-orange-blue -- especially considering that that is what they had been before..." Of course, this assumption would prove to be incorrect. In the 1968 picture of QB Steve Tensi handing off to Briscoe, Briscoe's pants are NOT clearly b-o-b; they are the same o-b-o as Tensi's. Also, I think if you look closely at the Broncos-Jets photo at the beginning of this thread, you will see that the pattern is actually o-b-o, too.

From my recollection as a fan who actually went to Bronco games in 1967-68 (I know, I'm old) and the fact that I have never seen a color photo to indicate differently, I believe the Broncos pants stripes were o-b-o for all of 1967 and 1968.

Thanks for taking another look!

Here's another pic from the 1968 game against the Dolphins, along with a close-up crop:



Again, clearly o-b-o striping on the pants...

Thanks, darkhaha, for the definitive pictures on this matter. I've made the changes on the stripes and you'll love this. Zoomed in, when I made the cchange with the paler blue everything was fine. When I clicked to go back to normal magnification even my images looked for a second to be b-o-b! Now that's SKILL!!! As soon as Rob gets his tech issues in hand this will be one of a bunch of changes that WILL get fixed. Thanks for your patience and assistance.

Thank YOU guys for the great site and being willing to put up with my badgering. This is the definitive resource we've all been looking for!