Though there is a way to consider the 2019 season a success for the Denver Broncos, ultimately, the team will have a losing season for the third consecutive year. That hasn’t happened for quite a while.

You have to go all the way back to the AFL-NFL merger.

For clarification, a winning season is one in which the team finishes 8-8 or better. A losing season would be one in which the team lost more games than it won. A winning season is not necessarily one that ended with a playoff berth.

Still, the Broncos have been remarkably good in finishing at least .500. The fact that it was nearly 50 years ago that they had three straight losing seasons is incredible.

Let’s go all the way back to the last time it happened.

The time: 1970-1972

The merger between the old AFL and the NFL took place in 1970. The Broncos were a bad team in the AFL with a total record of 39-97-4 in 10 seasons. They never made the playoffs.

That run of mediocrity carried over into the team’s first few seasons in the NFL and that is as big a reason as any as to why the team had three straight losing seasons following the merger.

In 1970, the team went 5-8-1. The next season, they were 4-9-1 and in 1972 they were 5-9.