RB Terrell Davis won the Super Bowl XXXII MVP Award. (Credit: Walter Iooss Jr., SI)

Another year of voting for the Pro Football Hall of Fame has come and gone and one name in particular was missing yet again.

There are many deserving men who have yet to hear their name called for enshrinement, and several of them are Denver Broncos, but the failure to include running back Terrell Davis is downright shameful.

The California native who became a Broncos legend in the late-1990’s accomplished just about everything an NFL player could hope for during his seven seasons, three of which were injury-plagued after sustaining a serious knee injury during the 1999 campaign.

Davis is one of only 7 running backs to win a Super Bowl MVP award, one of only 16 to win the Associated Press MVP award, and one of only 7 to rush for over 2000 yards in a single season. If you consider the rushing title Davis won in 1998, he is the only running back in the history of the NFL to attain all four honors.

The numbers accumulated by Davis over his first four seasons are simply staggering. He racked up 6,413 rushing yards and 61 total touchdowns over that stretch. It takes a Hall of Fame caliber back to truly dominate the league for any length of time, and for those four years he was the best in football.

They always say that players are defined during the playoffs. In the high pressure atmosphere of the postseason Davis was even more impressive. He accounted for 1,140 rushing yards and 12 touchdowns in 8 career playoff games. That correlates to 2,280 yards over a 16-game season, all when the stakes were at their highest. He also holds the all-time record with seven straight 100-yard games in the playoffs during the Broncos back-to-back championship run.

The biggest criticism of Davis is that his career numbers don’t measure up because he didn’t play long enough. But where is it written that you must play 10 seasons or rush for 10,000 yards to become eligible for the hall of fame? By that logic, Ricky Watters and his 10,643 rushing yards should be getting his speech ready.

Any player who plays long enough can post impressive lifetime numbers. Warrick Dunn, Fred Taylor and Corey Dillon all rank in the top 20 in all-time rushing yards, yet no one seriously believes that any of these men should be considered for the Hall of Fame.

Davis finished his career with 7,607 rushing yards, 1,280 receiving yards, and 65 total touchdowns. By comparison, current Hall of Famer Larry Csonka rushed for 8,081 yards and scored 68 total touchdowns, but that took him 11 seasons. Gale Sayers, a Hall of Fame running back who also had his career shortened due to an injury, finished with 4,956 rushing yards and 56 total touchdowns.

Davis was simply unlucky to have his career cut short by an injury. It was unfair to him and all of his fans, but it by no means diminishes the impact he made on the game.

The Hall of Fame is for great players who need to be discussed when providing a history of the game. The history of the NFL, and especially the history of the playoffs and the Super Bowl, simply cannot be told in its entirety without discussing Terrell Davis.

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Detailed view of the ESPN set prior to the Monday night football game between the Denver Broncos and the San Diego Chargers at Qualcomm Stadium. (Christopher Hanewinckel-USA TODAY Sports)

Ex-NFL player/coach, Herm Edwards, once said that “You play to win the game.”  Amen!  Regardless of the sport, winning is much more fun than losing.  Last week, as difficult as it was, I strolled down memory lane and revisited some of the more devastating Denver Broncos losses.  This week I have flipped the coin over and am looking at some of the more memorable victories in the team’s history.  The games that I have chosen for the list are my opinion only, and have a permanent spot in my memory bank!  Enjoy the list and let’s hope the Broncos continue playing at a level that will allow more games to be added to this list.

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As long as we had her Broncos teddy bear, my daughter and I were going to have a great time at her first ever Denver Broncos game.

For those of us lucky enough to have great relationships with our parents, we have certain memories with them that will stick with us for a lifetime. When Father’s Day rolls around every year as it did yesterday, it’s fun to reminisce about some of those memories and appreciate the people you made them with.

Vacations, camping trips, graduation days; the list goes on and on. Some of the best memories however, are related to sports in some fashion. Whether it be a special team from your childhood when your parent was a coach, sitting on your dad’s lap while watching a big game on TV, or getting to watch a professional sporting event in person, those memories can be some of the strongest you will ever make.

My family has been very lucky in the fact that we’ve had hundreds of moments like these. Many of our sports memories occurred when we were participants, but many more happened where we were spectators. The Denver Broncos, of course, have been the center piece in more than their share of my family’s memories.

I can still remember watching the 1991 AFC Championship Game with my dad and thinking that David Treadwell was going to have to walk home from Buffalo after shanking three field goals in a three point loss. I can remember sitting at old Mile High Stadium with my dad and my brother when John Elway took a victory lap after beating the New York Jets in the 1998 AFC title game. Naturally, the best moment of all time was celebrating together after John Mobley batted away that fourth down pass in Super Bowl XXXII. The list is endless. But the things that remained the same were always my family, the Broncos, and more often than not, Elway.

I think it’s my duty as a parent to ensure I make memories like these with my daughter so she can carry them with her as she grows older. I also think it’s my responsibility to make sure there’s no way in the world she ends up a fan of a different NFL team! She has been wearing Broncos gear since she was born, and she loves to color her pictures in orange and blue because she knows that’s the best color combination that there has ever been. I think she is well on her way to becoming a Broncos’ lifer like the rest of us.

When the 2011 season rolled around she was five years old, so I figured it was about time that she get to go see her first football game in person at Sports Authority Field at Mile High. It just so happened that I took her to the Thursday night game against the New York Jets, which turned out to be one heck of a ball game. It was a little different than the usual for me. Less beer and less screaming like an idiot, but on the flip side I actually paid closer attention to some of the cool stuff I had stopped noticing long ago.

The first thing that got her excited was all the horses. She loved the horses on and around the stadium. She loved the big blow up horse that serves as the tunnel for the players, and she loved the real horse, Thunder. She was thrilled when he ran onto the field but she wanted to see him more often. I told her he runs onto the field when we score, so believe me, we all wish we could see him more often (This should be less of an issue in 2012!).

According to her, the team store was just about the coolest thing in the world. I of course promised her she would get a prize for making the trek to the stadium with me, so she took her sweet time making a choice because it wasn’t a decision to be taken lightly. After much deliberation, she settled on a Broncos teddy bear. So as you can imagine, I ended up holding that Broncos teddy bear pretty much the entire game. After the team store the highlights for her were the fireworks that shot off from the scoreboard and the hot chocolate at halftime, but not necessarily in that order.

The most boring part of her night was the game itself after about 10 minutes or so. Sure she thought it was cool to see the quarterbacks throw passes the first few times, and she listened to me ramble on about some of the football basics for as long as her five year old attention span would allow. But as with most young kids, she got a little antsy when there was less stimulation. Luckily for me, I have an IPhone, which for my money is one of the greatest things ever invented. There is also nothing around that beats its usefulness when you need to keep your little one occupied for a few minutes. She got busy with Angry Birds while I got busy cheering on Tim Tebow during his heart stopping game winning touchdown drive. For both of us, it was a successful night all the way around.

She may not remember the final score of the game when she gets older, nor who the Broncos were even playing, but I can guarantee you she will always remember the first time she saw Bucky on the Mile High Stadium scoreboard and the roar of the crowd when the home team got introduced. One thing is for sure, we made several memories that I will remember forever. Like seeing her face when the fireworks went off for the first time, and how we laughed together while sharing hot chocolate at halftime because she was bundled up like the little brother on “A Christmas Story”. Most of all though, I will remember her sitting on my lap clapping and yelling, and then telling me that she was having an awesome time. Because at the end of the day, that is what sports are all about.

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