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For Chargers, orange is the new black

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Even earlier than he does in other cities, Philip Rivers will walk onto the grass at Sports Authority Field this afternoon.

The air is usually crisp, almost always football weather here a mile high in the fall. Players often commend Sports Authority Field’s turf as the best in the league. Rivers will look up and admire the edifice, seemingly perpetually new, knowing every one of the 76,125 seats (and more) will be filled and the place will be shaking around him in a few hours.

“It’s my favorite stadium, empty,” the Chargers quarterback said.

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It’s where the Denver Broncos play.

On Thursday night, for the 110th time, the Chargers (5-2) and Broncos (5-1) will meet. And as it has been almost every time since Rivers took over as the Chargers starting quarterback, the result will be paramount in determining the AFC West champion.

“It’s not that you don’t have to win the other ones,” Rivers said. “You have to beat Oakland and Kansas City. But you always know you’re going to have to beat (the Broncos) to get the division.”

Save for 2010, when the Chiefs won, the Chargers or Broncos have won the AFC West every year since 2004. Of the nine times between 2004 and ‘13 that the Chargers or Broncos won the division, the other finished second in seven of those seasons.

Raiders Week has faded amidst the Raiders’ weakness. And even with Sunday’s loss, Rivers is 12-5 against the Chiefs.

Yes, for the Chargers, Orange is the new black. The Broncos are the Chargers’ chief adversary.

“I get it with the fans and the Raiders,” Rivers said. “I still get more Oakland around town. But to me, Denver has always been the biggest rival.”

Heck, his ascension to the throne commenced against the Broncos, after Drew Brees tore his labrum in the second quarter of the 2005 season finale.

It was the Broncos offensive line that Igor Olshansky called “wussies” in 2006, and it was then-Broncos quarterback Jay Cutler that Matt Wilhelm called a punk in 2008, and it was Broncos cornerback Champ Bailey who assessed Rivers was “classless” and it was former Broncos head coach Josh McDaniels who said Shaun Phillips threatened him before a game in 2009.

And just as Ed Hochuli sticks in San Diego’s backside for that infamous call in 2008 and the Broncos’ comeback from 24-0 in 2012 remains a low point in Chargers’ history, there must be a special place in the Orange Satan’s heart for that Dec. 10, 2006, game at Qualcomm Stadium in which LaDainian Tomlinson scored three touchdowns, the last of which broke the NFL record for TDs in a season.

Qualcomm was loud that day, but not nearly as loud as it was for the 2008 finale when the Chargers completed one of the most improbable playoff runs in NFL history by beating the Broncos 52-21.

There have been some battles,” Malcom Floyd said this week.

The series dates to the team’s shared AFL history, and it has been a streaky affair. The Chargers owned the ‘60s, the Broncos the ‘70s. Air Coryell got the better of the Orange Crush more often than not, but from 1984 through 2005, Denver won 31 of 44 meetings.

Then came Rivers’ nine victories in his first 11 starts against the Broncos.

Of late, though, the Chargers have rarely pinned the Donkeys.

Through Tim Tebow and Peyton Manning, the Broncos have won five of the past six, which coincides with their having won the past three division titles.

The Chargers’ one victory in five games with Manning as Denver’s quarterback was at Sports Authority Field last year. It was the second of four straight December victories that enabled the Chargers to get the postseason. Therein, they won a game to earn a return trip to Denver, where the Broncos handled them fairly handily on their way to the Super Bowl.

Those last two meetings kept the rivalry from having gone dormant, but the Chargers are still the chasers in this relationship.

“They’re what we want to get back to,” Eric Weddle said.

The Chargers last year returned to the playoffs for the first time since 2009. But the AFC West remains the Broncos’ kingdom.

Said Weddle, “We’re out to prove ourselves as contenders and as a rival to them . . . We wanted to beat Kansas City, but I knew this game was the most important. We win, we’re in first place.”

As it almost always has been of late.

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