ENGLEWOOD, Colo. — It’s another NFL Friday, this one the day before the Denver Broncos will travel to Charlotte, North Carolina, for a game against the Carolina Panthers.
Safety Kareem Jackson, like the rest of the teammates around him, tries to toss all the essentials in his bag before equipment manager Chris Valenti announces he needs it.
Jackson holds a hanger in his left hand — the No. 88 jersey will make another trip. A reminder of friend and teammate Demaryius Thomas, who died last year at age 33 due to complications from a seizure disorder. Thomas played 10 seasons in the NFL — eight with the Broncos, including their Super Bowl 50 victory — and finished his career as the Broncos’ second-leading receiver (9,055 yards). He would have turned 35 on Christmas Day.
The jersey has traveled from Jackson’s locker to every home and road game, including across the Atlantic Ocean to London in Week 8. And each day at the team’s suburban training complex, it’s been right there.
“At first, I wasn’t really all the way sure why I wanted to keep it with me,” Jackson told ESPN as he tilted it to show several grass stains down the back. “It just seemed like what I wanted to do, what I should do. It was important for me to remind myself, to feel his presence, because how he did things, how he carried himself. And when I look at it, you … see the green, the grass stains, that’s what pops out at me.
“He put them there, you know, trying to get everything he could out of every play. Maybe it’s because it’s that, it’s from the ground, from a game we were in together. I just see that green, it just kind of stops me every time.”
Jackson traded jerseys with Thomas after a Week 16 game in 2013 in Houston. Jackson was in his fourth season with the Texans when he snagged the No. 88 jersey in road white with orange-trimmed blue numbers. Then-Broncos quarterback Peyton Manning had set the NFL’s single-season record for touchdown passes in that game, throwing his 48th, 49th, 50th and…
