Denver Broncos' 2014 schedule: 7 need-to-know nuggets

In case you somehow missed it, the Denver Broncos' 2014 schedule was released Wednesday.
And in honor of Hall of Famer and NFL Network schedule-release show guest John Elway, here are seven need-to-know notables about the Orange and Blue's just-posted itinerary:

• The Broncos' Sept. 7 Sunday Night Football opener against the Indianapolis Colts will mark the fourth straight season -- each year of the John Fox era -- that they've kicked off the season with a prime-time, nationally televised home game. They fell to the Oakland Raiders on Monday night in 2011, beat the Pittsburgh Steelers on SNF in '12 (Peyton Manning's regular-season Broncos debut) and walloped the Baltimore Ravens on Thursday night a year ago.
• Incidentally, the Colts will be playing a regular-season contest in the Mile High City without Manning as their starting QB for the first time since 1993, when Elway and the Broncos battered Jack Trudeau and Indy, 35-13, in a Week 5 matchup.
• Of Denver's first eight opponents on the new schedule: each finished at least .500 or better in 2013, six finished with 10 or more wins, six qualified for the postseason and three of them -- like the Broncos -- made it as far as the NFL's Final Four (conference championship games).
• That rugged opening stretch is highlighted by the Broncos' Week 3 visit to Seattle to take on the defending-champion Seahawks in a rematch of Super Bowl XLVIII. The Broncos have faced the defending Super Bowl champ in nine of the past 20 seasons, winning four contests and losing five. As aforementioned, Denver routed the 2012-champion Ravens, 49-27, to open this past season.
• The NFL did the Orange and Blue no favors by slotting them in the first bye-week session (Week 4) of the season. It will be the earliest bye week for the Broncos in recent seasons and will match the 2006 and 1993 campaigns, when the Broncos also had Week 4 byes. That means  13 straight weeks without a break to end the regular season and possibly 16 consecutive weeks of action if they were to make it to the Super Bowl as a wild-card team. That's draining even writing about it.
• While the early half of the Broncos' schedule is demanding -- at least as we peruse it on paper here this spring -- the latter part is no cakewalk, either, with six of  the squad playing six of its final nine games on the road. That stretch kicks off with a run of three consecutive away games -- at New England (Nov. 2), at Oakland (Nov. 9) and at St. Louis (Nov. 16) -- the Broncos' first string of back-to-back-to-back road tilts since 2010 and the seventh such span since the regular season increased to 16 games in 1978. Aside from 2010 -- when they lost at Kansas City, Arizona and Oakland -- the Broncos went 1-2 on their three-game road trips in '97, '95, '94, '81 and '79.
• The Broncos' Dec. 22 game in Cincinnati will mark the final Monday Night Football contest of the season and the Broncos' 23rd straight season with a MNF appearance. The 1991 campaign was the last Denver season without a Monday night tilt.