I'll hold on to my orange Osweiler jersey

Fate, they say, is fickle. Fate in football can sometimes be fabulously fickle.

So it is with the return of quarterback Brock Osweiler to the Denver Bronco’s locker room this week. He’s back where he really wanted to be all along and he’s being paid what he and his agent thought he was worth, he just got it all along with the title backup quarterback.

The Broncos drafted the lanky signal caller in the second round of the 2012 draft and he was anointed as heir apparent as General Manager John Elway did a reset of his beloved Broncos. Osweiler’s chances of starting anytime soon were dashed as Elway also made the deal that even made Donald Trump jealous when he landed free-agent Peyton Manning.

Osweiler took full advantage of future Hall of Famer Manning’s experience and learned well and remained patient. Finally in November of 2015 he got his big chance when the aging and injured Manning finally got pulled.

He played pretty good in the run toward the playoffs but faltered in the last regular season game with home-field advantage on the line. Back to the bench where he watched as Manning led the team to a Super Bowl win.

During that run toward the playoffs I’ll admit I was pretty pumped with the way he was playing and might have remarked something to the effect of his being our future. My wife heard this in late November or early December and ordered a No. 17 Osweiler jersey in bright orange as a Christmas present.

By Christmas things had obviously gotten a little bit more dicey in the quarterback department so I’ll admit as I pulled it out of the wrapped box I was hoping it was actually a Manning jersey.

I put it on anyway during that fateful last regular season game, sending out a selfie in my new attire. I screamed a good bit during that game and by the time the coach pulled the unschooled signal caller I had removed the new jersey and gone to the closet to find the Manning garb.

Enough folks knew about that jersey that I’ve taken a load of grief over it, especially when Osweiler left the Broncos in free agency for Houston and a jaw-dropping $72 million contract. I offered to sell that jersey to all the Texans fans I knew with no takers.

Osweiler was not a success in Houston. In fact, most considered him a washout and the worst deal any team had ever made. They traded him at the end of the season to the Cleveland Browns. To the Browns, who had salary cap to spare, he was just a means of getting some of Houston’s picks and no one held out much of a chance he would ever play in Cleveland. Sure enough, he was waived this week and Elway, who left the bidding on Osweiler at $12 million a year, picked him up for the league minimum of $775,000. Cleveland is on the hook for the remaining $15.2 he’s owed.

That’s right, Elway did what President Trump hasn’t been able to do with his border wall — he signed Brock Osweiler and Cleveland paid for it.

I pity any Browns fan who owns a No. 17 Osweiler jersey. As for my orange Osweiler jersey, it’s off the market — for now.

Karl Terry writes for Clovis Media Inc. Contact him at: [email protected]