There are fans, albeit of the youngest possible variety, who have never experienced a Denver Broncos win.

Take Charlie, born on Oct. 14, 2017 (the day before the start of the worst losing streak in 50 years of Denver Broncos football) to a lifelong fan (the kind that wears a two-foot-tall orange foam cowboy hat and a handlebar mustache when he sits in the south stands).

What started as a casual joke with Charlie’s dad that “the Broncos have not won a game in Charlie’s lifetime” after consecutive losses to the Giants and Chargers has become a full-fledged matter of panic in Charlie’s house as the Broncos are now knocking on the door of ignominy.

With the surprising Jets (who just knocked off the Chiefs) on the docket next, there’s every reason to believe that the Broncos (especially based on their performance in Miami) will match the franchise’s longest single-season losing streak this upcoming Sunday. A loss to the Jets would mark nine in a row, a record set by the 1967 squad that finished 3-11.

After that it’s off to Indianapolis for a Thursday night game, which never bodes well for the road team this late in the season. Despite Indy’s equally forgettable performance this season, there’s a good chance Denver could tie its single-season winless streak, set by the 1963 club who lost two, tied one and then lost another seven straight to end the season. (The ’64 team lost another four to open that season and set the club’s all-time mark at 11 losses total over two seasons.) Charlie’s grandpa was in short pants the last time the Broncos were losing this badly.

With a road game in Washington on Christmas Eve to follow (the Broncos lost on the road on Christmas Day last year) and a home game against the Chiefs on New Year’s Eve (which could mean everything for Kansas City’s playoff hopes) after that, Denver could break that all-time franchise record for consecutive losses this season. As such, its entirely plausible that Charlie could take his first steps before the Broncos pick up their first win of his lifetime.

Being born into bad Broncos seasons must run in the family.

Charlie’s dad was born in 1982, the strike-shortened season in which the Broncos went 2-7 and posted their worst winning percentage (.222) since the AFL-NFL merger. Should they lose out, Charlie’s Broncos would eclipse that mark.

It could be worse for Charlie, however.

Had he been born on Christmas Day 2016, with the misfortune of being born into a family of Cleveland Browns fans, he’d be less than a month away from his 1st birthday without having experienced a single victory. (Sorry, Cleveland, but a 4-0 preseason doesn’t count.) Should the Browns remain winless until Christmas Eve again this season, it will mark the second time in as many years that Cleveland has gone a full calendar year without winning at least one regular-season game.

Cleveland’s futility is well-documented. There are kids learning to drive on the south shore of Lake Erie who have never seen their team in a playoff football game. Sophomores in college born the year Cleveland returned to the NFL, 1999, have experienced just two winning seasons in their lives.

Here in Denver, it’s understandable why Charlie’s dad is a devout Broncos fan and less passionate about the Nuggets, Rockies or Avalanche. Simply put, the Broncos win. It’s fun to win, and it’s fun to root for a team that wins.

The Avs were last to the party and had to work twice as hard to build a fan base. Hockey is huge among Denver sports fans born in the late-80s to mid-90s; a decade plus of consistent winning codified a young group of fans. A steady decline since the lockout has tested those loyalties.

Around the same time the Avs were winning a pair of Stanley Cups, the Nuggets were experiencing the lowest of their franchise’s lows. Denver sports fans have the years 1997 and ’98 burned into their memory because they represent the Broncos’ first two Super Bowl-winning seasons. The ’97-98 season played on the hardwood at McNichols Sports Arena, meanwhile, remains the worst in Nuggets history — an abysmal 11-71 effort. It was the low point of an eight-year span during which the Nuggets never eclipsed the .500 mark.

It also explains why there is a bevy of enthusiastic late-teen and early 20-something Nuggets fans who spent the decade of their childhood watching Carmelo Anthony (and later his trade assets) and the Nuggets win what seemed like almost every game they played at Pepsi Center.

The Rockies, bless them, have managed to cement a consistent fan base despite posting a winning record in just eight of their 25 seasons of existence (only four of which resulted in trips to the playoffs). Charlie’s dad admittedly falls more into the “Rooftop” variety of fan than the “keeping score at home” crowd. Perhaps Charlie’s cousin, a kindergartener who may or may not have stayed up late when the Rockies made the playoffs this year, will become the latter.

It’s no secret. In Denver, winning begets fandom. That will be evident this Sunday when the Jets roll into town.

The Broncos will likely extend their league-best consecutive home sellout streak, but there’s a good chance that it could be Denver’s sparsest crowd since the Josh McDaniels days.

Charlie’s dad is still deciding whether or not he’ll attend that game or the finale against Kansas City. The best way to show one’s dissatisfaction with a team is to simply stop showing up. The Nuggets and Avalanche have learned that the hard way lately. The Broncos as currently constructed are learning fast.

There is a glimmer of hope for Charlie (and his dad), however.

The year after Charlie’s dad was born and Charlie’s grandpa (Charles, actually) suffered through one of the worst seasons in franchise history the Broncos acquired a rookie quarterback by the name of John Elway, who now runs the football side of the operation. The next year, Pat Bowlen took control as owner. Together they have accounted for seven of Denver’s eight trips to the Super Bowl and all three wins.

Bowlen, and the trust that now controls the team with his health in decline, has endured just six losing seasons, 2017 included, during his ownership tenure. Elway, as a player, experienced only two; this is his first as a Broncos executive. Bowlen’s health has deteriorated to the point where Joe Ellis is now responsible for the business side of the organization. You can bet that between them, Ellis and Elway aren’t going to let the losing continue.

There’s a glut of great quarterbacks coming available in 2018. Whether by draft or by free agency John Elway will have the chance to find someone capable of returning the franchise to its place atop the AFC West, where it spent so many years during Charlie’s dad’s childhood and where it was just a few years ago when Charlie was just a glimmer in his dad’s eye.

The Broncos went to three Super Bowls before Charlie’s dad turned eight. They won two before he graduated high school. There’s no reason to believe that the same outcome or better couldn’t hold true for Charlie and that this forgettable first season will be nothing more than a footnote in a lifetime of cheering for a winner.