DENVER – In the instant before the biggest snap of his football life, Aqib Talib examined the eyes of Tom Brady.

He watched as Brady scanned the field before a two-point conversion. Stop the conversion, and the Broncos were on the road to Santa Clara and the Super Bowl. Talib refused to consider the alternative scenario.

Brady first took a long glance at Rob Gronkowski. This made sense. Gronk, the world’s finest tight end, had just caught a touchdown, cutting the Bronco lead to 20-18.

Next, Brady took an even longer look at Justin Edelman. Talib saw a revealing glimmer in the eye of his former Patriots teammate. Everyone in the stadium expected the ball to head in Gronk’s direction.

Everyone except Talib.

“I got my hand on the ball,” Talib said.

Talib got his right hand on Brady’s pass, swatting the ball away from Edelman. That right hand rescued a season, propelled the Broncos to the Super Bowl and ignited a tidal wave of joy across the Front Range.

In 20 years, Broncos fans still will talk about this moment. They’ll talk about the way their Broncos – and that blasted Brady! – toyed with their emotions during the fourth quarter. And, mostly, talk about the instant Talib placed his right hand on that pass.

The Broncos should never have allowed the game to arrive at this final two-point showdown. The Broncos dominated the first three quarters. They attacked Brady with vicious fury. They pushed the Super Bowl champs to the edge of extinction.

But of course it ended like this. In this season of high drama, 14 Broncos games were decided by seven points or less. The Broncos won 11 of those 14 games. They were seldom dominating with a creaky quarterback and a struggling run game. They’re headed to the Super Bowl anyway.

Chris Harris wasn’t shaken as he lined up on the two-point conversion for yet another journey into tension.

“It’s been like this all year,” he said. “We’re used to this. Our guys don’t panic.”

Talib, his premonition correct, bolted in front of Edelman and knocked the ball high in the air. He was joined in pass coverage by a surprising companion, 293-pound defensive end Malik Jackson, who clobbered Edelman an instant after Talib swatted the pass.

“I felt it pop up,” Talib said of the pass. “I don’t want to say it was scary. I never use the word scary, but it was an intense moment.”

Intense?

This moment traveled somewhere beyond intense. Rod Smith was standing with the Broncos on the sideline. Smith, the Broncos’ all-time leading receiver, had suffered through a draining fourth quarter.

“It was brutal,” he said. “Brutal.”

But after Talib knocked the ball into Bradley Roby’s hands, Smith sprinted toward the barrier separating fans from players. He wanted to leap into the arms of those who adore the Broncos, just like he did in the old days.

“I tried to jump in the stands, but I couldn’t make it,” Smith said with a pained laugh. “I’m too old.”

Bronco defensive coordinator Wade Phillips worked with his own premonition. During practice last week, the Broncos worked constantly on defending a Patriots two-point conversion.

Phillips boasts a brilliant defensive mind filled with surprises. Who else would place the lumbering Jackson in pass coverage? But Phillips, like many superior minds, simplifies his message.

The goal of his two-point defensive scheme?

“Don’t let ’em catch it,” Phillips answered in his East Texas drawl/mumble.

The Broncos were often magnificent this season. They were just as often fortunate. Patriots coach Bill Belichick is a genius. I get that. But football’s Mr. Grumpy seemed to forget the existence of field goals in the fourth quarter. He kept gambling on fourth down. And kept losing. Belichick’s out-of-the-box thinking doomed his team.

Still, Brady and Gronk almost sent the game to overtime. They terrified a few million fans. Go ahead and admit it – the Patriot duo scared you, too.

Talib and Harris and their defensive teammates were calm. This team has declined to make life easy for itself all season. They revel in showing their fans football melodramas that veer toward tragedy.

Talib saw something in Brady’s eyes, which allowed this perilous journey to arrive at a joyous conclusion.