T.D. should touch down in Canton.

All dressed up with nowhere to run, Terrell Davis yet lit up the place with his glorious smile. One last time he had put on the Broncos uniform, stood tall and snapped off a Mile High salute. He'd come to tell his friends good-bye.

Though he couldn't play, he wanted to be on the sideline to feel again the electricity generated by the Denver zealots, many of whom seem compelled to paint their faces orange and blue.

They'd seen him run into, over, around, through and away from defenders a thousand times. Now they would see him leave them.

A knee. Isn't it always a knee with running backs? Football's stars, they're also the game's disposable parts, always one step away from the end.

Somehow, the gods stay in one piece: Jim Brown, Walter Payton, Barry Sanders, Emmitt Smith. But mortals know the day is coming, sooner than later, when they will go down in a shriek of pain never to be the same again.

How it must hurt an extraordinary athlete to realize he has been rendered ordinary. Gone is the package of lightness, speed, instinct and ferocity that Bear Bryant called "reckless abandon." In its place, memory.

Small wonder, then, that Terrell Davis wanted to wear his play clothes one more time. He'd gone on the Broncos' injured reserve list. The move was effectively a retirement after three seasons in which a knee made him a part-time player. Nor was it a surprise, memory being powerful and pleasant, that at day's end Davis told reporters he might not be retired at all.