With two little words, as Broncos running back C.J. Anderson stood up slowly and emerged from the fog of a nasty football hit, he proved how a man can become a leader of an NFL team by getting knocked on his butt.

“Good play!” Anderson shouted Wednesday, defusing a tense situation at a chippy Denver practice after he was decked by a stupid, testosterone-laced shoulder blow from Broncos linebacker Danny Trevathan.

If there was any question about the No. 1 running back in Denver, the last shred of doubt was removed when Anderson reminded his teammates he will never lose his head, even when somebody tries to knock it off his shoulders.

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Prune away all the thorny excuses, and Denver has failed to win the Super Bowl during the three years in which Peyton Manning has been the sheriff around here for one simple reason: The Broncos have been too soft. When knocked down, whether by a shot in the dark from Baltimore quarterback Joe Flacco on a frigid January evening or a punch to the solar plexus from Seattle at the Super Bowl, the Broncos stayed down.

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Anderson is hardscrabble tough. He’s harder than the Rocky Mountains, and every bit as unshakable.

“I am fine. It’s no big deal,” declared Anderson, as he jogged into the Denver locker room and brushed aside any suggestion he was seriously dinged by Trevathan’s tackle.

This might be the truest definition of kicking and screaming. It is what Broncos executive John Elway instinctively knew had been missing from recent Denver squads defined by Manning and the Star Wars numbers on offense.

Winning football games in September, under bluebird Colorado skies, can be as pretty as the Aspen trees ablaze in gold. But the long slog to a championship, through the playoffs in the dead of an NFL winter, is brutally tough, with winning more often a measure of guts than glitz.

The hard truth is the Broncos rolled over too easily in playoff defeats that ended each of their last three seasons with bitter disappointment. They curled in the fetal position after being stunned late in the fourth quarter of a playoff game against Baltimore. They were bullied by Seattle in a 43-8 loss at the Super Bowl. They were so preoccupied with dread of a trip to Tom Brady’s house that the Broncos were embarrassed in their own house by Andrew Luck.

NFL training camp is a lot like gym class in middle school, except all the guys talking smack and trading blows are a whole lot bigger. Men will be boys at training camp. No matter how politically correct commissioner Roger Goodell wants the shine on the league shield to be, there are bound to be mean-spirited barbs and cheap shots exchanged. It’s why “Hard Knocks” on HBO might be the one reality show on television that actually keeps it real. There are no low-T levels at training camp, and if the testosterone boils over, that’s how New York Jets quarterback Geno Smith gets his jaw broken at the angry end of a sucker punch.

On a cool August morning at Dove Valley, when the only Denver fans invited to attend practice were the wine-and-cheese, big-money patrons, it was amusing, if not ironic, that the Broncos got rudely bent out of shape, whether it was receiver Bubba Caldwell slamming his helmet to the ground in disgust after a dropped pass or coach Gary Kubiak chewing out players with language bluer than Broncos blue.

The tension ballooned, until it popped with the unnecessary shot Trevathan gave to Anderson. His head hit the ground with a terrible thud. Coaches screamed in protest. Teammates on opposites of the ball glared at each other. Trainers rushed to the spot where Anderson was stretched out on the grass.

But rather than getting mad, Anderson calmly got up and shouted: “Good play!”

That’s what winners do.

Kicking and screaming doesn’t always require either literal kicking or actual screaming.

Standing strong and tall — whether it’s in the face of yapping by Seattle cornerback Richard Sherman or in response to a touchdown bomb that wrecks the playoff party in the final minutes of the fourth quarter — is how championships are won.

Yes, we will all watch intently as the Broncos wrestle with the NFL beast that is J.J. Watt in Houston. I can’t speak for you, much less Kubiak, Elway or anybody who loves the local NFL team. But, in one important respect, the rest of the exhibition season seems moot. And I don’t need to see no stinkin’ depth chart.

C.J. Anderson has become more than this team’s No. 1 running back.

He’s the man. Give Anderson the football. And follow.

Mark Kiszla: mkiszla@denverpost.com or twitter.com/markkiszla