After filling his plate for lunch, NFL most valuable player Peyton Manning walked to the end of the buffet line at the stadium and found the one item he is missing: Terrell Davis.

As Manning greeted Davis, it was hard not to think:

Batman had Robin.

Michael Jordan had Scottie Pippen.

John Elway needed Davis to win Super Bowl rings.

When Manning searches for a sidekick in this championship-or-bust season, whom can he trust?

Good question.

On a Wednesday afternoon so rainy it could have reminded everybody in the Broncos camp a little too much of Seattle, I asked Davis how much he meant to Elway during the biggest victories in Broncos history.

“John had gone to so many Super Bowls and lost without another element of the game he could lean on,” said Davis, describing how his addition lifted a burden off the shoulders of Elway. “He knew the game was not going to be won or lost solely on how he performed.”

When the Broncos reported to training camp last week, Elway chuckled at the memory of franchise owner Pat Bowlen declaring “This one’s for John!” on the long-ago day when Denver took home the Vince Lombardi Trophy by beating the Green Bay Packers.

“Heck, I threw for 130 yards,” Elway said.

The MVP of that game? Davis.

The powerhouse Denver teams of the 1990s were coached by Mike Shanahan, an offensive mastermind.

The Broncos of Elway, Davis and tight end Shannon Sharpe could fill up the stat sheet with “Star Wars” numbers. But they also could beat foes with a hammer. They played with finesse, but were those back-to-back championship teams soft?

“Ask the Packers if we were a finesse team,” said Davis, laughing. “We had the NFC physical mentality. And Green Bay had never seen an AFC team like that.”

No matter how much NFL rules are written to encourage passing, football always will be a physical game. The bigger, faster and meaner Seahawks rubbed Denver’s collective nose in the turf at the Super Bowl and yapped at the losers all about it.

Oh, the Broncos might cringe and curse Seattle for talking smack. But the question is: What is Denver going to do about it?

Elway has made it clear.

“We can’t rely on (No. 18) to win it,” Elway said, “because (Manning) can’t win it by himself.”

Davis attended practice at Sports Authority Field as a television analyst, but at age 41, the greatest running back to wear a Broncos uniform won’t be trotting out of that locker room door when Denver opens the season against the Indianapolis Colts.

Montee Ball is a fine, young running back who is more than capable of replacing Knowshon Moreno. Ball, however, will never be as dominant an offensive weapon as Davis, who rushed for an astounding 3,758 yards during the 1997 and 1998 regular seasons.

Manning is Batman. So who is going to be his Robin?

My nomination might surprise you.

Demaryius Thomas would be a popular answer. And not a bad choice. He is a premier pass-catcher in the NFL.

But there are three things that work against D.T. becoming Robin: 1) His personality might be too mild-mannered to truly dominate the league; 2) While there will be more Pro Bowl appearances in his future, the 26-year-old wideout probably has reached his ceiling as a player; and 3) From the moment in the first quarter of the Super Bowl, with the Broncos trailing 5-0 to Seattle, when Seahawks safety Kam Chancellor rocked Thomas with a tackle that knocked the receiver backward nearly 5 yards, the game was over and the physical beat-down had begun.

You can count on NFL defenses to press Denver more at the line of scrimmage in 2014 in the hope of disrupting the timing on Manning’s throws.

A strong response would be to hit back with a physical mismatch that big, elite pass-catching tight ends now bring to the sport. Can Julius Thomas, the converted basketball player who enjoyed a breakout season in 2013 with 65 catches for 12 touchdowns, take the next step and move to level of Sharpe or contemporaries such asJimmy Graham, Rob Gronkowski and Vernon Davis?

“A lot of us are really good athletes,” Thomas said. “In order to be a guy who is a cut above everybody else, you’ve got to be focused. Some of it comes with experience … which is something I gain every day.

“But it’s the little details. How well are you going to prepare? How determined are you to be perfect? And that’s the stuff that not only creates a long career, but a really good long career.”

The Denver offense needs somebody to take the weight off Manning.

The big shoulders of Julius Thomas could do the job.

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