Now that he’s a Bronco, Paris Lenon can’t seem to get away from his job.

He could leave it behind in the locker room each night when he played with Arizona, St. Louis and Detroit. Even when he was with Green Bay, the off-site conversation may have been more about how the neighbor kid cut his grass than how Lenon played Sunday.

“Here, the Broncos are always the topic of conversation,” he said.

On sports-talk radio?

“No, I mean when you go to eat,” Lenon said. “It’s going to be brought up. They’re really behind their team. Which is a good thing. But sometimes you don’t always want to have that conversation. Sometimes you just want to eat.”

The Broncos aren’t just 5-0 and overwhelming favorites entering Sunday’s home game against winless Jacksonville. They are 5-0 with a 16-game regular-season winning streak dating to last year.

The Broncos don’t just have one of the all-time great quarterbacks in Peyton Manning. They have Manning playing at his all-time best, having thrown 20 touchdown passes and only one interception while leading his team to a preposterous scoring average of 46 points per game.

Broncomania is back not only in Denver and the Rocky Mountain region — the Broncos have the largest geographical fan base in the NFL, with an estimated 69 percent of their fans located outside their home market — there are indicators suggesting that the emotional investment in the team is at an all-time high.

Start with the national TV ratings. Denver games have accounted for three of the top four watched television shows — sports, comedy, drama, reality, news, whatever — since Labor Day.

“There’s tremendous interest in the Broncos at the national level for a couple of reasons,” said Lance Barrow, the CBS coordinating producer for the network’s NFL telecasts. “One, people love to see points scored, and their offense is scoring at a historical rate. And then you have one of the most popular players in any sport in Peyton Manning. You couple that with the mystique of John Elway, you have a team that draws a lot of interest.”

In the Denver area, TV ratings of Broncos games are up 80 percent from 2010. A popular afternoon sports-radio program — 104.3 The Fan’s show featuring former Broncos defensive end Alfred Williams and “D-Mac” — has had a 40 percent spike in ratings since June.

“We lived in Steamboat in 1978, and I remember the whole state being pretty crazy because we hadn’t gone to the Super Bowl before Craig Morton and Haven Moses and that crew,” said Darren “D-Mac” McKee. “I think this is more like that time than when Alfred went in ’97. Because they had been to the Super Bowl three times (and lost) with John Elway.”

Another sports-radio station in Denver, 102.3 FM ESPN, anchors its afternoon-drive show with former Broncos center Tom Nalen.

“The reality is our listeners believe it’s not really the Broncos, it’s all about Peyton Manning,” said Tom “Lou from Littleton” Manoogian, who’s in charge at 102.3 FM. “I think Peyton Manning means more to the Broncos now than John Elway did in ’97, ’98. When Elway won those two Super Bowls, it was about Shannon Sharpe, Terrell Davis and how Mike Shanahan was a mastermind.

“With this Broncos team, the fans believe every player is replaceable but one guy.”

Recapturing fans’ fancy

The Broncos began recapturing their fans’ fancy in 2011, when Elway was hired to run the team’s football-operations department and Tebowmania was unleashed. Then came Manning’s unprecedented comeback story in 2012.

And yet in Manning’s second year in Denver, fascination for the Broncos continues to rise near and far. When the Broncos played at Dallas last week, they were cheered on by thousands of fans rooting so loudly, the players compared it to a home game. When it comes to building popularity, momentum is huge.

“Peyton has brought our team store traffic to a whole different level,” said Marty Garafalo, who oversees operations of the Broncos’ three outlets. “The different attitude you see on the field has brought a different attitude to the fans. People are buying stuff for 1-year-olds. And we’ve got grandmothers coming in and buying stuff.”

Once you get on the waiting list, the wait time for Broncos season tickets is estimated to be 10 to 15 years. Here’s the situation: The Broncos have more than 24,000 season-ticket accounts totaling 71,000 seats. Every year, people move away or run into financial trouble or die with their orange jerseys on. In some years, it’s common for 1,000 or more fans to not renew their season tickets.

This year? The failure-to-renew count was fewer than 100.

When the Broncos announce another home sellout Sunday, it will continue a streak that’s in its 44th consecutive year. There were times near the end of the Shanahan era and the unfortunate Josh McDaniels tenure when home sellouts were announced but no-shows were common, the middle sections of Sports Authority Field at Mile High embarrassingly sparse.

Now the stadium’s 132 suites are sold out, as are the 8,800 club seats.

But while there are indicators and statistics, there also seems to be an overall feeling of guarded optimism, if not doubt. That’s what a stinging, 38-35 playoff loss in double overtime to Baltimore in January will do to a city’s heart.

“My sense is people are waiting for us to show them something,” said all-pro cornerback Champ Bailey. “To me, 5-0 gets you nowhere.”

Good as the Broncos have been playing, they rank only 32nd (last) in the NFL in pass defense. Wasn’t it a 70-yard Flacco Fling that doomed the Broncos last season?

“That will be the weird point: If they go 16-0, so what?” McKee said. “And you know what, they’re right, aren’t they? So what? If the team loses in the Super Bowl, it will be a bad season. And, wow, that’s a pretty high bar.”

“There’s definitely a sense-of-urgency feeling out there,” Nalen said. “Peyton Manning, you don’t know how many years he’s going to be here. Wes Welker signed a two-year contract. I know you’re not going to hear that publicly from the coaching staff, but it’s the sense you get from this team: It’s Super Bowl or bust.”

A delicious response

Lenon has been with the Broncos for less two months and has played little, although he is expected to start Sunday for the injured Wesley Woodyard at middle linebacker.

Yet, restaurant patrons in the Denver area invariably figure out that Lenon is a Bronco before he receives his entree. Imagine if Manning walked into the room.

Before the Broncos’ Halloween party last year, Manning and his wife, Ashley, figured they were safe to walk the 16th Street Mall. They were in full costume, Peyton as “the old” Elvis and Ashley as Priscilla.

They ate at a corner restaurant and got a lot of “Hey, King!” and “Thank you, thank you very much” responses. The Mannings paid in cash, so the waiter never suspected whom he was waiting on.

The Mannings walked the mall and accepted compliments on their get-ups.

“And then one guy is about to walk past us and he says, ‘Hey, great game,’ ” Manning said. “Here I’m wearing this black, big bouffant wig, long, thick sideburns, big sunglasses. ‘Great game.’ I’m looking to see if my wig slipped off sideways or something.”

No, Peyton. You had just outdueled Drew Brees the night before. Why wouldn’t the all-knowing Broncos fan say “Great game”?

Mike Klis: mklis@denverpost.com or twitter.com/mikeklis

Bigger than big bang

Broncos games were three of the four most watched TV shows and four of the top seven since Labor Day. The 12 most watched TV shows were all NFL games. A look at the top 13.

Program, date ………………………………………….. Viewers (Millions)

1. FOX (Packers-49ers), 9/8 ………………….. 28.5

2. CBS (Broncos-Cowboys), 10/6 ……………….. 28.3

3. FOX (Eagles-Broncos), 9/29 ………………… 26.7

4. CBS (Broncos-Giants), 9/15 ………………… 26.4

5. CBS (Colts-49ers), 9/22 …………………… 25.6

6. NBC (Giants-Cowboys), 9/8 …… 25.4

7. NBC (Ravens-Broncos), 9/5 ……. 25.1

8. FOX (Redskins-Packers/Saints-Bucs), 9/15 ……. 21.9

9. FOX (GB-Bengals, MYG-Car, STL-DAL), 9/22 ……. 20.9

10. NBC (49ers-Seahawks), 9/15 ….. 20.5

11. NBC (Bears-Steelers), 9/22 ….. 20.5

12. NBC (Patriots-Falcons), 9/29 … 20.5

13. CBS “The Big Bang Theory” 9/30 …. 20.4

Source: NFL

By the numbers

* Training camp attendance was a record – 86,364 – more than 2,000 more than last year, including a record 41,304 at stadium scrimmage

* Season ticket waiting list currently stands at 45,000

* Announced no-show counts: Baltimore – 163; Oakland – 872; Philadelphia – 634. An average of 556.3 per game. The NFL average no-show count is around 5,000.

* Through five games, the local Denver market has registered a 15% increase in ratings from Weeks 1-5 in 2012

* Team is set for five primetime TV games this year (3 NBC, 1 ESPN, 1 NFLN); a sixth might be added with the flex schedule

* Broncos web site unique visitors up more than 25 percent from a year ago, page views up more than 15 percent

* Broncos have 1.7 million Facebook followers; 350,000 Twitter; 120,000 Instagram