Occasionally, Champ Bailey gets asked about moving to safety some day. Some day soon or some day down the road, depending on who asks the question.

His answer usually revolves around when the time is right or when he thinks it would be best. But Sunday night was a quality example of what makes Bailey, at 34 years old, in his 14th NFL season, still among the best at what he does right now.

The Broncos matched Bailey on Saints wide receiver Marques Colston for most of the evening. Colston, who both entered and exited the game as New Orleans quarterback Drew Brees’ favorite receiver, finished with five receptions for a rather low-impact 63 yards and no touchdowns.

Included in that total was a 14-yard reception on the Saints’ last drive, when Bailey was out of the game and there was a play or two when, with motion, the Saints were able to move Colston away from Bailey. But in all, Bailey took away the Saints’ big-play piece on offense.

The Broncos switched Bailey on to the Texans’ Andre Johnson in September after Johnson had caught a 60-yard touchdown pass early in the game with Bailey elsewhere in the formation. With Bailey on him, Johnson had one reception, a 12-yarder on a third-down conversion in the fourth quarter, for the remainder of the day.

There is game-after-game, receiver-after-receiver days like that on Bailey’s accomplishment-filled resume. But what makes Bailey different, both early in his career and now, from many others who have flourished in the cover portion of the job, is both his willingness and ability to tackle all over the field.

With all he did in coverage Sunday night, one of the most impressive plays he made may have been a third-quarter tackle on Saints running back Pierre Thomas for no gain. In all, he had six solo tackles in the game.

There have been some who have played the position through the years with the same kind of lockdown ability in coverage as Bailey. But no top-tier cornerback of the post-merger NFL has tackled better or more efficiently than Bailey has in run defense.

Former Broncos defensive coordinator Larry Coyer always said “he’s not a good tackler, he’s an elite tackler … one-on-one, in the open, he never misses or if he does you remember it because you probably haven’t ever seen it before.”

In fact, the list of top-tier, Hall of Fame-worthy cornerbacks who have blown out a shoulder to make a key one-on-one, open-field stop in the run game is short. That’s what Bailey did at Miami in 2005 when he took on then-Dolphins running back Ronnie Brown on what was the dirt portion of the baseball infield in Miami’s stadium .

And it’s just part of why Bailey is still so important to the Broncos defense right where he is, at cornerback.

Jeff Legwold: jlegwold@denverpost.com or twitter.com/jeff_legwold