"For many players, five seasons is an NFL lifetime.

For Champ Bailey, he has now surpassed that in his second NFL life, here in Denver.

On Sunday, when the Broncos play at the Washington Redskins, Bailey will revisit his former life for the first time since the megatrade 5 1/2 years ago that ended with Bailey (and a second-round draft pick) here and star running back Clinton Portis in Washington.

"It seems like a long time ago, honestly," Bailey said this week. "I've spent more time here than I spent there."

Bailey was 25 years old when he became a Bronco on March 4, 2004, and he has been in Denver long enough, and seen so much change at Dove Valley, that now, at age 31, he is the second-longest tenured player on the team. Only offensive lineman Ben Hamilton — a 2001 draft pick — has been here longer. Linebacker D.J. Williams also arrived the spring of 2004, in the April draft.

Yet in all that time, Bailey has never suited up against the Redskins, the team that drafted him at No. 7 overall in 1999. The one time the two teams have played since, in 2005 in Denver, Bailey sat out with a hamstring injury.

He wonders how he'll be received Sunday at FedEx Field, but knows Redskins fans in particular haven't forgotten about the five years he spent playing there. In every city he visits, Bailey said he runs into people who remind him of his time in Washington.

Bailey started every game for five years for the Redskins, intercepting 18 passes in that time and making four straight Pro Bowls from 2000-03. But during the 2003 season, Bailey and his agent began talking with the team about a new, longterm contract. Those talks stalled and, when they never restarted, Bailey knew his time in Washington was over. Bailey said he believed that to the Redskins, he had become "expendable.""