ENGLEWOOD, Colo. — The paint was not yet dry on the Broncos’ masterpiece victory over the Patriots in the AFC Championship Sunday when Mike Adams began daydreaming about playing on Super Bowl Sunday in his back yard.
“If we win the Super Bowl, I’m going to keep my helmet and pads on and I’m walking home,’’ Adams told a teammate as they walked off the Mile High Stadium field last Sunday.
“Home’’ for Adams — Paterson, N.J., where he grew up as one of eight children raised by a single mother — is about a 15-minute drive from MetLife Stadium, where the Broncos free safety and his teammates will play the Seahawks in Super Bowl XLVIII on Feb. 2.
Adams is Jersey Strong and Jersey Proud, and he should be, based on where he came from and how far he’s come since playing high school ball at Passaic County Tech and college ball at Delaware before making it to the NFL as an undrafted free agent in 2004.
Ten years later, after too many losing seasons — first with the 49ers, before they got good, then with the Browns, who were never good — Adams joined the Broncos in 2012 and finally is tasting the fruits of victory.
He wears New Jersey on his sleeve like a badge of honor and pride, because he survived early life in a dead-end city without a father. He was raised by his extraordinary mother, Sharon, who died of ovarian cancer during Adams’ rookie year.
“No one,’’ Adams said, “makes it out of Paterson.’’
But he did.
Thanks to his mother, thanks to his high school coach, John Iurato, who was a father figure to him, and thanks, most of all, to his own perseverance.
“Selfishly, it’s hard to give someone credit for what you’ve been going through and how you shaped your life,” he said. “Because I didn’t know my father, I never had anyone saying, ‘You can do this.’ I didn’t have that.’’
The closest thing he had to a father figure was Iurato.
“Mike came from a tough environment,’’ Iurato told The Post. “He had to make decisions when he was younger. He had some bumps in the road, but for the most part he kept his nose clean and understood the difference between the right road and the wrong road.’’
That road has led Adams from Paterson, a place he described as “rough’’ and “almost like a cancer with all the negativity snowballing,’’ to a place where his life began to take the path that will lead him to MetLife Stadium a week from Sunday.
“It was his senior year [of high school] when Mike started to emerge,’’ Iurato recalled of the (Group 4) state championship game played at Giants Stadium. Passaic County Tech won the title and Adams was the star of the game as the quarterback, safety and punt returner.
“I wasn’t the fastest. I wasn’t the strongest. I wasn’t the toughest,’’ Adams recalled. “I wasn’t that guy. I didn’t even stand out in high school.’’
Then how and why did he make it out when so many of his peers never did?
“I think mentally I’m a lot tougher than most,’’ Adams said. “I’ve been through a lot of things that would affect other people mentally, and I just stuck with what I wanted to do.’’
Iurato said Adams was “never afraid.’’
“I find a lot of inner-city kids were afraid to take the next step, because they couldn’t handle the failure, and Mike has never been like that,’’ Iurato said. “If he doesn’t succeed at first, he’ll work harder to be successful. Mike was always willing to work hard to get when he needed to go or wanted to be.’’
So here he is, having come full circle — back home, where he soon will premier a documentary he produced titled, “I Earned My Spot,’’ which he plans to show to the youth of Paterson in an effort to teach them that they, too, can get out.