Pat Surtain II saw the ball in the air and his eyes widened.

‘There’s no way this is happening,’ he thought to himself as he left Jakobi Meyers’ hip pocket and made his move.

A 10th consecutive accurate throw from Las Vegas quarterback Gardner Minshew on Sunday afternoon at Empower Field and the ensuing celebrations may not happen.

Maybe the Raiders will once again dance in the old blue, replica-painted end zone from 1977 and once again be in full control of this rivalry.

Instead, the ball sailed, Surtain pounced and the Broncos celebrated.

The Broncos’ best player made the biggest play of the season so far, picking off Minshew at the goal line and racing 100 yards the other way for a touchdown to spark an eventual 34-18 win.

Instead of perhaps trailing 17-3, Denver was tied midway through the second quarter thanks to the All-Pro cornerback.

“I caught the ball and saw a full (field) of green grass,” Surtain said. “This is a touchdown.”

It wasn’t just that.

It changed the game in an instant.

It caused a landslide that buried the Broncos’ embarrassing eight-game losing streak to the Raiders under a pile of points.

It saved a look back at a weekend in alumni-packed Broncos Country that seemed headed for disaster.

A ninth straight loss for the Raiders? Not on this day.

The Broncos scored 34 straight points, starting with Surtain, who turned blindness into dominance.

It’s their first win in this rivalry since the Raiders called Las Vegas home, their third straight win this season and the latest in a series made possible by Vance Joseph’s dynamic, playmaking defense.

“Pat has my vote for defensive player of the year,” defensive lineman Zach Allen, who was in the midst of playing the best football of his career, said after Surtain’s second career interception day.

“It was definitely a huge game,” head coach Sean Payton said. “At least a ten-point game.”

Think about the setup to this day. The Broncos went all out to debut their retro uniforms. They celebrated the Orange Crush defense of 1977. They welcomed Steve Foley and Riley Odoms to the team’s Ring of Fame and honored Randy Gradishar’s enshrinement into the Pro Football Hall of Fame. They brought as many era-specific details into the game as they could find, from the side wall decorations to the end zone paint, the scoreboard graphics and the soundtrack.

They also picked the right opponent, but with that one small problem: the Raiders had won an unfathomable eight in a row in this series.

Team president Damani Leech followed play-by-play man Dave Logan’s energetic lead before the game at the Ring of Fame ceremony and threw down the gauntlet.

“I’m glad Dave already made it a PG-13 event, so I’m just going to go ahead and admit that we’re trying to take down the Raiders today,” Leech said to a roar from the watching crowd.

With the exception of the first quarter plus, Minshew and the Raiders delivered the beating.

He threw a 57-yard touchdown to rookie tight end Brock Bowers just 2 minutes and 3 seconds into the game. Then Las Vegas went 68 yards for a field goal. Then another 64 on setting up a first-and-goal from the 5-yard line midway through the second quarter.

At that point, before Surtain’s pick-six, Minshew was 9 of 9 for 115 yards, the touchdown and a pair of heady first-down runs. The Raiders had rushed a total of 12 times for 87 yards.

They ran 21 offensive plays for 202 yards.

After the pick-six: Minshew went 3 of 8 for 22 yards, was picked off again by cornerback Riley Moss and was sacked twice. He went from an early assessment of a perfect passer to being moved down the stretch in favor of Aidan O’Connell. Surtain also picked off O’Connell and gave himself a pass for the fourth quarter.

The Raiders mustered just 128 yards on their final 44 offensive snaps and 72 of those came on a late drive when the Broncos were already up by 24. They had 10 first downs on the first three possessions and only three off the late touchdown drive the rest of the way.

“They did a good job of getting stuff (early),” Allen said of the Raiders. “They kept seven in protection — actually they had one more than us on those first couple third downs — but after that it was, ‘Okay, we figured it out and made the adjustments.’ That was the fun part today. As a whole defense, we made some really good adjustments, passing game and run game, that paid off in the end.