Does Beating The Patriots Justify That Superbowl Window Or Is John Elway Just Making Us Sick?

I might be tired of caring about the good fortunes of my own team. No, I am not like those who wrote off the Broncos for firing Art Shell and currently rep the Raiders, but potentially like that, because Elway seems to hate Colin Kaepernick and Kaep's cause more than he likes winning. Soon, John will be forced to quick-chop another black head off just to avoid the loss of his own.

I would like to make this article about some concern for the impending premature scapegoat removal of a first-year black coach because I am truly concerned that Vance Joseph never had a chance in hell to pull off the El-way that sucks, versus the Kubiak way that won a crown. But, to be honest, actually giving a damn about Vance would require knowing for certain that he can actually coach.

I do not.

Besides, I am a Broncos fan first and foremost. I understand how touchy criticism of my Orange and Blue can get. This is not my Donna Brazile denunciation of the Democrats, however, my malaise with my own ballclub made me unconcerned with uncovering a reason why the Denver Broncos could beat the Philadelphia Eagles a week ago, even if I was hoping like hell desperation would be that reason.

Now, the Broncos are truly desperate enough to beat every team except that Philly club, which includes the New England Patriots on Sunday,  although they must overcome the best quarterback to ever lace them up if they are to get it done.

Yes, I said it. I don't care who your favorite quarterback of all-time is. I don't really care that Brady's not my favorite or that he's a long time nemesis of my beloved Broncos.


He's the best to do it, and he's still doing it the best.

This week, however, Brady's resume is beside the point. Denver fans may find comfort that Brady hasn't won much in Denver, but that too should be of little consolation to a struggling team that shouldn't be counting on history to fix their problems. The hope to win is quickly clouding the view of who we really are and where we are heading if we don't look introspectively.

As we fans force feed this team down our own throats simply because we love them too much to leave them when times get tough, the truth is simply the truth. To viewing eyes and opposing defenses, these Broncos taste like a recognizably predictable flavor. You can't quite say what it is, but it is super sour and kind of bitter, and several coaching changes has yet to sweeten the flavor of this offense, even the year when they won it all.

If we are honest and don't just assume Donna and I are doing this for the money, we'd admit that more than half of Broncos nation exited a Superbowl 50 victory with a happy smirk because they were upset with the decision to return to a putridly playing Peyton Manning over bumbling Brock Osweiler.  When a Brock loving John Elway lost his last coach, and when Denver lost Brock, I believe it was seeded in that moment of decision.

While most of that remains a rumor, it was proven the moment Elway brought in Vance Joseph and the new coach's first declaration to the world was that he could put some more JUICE into this offense- a code word for Kubiak's juice wasn't either plentiful or sweet enough even if it proved to be the right flavor for success.

Other than the Offensive coordinator, Mike McCoy and former Offensive coordinator turned QB coach, Bill Musgrave, most of the coaches beneath Joseph are carry-overs that were already in the fold. How a former defensive coordinator could be expected to sweeten the juice on offense as a first-year coach seemed odd until you realized the plethora of offensive coaches that Elway would provide- or force-feed- to compensate for the inexperience of his head guy.

As I look at my own beloved team, I can't help but wonder does Joseph really have control of the offense with McCoy, Musgrave, and Elway in the building? Does Elway ever call McCoy to share his own view of things or is Joseph always the go-between as he deserves to be? Most importantly, who makes the final call on plays now with so many offensive minds and a head coach who questions his own team's identity?

Half the season is over, and it appears that not allowing the new head coach to put his fingerprint on the offense has him describing his own team as identity-free as if we are a juice without sugar.  It also seems that Elway's hand-picking of Joseph was a weird move intended to fulfill Elway's own  Superbowl windowed view of things instead of hiring a coach he trusted enough to bring an outsiders view of things and chart a way forward on his own merit and ability.

Elway wears his own championship rings thanks to the "do whatever it takes" mantra of Pat Bowlen. But he is not Pat Bowlen even if he wants to buy our team one day and pretend to be Pat while interfering like Jerry. I am not saying that Elway can never become another Pat Bowlen, but even Bowlen came to be through the trials and errors of trying and failing to get it done amidst the constant internal tug-o-war of when to be hands-on or hands-off. In essence, Bowlen needed the exact same thing that Elway and our young'ish quarterbacks require. Time to develop.

Nothing.  I repeat. NOTHING is more unhealthy to the development of a young quarterback, a young coach or a rebuilding organization than the draft of an open Superbowl Window.

It should go without saying that every team is fighting to be the best they can be every year. Undoubtedly, each team hopes their best equals Superbowl championships when the season is done, whether they say it through unspoken drive or display it through Superbowl window mistakes.

As a folk hero among Broncos nation, we might have taken more comfort in the presence of Elway than we had any right to do. Afterall, he is nearly as unproven as an executive himself, evidenced by these mediocre quarterbacks he hired to help push the Broncos through that Superbowl window of his. At the risk of sounding like a revisionist, I am more and more inclined to agree with those who consider our Superbowl 50 success somewhat lucky, including Elway himself who encouraged Kubiak to do it in a juicier way. Whether that Superbowl victory meant Elway deserved a new contract and a bigger role within the organization is a subject under official review right now. In hindsight, Elway might have only had a toe on the line while Kubiak had his entire foot in that game and gameplan.

Now, the Broncos appear to be stuck with a former legendary quarterback GM who displays a ravenous view of the future and a short view of the past, a past that included Elway himself being doubted by the Broncos faithful as a young player, and ridiculed as a seasoned veteran who never won the big one by himself. To this day, some believe John's HOF friend and former teammate, Terrell Davis, deserves more credit for the rings on John's fingers than John does.

The hiring of a first-year coach to juice an offense beyond that of a Superbowl winning, well-tenured coach and friend in Gary Kubiak, was the first sign I needed that Vance Joseph was merely a hole-filler with the specific assignment of making Elway look right instead of looking interested in saving his own job or building on the salvage worthy parts and pieces of this team to create a new and improved Superbowl winning model. I doubt that Joseph felt as confident as he sounded about the idea of picking a quarterback mid-way through the preseason instead of appointing the previous starter and making the other quarterbacks beat him out like you do at every other position on the football field.

Is Osweiler just another sign that Elway thinks his team can still
win it all? Is John missing on a chance to play Pax?

If I was Elway, I would have made the mediocre first-round draft pick, Paxton Lynch play so that we know by now instead of forcing last year's mediocre starter and team captain, Trevor Siemian to publicly prove himself better than Lynch. To put either of these mediocre quarterbacks through a process that questions your trust of them leaves you, in the end, with a couple of mediocre quarterbacks absent the trust of the coach and GM to help their confidence a bit. John was clearly forcing his new coach to not act in his own best interest, all the while making savvy Broncos fans question the intelligence and integrity of the new head coach.


This article is not about beating a dead bronco or kicking the horse when it's down because my Broncos are not deceased yet, just on life support, and nobody kicks hospitalized animals. But I will remind everyone that the GM and VP of Operations- who I called a Bitch in a preseason article- has chosen to pretend himself Bowlen and verbally commit to chasing after the crown each and every year instead of closing that Superbowl window and his mouth and Just Win Baby before we lose another wave of fans to the Raiders, rebuilding or his politics which we shouldn't even know about since we never knew Pat's.

What we do need to know is how Elway intends to make this team better. Spending millions on diva receivers and then trying to justify those millions- as if the opposing defense can't diagnose your plan based on payroll alone- is a formula for success that doesn't comport with the reality of the NFL in which teams rarely win the crown with so much money dedicated to wide-outs.

Check the history books. If a big name receiver does have a ring, it is almost never when they also had the high-end paycheck too. The truth is, receivers take pay cuts to play for champions or they get cut from champions for the sake of more depth on the roster. Soon enough- which I hope soon means now- the Broncos will not be able to justify the money they are spending on Demarius Thomas,
Emmanual Sanders or maybe even Von Miller if they are being realistic about what it will take to win again. Soon enough, they too will admit that just one of these valued players could be the additional draft pick- or 10- that fixes this problem.

I said all of that to say this.

I'm concerned that beating the Patriots will only make Broncos nation think we are actually still in the hunt. I get it. Making the playoffs and exiting early could still be a dream for a season that started great but looks to be headed towards something much worse than even last year's near miss of the playoffs. In the wildest dreams of  John Elway, these players and many fans, this season remains wide open, just like our Superbowl window. 

Sure, dreams do come true. But so do nightmares if you stay asleep too long. Wake up Elway and Broncos fans. It's time to shut that damn window.

Peyton Manning's DNA, Tainting Preseason Practice

It's that time again Denver Broncos fans.
Putting on my thinking cap for the coming season. 

I just don't really know how to get across to some of my Broncos fans how much Peyton Manning will remain in our DNA for years to come.

I understand the impact of his legacy on the NFL and how that might have played a role in the way things played out at the end. If Broncos haters want to call my team lucky because it all worked out in the end, I was of the mindset to agree with them as I look from the sideline at our coaches try to "do it again" for the lack of a better description.

Again is a bit of a reach. Neither Mark Sanchez, Trevor Siemian or Paxton Lynch are expected to have the mind of Peyton after so many years of experience that he had and they don't.

Actually, that is exactly what they're kinda being asked and I can show you how and why.

If Broncos Coach, Gary Kubiak, was truly beholden to his own system as being something even remotely special, why would he replace a HIGHLY successful coach in John Fox- with an unspoken mandate to do better than Fox did, and quickly because Peyton is on his way out- but relent to Manning's system just like Fox did?

We have to accept that the hybrid model that developed out of last year was not something Kubiak had any way of expecting to work.  He might have expected his ability to inspire people to have some value, but he is a play caller just like Manning, and his play calling had to constantly give way to fake defensive looks and Manning being so easily baited into audibles by them.

The result?

An epic number of interceptions that horrified the ball control coach to the extent of shutting down his Hall of Fame QB in the 4th quarter of the Superbowl from throwing in the red zone.  By the end, Kubiak no longer trusted Manning to not turn the ball over, nor did we.

Enter the new year, and the quarterbacks are mostly brand new except for one who was an internal witness to the ass chewing that Manning often got as a result of so much carelessness with the football- ass chewing that almost had Manning watching Osweiler throughout his final Superbowl chase.  Siemian might be in the lead of the QB race in training camp, but that's mostly because he has had a year of understanding what pisses dad off the most and how to avoid doing that list of things.

Things that Sanchez was famous for prior to arriving in Denver.  The hopes must have been that our coaching staff could do things others have not been able to achieve with Sanchez, or that he had been out of a job as a starter for long enough to learn from his mistakes and change his stripes a bit.

Our excellent defense should be expected to make plays from time to time, yet the natural apprehension from a guy with a tainted history is unavoidable.  Sanchez is not Manning, and does not have the resume that would allow you to relax in the face of ball control issues like we tried to do with Manning. We've seen Manning burn defenses over and over and over again, so the expectation of more was never always, even as we crossed the finish line needing cardiac resuscitation.

Now all of that is gone and the only hope we have for resurrecting Manning's magical parts is Siemian who saw it or Kubiak who taught it.

In a recent practice, one in which the offense had seen enough days of havoc from our vaunted defense, the head coach decided to switch out the names of some plays so that the defense could not keep jumping the routes.

The result?

The defense was burned over and over and over again. In fact, one burn never got to happen because Chris Harris Jr. reached out and grabbed Emmanuel Sanders to avoid the embarrassment.

The result?

A rather big fight that caused both players to be sent to the showers and a whole lot of media types to question who was mostly in the wrong on this one, Harris Jr. or Sanders.  My first thought was to side with the media that saw Sanders respond in a way that was a bit demonstrative considering Harris Jr. is a teammate. In deeper thought, Harris Jr. was burned in practice from the Peyton Manning switch up, the same as some of his other teammates had been burned before him, but he chose to respond in a way that could have injured Sanders if you think about it.

There really was nothing to be gained from grabbing your own teammate except the avoidance of embarrassment. Embarrassment that probably never would have happened  so naturally if Coach Kubiak had not spent time with Peyton.

The adjustment was a Peyton adjustment, bottom line. So is the trend that is developing of players staying later for more work after the coaches have already released them from practice for the day.  At first it was only Demarius Thomas and some injured guys.  Soon Sanders joined as did a flock of other seagulls. Now, the stay late's are a bit staggering in numbers.

That is all Manning, pure and simple.

Even the fact that Sanchez is being derided for making interceptions in practice, while Siemian is being asked to take chances- or burn them like Peyton would, versus stay with the safe check down pass and hand off audibles (the Kubiak offense) that keep the turnovers at a minimum- is all Manning's fault.

Sadly, Sanchez is not only going to be a victim of his own poor history with turnovers, he is going to be a victim of the unquenchable feeling of luck that a few Cowboys fans I know, and Gary Kubiak, will never shake after winning it all despite so many damn turnovers.

...and Manning. Sanchez is an indirect victim of Manning's blood mixed up inside of ours. We would have never won without Manning. Yes, he is like Sea Salt to Kubiak's Mrs. Dash, and the Superbowl game probably got over salted some as it relates to whose ingredients got used the most. Manning is now a necessary ingredient- in moderation- and one you don't easily dismiss after trying it out for a while.

Sanchez, Siemian, Kubiak, Elway and everyone who calls themselves a Bronco, will carry the DNA of Manning in our system simply because we actually won directly from that sprinkle of whatever it is that he does.  If the Elway way or the Mile High Salute teams could be revived exactly as they were originally comprised, Kubiak would not have been fired in Houston and would not have acquiesced to Manning when coming here to replace Fox.

We won just as much because of Manning as we did in spite of him Broncos fans. Nothing is really going to take that infusion of salt out of our necessary ingredients for another crown.  Our team was partially crafted by the success of the Seattle Seahawks who gave us the pain and focus from our 5th loss in the final game of the year. Similarly, future teams will be crafted by the ground control, killer defense approach that won our title last year.  None of those teams who witnessed our success last year, will erase the feeling of fear caused by an aged and slightly injured quarterback, that still made defenses play perfect, or else.

Teams don't fear the Broncos this year because they don't have any reason- except our defense- which can only produce so many points in a game and probably can't duplicate last year's timely miracles, over and over and over again.

You know who agrees with them the most?

Kubiak, which is evidenced this preseason in each of his quarterbacks looking to sprinkle a dash of Manning on the situation where possible- to spice things up- versus repeating ground and pound mastery as was common to the Kubiak way that we all used to know.

After winning with Manning, Kubiak will never be the same coach, and that's a good thing.  He will always understand that predictability of the legendary teams is only moot when you can actually win one on one battles at every position on the field, which isn't easy against Khalil Mack.  That generation of smash mouth football "NO MATTER WHAT" existed long enough to have a reasonable counter approach.  Solid man defense if you have the talent, or 8 in the box if you don't and dare Sanchez, Siemian or even old man Manning to beat you with his arm- over and over and over again.

Call It The Maniak Offense

What we won with last year was a genuine amalgamation of two great NFL minds. That kind of stuff doesn't shake itself off when the new year comes around, or stay quiet when you need to prepare for a new season to top the last one. Inevitably, Kubiak had to ask himself why- as a coach- did HIS system never work all by itself?  What role did Manning truly play in making Kubiak a championship coach finally?

Whether he came here and pre-planned this conversion with himself or not, Kubiak is now a caretaker of the book of Manning as it relates to the work ethic of the team leaders, the attention to detail of the entire team. But mostly he is now a lead disciple of run, run, run, Omaha, run, Omaha.

....or whatever the audible name's are for today.

You see, Manning was more than just famous for extra film study. Plenty of players do plenty of that. What set Manning apart from other quarterbacks was his diligence to study himself.  To search out his own flaws and to listen to his calls that were captured on tape just to determine if it was necessary to change the name of the call so that other teams had no keys on him.

Manning would do exactly what Kubiak did the other day that caused the now famous fight between Harris Jr. and Sanders.

I won't blasphemously call Manning Jesus or anything that edgy, but his career will be like the reading of a new doctrine, one that will be studied for years to come and one that someone will eventually have the audacity to try and duplicate in some shape or fashion.

The greatest likelihood is that player will come from Denver seeing as how we were so fortunate to successfully experience the final days of Manning's ministry first hand.

From several tell tell signs in Broncos training camp, his ministry lives on.
 

Again and Again, Elway (And Vegas) Wins

Punditry is the profession of know-it-all'ism, yet time and time again, we know it all's keep falling for the same emotional okey doke like everyday fans do when we don't adhere to axioms like defense winning championships as they keep saying. After Superbowl 50 ended, the top defense had added to their victories over the top offense when both meet up in the Bowl, increasing the lead to 10-2.

Defense is that known quotient that all champions attest to as the reason they walk around with the shine of victory's glory, but its never really the reason we tune in for the show.  We appreciated Von Miller being the most reliable entity in all of football this year, but not enough to ignore the bore of watching Manning and Osweiler dink and dunk their way to Superbowl supremacy.

Consequently, the speed at which our local conversation has switched over to draft and free agency in Denver is mind blowing.  Come to think  of it, we might have been  there prior to our Superbowl victory, with our head coach and the backup quarterback (the original backup, not Manning) included in the conversation of people we should retain, or not.  For now, most of that Fire Kubiak stuff has died off, yet the backdrop of doubt over the backup who's scheduled to get paid remains, along with quiet skepticism over coach Kubiak's approach and his worthiness to keep leading this great team that Elway has compiled.

The defense played so well, that we don't really know which coach to actually credit for this victory, so let's focus on the compilation of players and coaches instead.

Once again, John Elway has done exactly what people thought impossible, just like he did when he took Denver's under manned football teams to the Superbowl again and again, culminating in Superbowl victories, again and again, to close out his career. Whoever actually won the award for NFL executive of the year needs to take that award and deliver it to Elway, pronto.

This time, Elway successfully pulled the levers, engineered a plan and put it into place by compiling the parts, pieces and the mantra for how it would be accomplished.  In defensive era football, you get lucky to connect on the few chances that even great defenses will give you to make big plays in big games. Take too many chances and you are more likely to turn the ball over and suffer defeat at the hands of teams perfectly willing to make field goals and grind it out versus shooting for the stars and getting stuck in the trees.

That was how I viewed things as a pundit of the team I love.  But the Broncos remain the team that I love, which means my deep analysis is often just hope masquerading as clear eyed perspective.

In order to gain that clear eyed view when I look at teams and games from the "know-it-all" view of a pundit, I have to tip my hat to the place with the best track record for know-it-all'ism.

VEGAS.

According to the word on the street, Denver was struggling too much with offensive production and identity with the in and out of  Osweiler and Manning, whose best production had barely shown glimpses of the kind of greatness that Denver's defense produced regularly.  Listening to that same word on the street, I heard that Pittsburgh's offensive production was too much to stop for Denver or any defense.  The same unstoppable expectation torch was passed to the legend, Tom Brady, after Ben Roethlisberger and his Steelers couldn't get it done.

The rhetoric was justified and the expectations reasonable based upon the emotional view of the contest and the  regular season track record of the quarterbacks being asked to live up to the emotional view of things.

Yet, the Vegas betting lines never matched the emotions.

Sure, Vegas had New England to beat Denver, but they didn't have them to win by the numbers that emotional pundits promised the Patriots should win by.  Was Vegas confused and struggling against the trend of emotional bets?

Similarly, pundits had Cam killing Denver, but Vegas had him squeaking out a win by 3.5 points that stretched to 5.5, giving ground to emotions betting habits just to help maintain the ruse. Did Vegas already know what we finally learned?

Let's get this straight once and for all.  VEGAS IS RARELY CONFUSED ABOUT WHO WILL WIN.

If you ever start to feel like the fix is in when you watch too much NFL football, it is not because the players have pre-planned some shenanigans, it is because Vegas tells the NFL- and the rest of us- who will win (indirectly) and the NFL believes what they say, even though the rest of us don't listen.

In fact, the NFL listens closely, they try to engineer story lines around Vegas probabilities.  What that demands is to understand what Vegas does when they expect a team to be a double digit winner versus what they do when you expect the wrong team to be a double digit winner. Whatever you are thinking about the game, remember that Vegas intends to be the only real winner.

If Vegas ever catches America talking about a blowout from a team they don't even expect to win the game, it becomes a case of betting enticement that ALWAYS ends up with Vegas on top. Keep the line too low, and the bettors catch wind.  Push the line too high and the bettors get afraid their team can't cover those points.




Just so you know, Vegas might be at it again.

When the opening lines for next years Superbowl champion came out, the Broncos were nowhere near the top, with 14 to 1 odds of them winning again.  By day two, those odds dropped down to 20:1.  Did Vegas lose faith in the QB  and the free agent uncertainty in Denver, or were there just not enough people biting on the opening line so Vegas had to extend the lure a bit?

Believe it or not, Vegas might they have agitated the wrong bettor this time?

Did the lack of betting line respect for the Broncos final games impact the bite in the dogs from Denver?  Did it propel the Broncos teammates into a brotherhood of togetherness unlike we've ever seen in recent championship history? Will Peyton Manning bring that championship trophy over to the Papa John's that is 3 minutes away from my house in Denver, Colorado (where my daughter works) so we can get pictures of it?

I said that partially to name drop the fact that Manning owns the pizza parlor where my kid works, but I am mostly talking about the future for Manning the man.  What happens to this legendary champion after all the crowds stop cheering, and he's no longer climbing up the record books? Can Denver find the same passion and inspiration for greatness without their on-the-field coach pushing them to be greater than they otherwise would? Love him or hate him, Manning was exactly that for this team.  A reason to do more, and a teacher to tell you how. As a result, he still might be the most important piece of the championship puzzle that Elway has to keep together.

Is Manning really ready to call it a career just because everyone (except his teammates) thinks he should?

That is where my betting hat starts to analyze things.  Manning, a generally cocky QB, was perfectly happy to tell the entire world how thankful he was to his Bronco brothers for letting him jump on their back for a championship ride. We understood that he was riding wounded, we just didn't accept what our eyes were telling us.  Had Manning finally lost the supremacy that makes NO ONE question him as the best regular season quarterback of all time?  That may seem like a slight against his playoff failures, but sports are a funny business, and we fans rarely agree over topics like GOAT, even if we are limiting him to regular season GOAT only.

In reality, no one ever argues that point.  He stood right at the gates of being crowned as the true GOAT before Seattle and the Seahawks turned him into another losing donkey two years ago.

Quite frankly, that was the last thing that Manning needed for his already tattered legacy, and most of us Broncos faithful were not terribly happy to be gaining a quarterback with the same underachieving label that we already lived with long before his arrival, despite our back to back championships two score ago.

Functionally, the Denver Broncos have shunned their losing label with their Superbowl 50 win, but Manning has not.  Until further notice, he has simply jumped on the back of a team that was totally sick of the criticism over their tainted history with Superbowl's, and said enough already.  They said it in such a way that those same shell shocked pundits are now weighing the defensive performance against the greatest defensive performances of all time.

Denver might not have yet gained the title as Greatest D Of All Time (GDOAT), but the conversation hasn't really concluded yet either.  We are still reviewing the tape from the Bowl and the season to see what we looked at but didn't understand until it was too late. What we keep seeing keeps impressing us more and more to the point that you are either betting that Denver loses defensive players to other teams, or you are betting they retain them and solidify their place in history, depending on what side of this fan fence you sit.

That entire bet hinges on what happens at the quarterback position.  Either the Broncos will spend on their quarterback, or they will spend on their defense, because this championship team can not be retained without a financial sacrifice from several key players.  You know, like the sacrifice from a brotherhood of men that bonded itself together to overcome rookie and wounded quarterbacks as well as doubt and coaching criticism against their way of getting it done.

The criticism kind of continues in the lack of expectation for this coming year.  Either Vegas doesn't expect much from Denver, or critics don't.   The betting lines seem to suggest that critics are to blame just like they were in Superbowl 50, when Vegas knew Denver was going to beat Carolina even though the pundit expectation was for Cam to do a whole lot of dabbing.

I am also searching for some betting odds that Manning will not only stay in Denver, but that he will bring that trophy to our Papa John's so my daughter and the rest of the staff can take pictures and learn what hard work and perseverance can achieve. That speech rings slightly hollow if you were simply along for the ride.

So then he'll take a humongous pay cut just to ride that Bronco one more time, because he has plenty of outside loot with my daughter trying to pump out pizza's like a champion before she heads off to college this fall, .

Peyton might have won Superbowl 50, but did he do enough
to silence those critical of his post season failures?

I am betting that this time around, he's looking to dismount our championship horse while feeling like he was a worthy jockey and not just along for the ride. This time, he'll be playing with the same chip on his shoulder that the city of Denver flicked off with our recent championship.  This time, our championship win won't be for John or Pat or for anybody else on the planet.

This time will be for Peyton.  Bet on it.

Broncos Reach Mountain Top. Colorado Wants More

I sincerely wanted to feel ecstatically euphoric about my Denver Broncos winning Superbowl 50, but I have to be honest.  It was somewhat anti-climactic for a fan who has seen this all before.

Not so much the championship thing. Of course we've seen that part before, assuming you are of a certain age that is.  My youngest kid is heading downtown to see the big parade today because she was too young. I've done those parades, and the only thing really cool about them is the unified joy surrounding the reason you came out to celebrate in the first place.

The rest of it is sweaty, smelly and slightly claustrophobic if you suffer from such things.  The last parade brought out 650,000 revelers. This one promised to be worse...or better, depending on how you look at it.

When you combine the depression of accepting that the most unified moment of fellowship that we consistently enjoy as a nation- NFL football- has finally come to and end, I found myself more interested in searching out all of those crap talking naysayers who messaged their doubt throughout the entire season.  Even though I knew for certain that most of them were resorting to the bitter taste of whiskey to sooth their angered souls- the same whiskey that tasted extra sweet on the lips of the victors- I searched for someone who would swallow their pride and eat crow all in one failed swoop.

Nothing.

 I really hoped to find one guy who taunted all of Broncos nation with his incessant demeaning comments because no one wanted to bet him via Facebook, proving (in his mind) that no Denver fans actually believed that Denver would win.

At last posting, he's refusing to pay up to some of those same fans except an Uncle in his family who probably was the only person who had a hope in hell of collecting in the first place.

When we won it all, I thought about this "bet taunting" joker and how I could stick it in his face for doubting that my city has the stuff of championship form.

Who dat say we gonna lose another Bowl?

Did he and other Broncos naysayers have justifiable cause for the ridicule they level on this team?

In reality, my Denver Broncos are the most justifiably ridiculed champion that ever competed on the highest stage.  What we are known for is what most hate us for in the end.

We Are Over Achievers By Choice.

In Colorado, we climb 16'ers just because they are there.  No, really.

We hurt our muscles and blister our hands to reach the summit of a mountain, only to imagine in our minds the next mountain top.

Before the Broncos won, the Avs showed
them how to get it done.  Parade and all.

In Colorado, we've seen mountain tops on many occassions.  A few times, we got there only to discover that someone else reached the summit first.  Does that take away from our ability to climb or our thirst to be first?  On the contrary.  Our experiences- good, bad and ugly- have made us into the great state that we are.

We've won championship titles in every sport from lacrosse to soccer to hockey. Olympians live here just to chase after thin-aired mountain tops like we do for hobby.  We bike, we hike, we run, ski and golf all year round in this blessed state.  And though our cost of living has risen commiserate to the population boom that comes from being us, we complain and keep on moving because somewhere in that mountainous western backdrop is a spirit that inspires our passions, watches over our region, and occassionally appoints us to trials that only climbers can endure.

Columbine and the Aurora Theater were traumatic missions for a state that has now established the blueprint on terror mitigation, but our Superbowl blowouts at the hands of black quarterbacks were trauma of another, unrelated sort.   Did the butt kicking from those last two brothers set the third one up to take us for granted?  It certainly helped to remove the stigma on the black quarterback, making Cam the first black quarterback favored to win the Bowl.  We played an important role in each of those episodes. Were these traumas simply divine burdens of being us?

Hard to know for certain. What I do know is that I am Colorado, which means I am chissled and shaped by the impact of all of it.  I am Colorado, which means I ski in the morning and golf in the afternoon so that I can sooth the pain of loss and terror while remembering the importance of being diligent and aware of both.

Losing wasn't really too scary for me and those of my kind. We've seen the mountain top even when we've arrived too late.  In our NFL journey, we've summitted as many times as any team in the league, along with losing more times, losing with the biggest point deficits, and now we even have the worst quarterback rating EVER for a team that won the game.

On the other hand, we might have also won it with the best defensive performance in the history of the final game while using the best regular season quarterback in the history of the game,  backed by the best front office guy who remains in the conversation as the best quarterback to ever win as well.

You may not appreciate the results that we've achieved given the wealth of chances that we have had to do it, but you have to respect the wealth of chances.  The Denver Broncos are often in the mix and are threatening to remain in the mix for years to come.  Some might choose to focus on the failures, but even they can't deny the chances.

In Broncos nation,  we reveled in the moment for the first few hours of victory

By morning time, the only post Superbowl posts I could consistently find were "When will the Rockies and the Nuggets" do the same?

Yep.  You got it.

In Colorado, we are already seeking new mountains to climb and new parades to plan, because We Are Colorado.  That's just what we do.

I Miss The Days Of Just Being A Denver Broncos Fan

I wish I could go back to being just another Denver  Broncos fan, born and raised in the Denver Metro area.

Now I am a black American male Denver Broncos fan- born and raised in the Denver Metro area.  I never really wanted to become black, but I wasn't really given much of a choice.

I might have known that I was black long before I was forced into accepting it, but I didn't really appreciate the separation of me and my multi-cultural friends who all rooted for the Broncos the same way as kids.  We lost our ever loving, multi-racial minds when Lyle Alzado and Jon Keyworth and them boys went out and made those miracles happen. Even when they lost, Denver Broncos fans remained united with pride and appreciation for our team.

My particular North Denver neighborhood in the 70's made me an unaware minority among the posse of kids my age that included two Mexicans, one white kid and one mixed race kid whose black dad we seldom saw. Moving 10 up the road to North Aurora offered me and my siblings more of the same racial integration'ary ignorance, until those days that we played against the South Aurora white kids in sporting events and started to understand that poverty created a race of people that many whites attempted (and still do) to avoid like the plague.

It would be years before I discovered that "The Jones's" were also middle class white families that hated the white trash label and would live with the same empty refrigerator poverty and hunger that poor folks endure except for the sake of social segregation and stature.  It would also be years before I discovered that  I was no longer just a young man who loved the Denver Broncos like most born and raised Denver kids do, but I was a black man who had grown too tall too fast to remain non-threatening to the public at large.

Mike Brown Jr. had no real control over the body that he was
born into, and the fear that it would invokes in other people.
Neither does Cam Newton. 

Apparently, my really smart black friend who grew faster, stronger and quicker than I did, evoked similar responses when walking in his own neighborhood that just so happened to be a little too South Aurora for two dark skinned, North Aurora looking boys.  I am not sure if my mother warned me about the challenge of dating one of those white girls that kept calling the house before or after that time we got pulled over by the cops for walking the street while black around the corner from my homey's way too nice house, but each occurance shook my identity and innocence. I was forever altered from that time- from that mirror that I never had a reason or a desire to see in that way before.

The image of me that made people afraid probably had me running to the comforts of an Historically Black College.  And yes- it was comforting to go an entire week without seeing any white people except that one white guy on campus who loved him some black foke.

But it wasn't reality.

In reality, I wanted to go back to my Mexican and white people, my white snow, and to being just a Denver Broncos fan and not a black male Denver Broncos fan.  I wanted to hate the hell out of being in college in super black Atlanta, GA when my Broncos lost to that first black quarterback, Doug Williams; but he killed my team, and it was undeniably easy to feel happy for the opportunity that he was creating for so many young black men that play football, but just want to be MEN.

Was Russell Wilson more accepted  than Cam because he is not
 so black looking or because he isn't so brash......or both?

I am not proud of those days when I celebrated OJ's guilty ass getting found not guilty.  By that time, I was made fully aware of my blackness and the retributive fear associated with being black, and at the time, it felt like the triumph of the underdog. With this upcoming football game, there is a similar guilt that this 47 year old black male, Denver native, Broncos fan can't actually lose this upcoming Superbowl because I am  fully represented by the underdogs I'm supporting on both sides of the field.


I am not at all proud that a really small part of me (I was a Broncos fan long before I became black) is rooting for a win by virtue of a loss. But it's real and it's true.

From the day we first met him, Cam Newton has remained the same unabashedly proud black man who just so happens to love the game of football, but refuses to conform himself to the comforts of critics.  Cam has done Cam since the very beginning.  Most of his critics said that he needed to win like Gronk and Brady before he behaved like Gronk and Brady. Now they just don't like him.

I appreciate the example that Cam gives all of us to be unashamedly YOU.  The fact that he happens to be black is something that he and I wish didn't matter so much for NFL quarterbacks, coaches or American presidents. On his team, they refer to him as Obama.  Is he similarly paving the way for a generation of hopeful black men?

What Cam is doing might revive Tim Tebow's career as well as making my young black daughter feel a little more comfortably with being an unashamedly young black woman- even at work.  Life is too short and too full of critics to allow racial, or any criticism, to limit or define you. Cam is not only teaching the world how an athletic quarterback- who might also be black- can succeed in the role, he is showing the masses how to stay true to yourself in whatever you're doing.

Regardless of the games outcome, there is simply no way for this black male Denver  Broncos fan to hate on Cam, or lose this game.