I tried really hard to write some cool post about the upcoming season and the prospects for a team that is fresh off of winning a Superbowl, but much like last year, nobody has Denver coming out on top again except my brother Troy.That's right. Unless your name is Troy E. Brewer (aka., TC from the MOB), you did not expect this team to win Superbowl 50 until 20 minutes after it was over and the truth was no longer refutable. Those of you who think ANY Superbowl champ is just lucky are still in a state of shock over it all, and the new season is just around the corner.
Only my brother Troy had the Broncos winning it all, but truth be told, he has Denver going undefeated almost every year, which usually has him sounding like that boy who cried wolf.
Like that boy, eventually Troy was right too. While we never got the rest of the story about that wolf crying boy, if my brother Troy is an accurate example, I would imagine that many of the villagers went back to being skeptical about the boys claims. No, they didn't alter the wolf sighting system one bit as the boy continued in his unique role of being the ONLY ONE WATCHING out for wolves. Skepticism, however, does not die so easily.
When wolves or wild Broncos ransack the village, they briefly grab attention but can't hold it captive for some reason. Maybe it's the pompous skepticism of once great men, like those 49'ers or Cowboys who think they control things they haven't even touched in the modern era of civilization or sports. These Broncos have seen the mountain top and understand the climb. They've built a team perfectly capable of finishing this expedition again. Yet, even in the face of strong reasons to believe, people form opinions that they would rather not stand down from until they have little choice.
Because the Broncos have lost more Bowl's than they've won, we all have choice and opinions about them. Maybe America prefers 4-12 or 8-8 and a playoff loss? Denver may never be America's new team, but can we acknowledge the recent history of success of the Broncos organization, or must we excuse their full throttled control of national news every year since Tim Tebow played, as luck or something else?
Not that any team would choose to willingly let go of a moniker so bodacious as America's Team. Disregard, if you can, that large parts of America never watched America's Team win for America since their last championship predates the Internet. Nonetheless, Dem Boys insist themselves to be "America's Team" even while most of America is Google searching pictures of when Dallas was a perennial winner instead of a putting any real championship hope in a scrambling Tony Romo who is one injury away from being the excuse for 4-12 again.
As Dallas fans insist that America could care less about those destructive Broncos because they are waiting on Dem Boys to return to championship form, keep in mind that few teams in the NFL have won as many games, division and conference titles- or championships- as the Broncos have since America's Team last won a title. New England has reason to stake a claim over the NFL since they've won 4 titles (1 more than Denver) after 1995 (the last Cowboy championship).
That's right. You 20 year olds who play Madden football video games don't really know John Madden or the days when Dallas actually won championships.
Maybe even the Steelers should drape their curtain over Dallas with 2 championship wins in this century and the most of all time. Both Steelers and Cheaters fans are among the skeptics unwilling to acknowledge that a wild bucking Bronco could crash the village again, running away with the valuables as they've done on 3 out of 4 attempts post '96.
3 Superbowl victories don't outweigh the distrust that friends and foe alike have developed from the Denver Broncos 5 losses, forgetting that 8 times now Troy was right- the wolf was truly at the gate of the village. One more appearance will establish Denver as the wolf to fear the most giving the Broncos the record for most times having stormed the village.
Our skeptical Broncos fans enjoyed winning a title. Sort of. What they don't enjoy is being the laughing stock of Superbowl losing appearances, or the anxiety of it happening again. Elway removed some of that stigma when he could play, but Manning brought it back in spades while falling short in every season as a Bronco including last year's Superbowl victory in which he barely did enough to not hurt the defense or shame his family name. In an odd way, it felt like Elway had done it again for this team, especially to the anxiety filled whose emotional instability proves their level of confidence and their true opinions about the potential outcome.
People don't enjoy being wrong in their opinions even when their opinion spells doom to their own team. Essentially, that amounts to most people being happy to never or rarely play for a title instead of being the Buffalo Bills or the Minnesota Vikings, or the Denver Broncos, whose losses have become fodder for ridicule and humorous memes.
Actually, Cowboys fans seem perfectly fine with being wrong because they keep creating those memes to discredit winning teams while longing for the day they get to meme their first playoff win since they haven't had one during the era of meme's.
I expressed my own opinions of doom against the air force Broncos, not the ground control team that won the Superbowl. I also proudly boasted when my opinions bore fruit. Actually, the Manning air force refused to simply die and go away while that ground control team never remained around long enough for anyone to know if they would show up when it mattered the most. So, even I had to wonder which team would be there in the end. In hindsight, uncertainty might have been a major key to our Superbowl victory.
In hindsight, Troy wasn't selling wolf tickets about the Broncos. He always expected his team would show up when it mattered. To believe his team could win every game has never meant that they couldn't be challenged, it only meant that they were perfectly capable of meeting every challenge, be that injury or free agency.
Most of us knew Brandon Marshall has been taking over for Danny Trevathan for a couple of seasons, starting right at the point of Trevathan's knee injury two years ago, and is actually the leader of the defense that made Trevathan and his rebuilt knee expendable. Troy, on the other hand, probably watched and remembers Marshall from college or earlier, and likely expected him to become the player he is now. He probably even told us so, but no one really listened to him before. Like many fans, Troy occasionally over estimates the efficacy of his own draftees, but he was Mel Kuyper before Mel knew we needed him. His love for this team and the acquired talent exists because he knows and follows the players much closer than most. Always has.
When Troy got a new football helmet as a toddler, I recall him jumping out of our brother's bathtub to go try out his Floyd Little moves in the front lawn.
No, he did not put his clothes on first. Just the helmet.
Has he been picking the Broncos to go undefeated since Floyd Little ran on our fields inspiring a streaking football fanatic toddler? Why yes he has. At least in his heart.
The rest of us Broncos fans need to acknowledge that John Elway, and his cast of characters wearing Orange and Blue, shocked everyone but Troy.
Fully loaded teams rarely repeat, so the history doesn't point to any new reason for the Broncos to win with Butt Fumble Sanchez or some first year dude as their new quarterback. Although most skeptics will tell you that they are not picking the Superbowl 50 winners to do a darn thing this year either- since Superbowl winners don't usually lose a quarterback or two en route to a repeat- most peoples expectations are exactly the same as they were last year, mainly because we all hated being so wrong about Elway, Coach Gary Kubiak and the Broncos before.
NOBODY BELIEVES IN THE DENVER BRONCOS.......
..........QUITE LIKE TROY
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| This is my bro Troy. Don't disrespect his big head. Maybe that's where all of the football knowledge is stored. #DB4L |
I will.
I will stand down from my measured mediocrity predictions of this year and last, because it is only rooted in my lingering doubt of a team that shocked us and defied our expectations to begin with. They couldn't even finish the last game with anything predictable except defense. Yet they won, and they continue to chisel and form this defense under the watchful hands of a coaching staff that's only had one year to put it's fingerprint on things, but still molded this team to the top of the heap.
For this team to take a big step backwards means the coaching staff had no clue and didn't pull off
miracles by marrying two opposing offensive concepts into one. Stepping back means they'll have a harder time without Manning forcing the entire offense to learn said two concepts. The evidence says otherwise. The evidence says that Denver will be cleaning up their offensive approach and clarify everyone's role more than they did en route to winning it all.
So Today I join Troy, the driver of the real Broncos bandwagon. Not with that annual undefeated wolf crying prediction, but with the full fledged, genuine endorsement of this team and its championship belief of themselves. Given the history and the results, my Denver Broncos are as likely as a Patriot, and much more likely than Dem Boys to steal another one from the Steelers and come out on top again.
If the Cowboys fans can actually justify their optimism after 4-12 and a failed offensive line that they hope can keep Romo upright and make lanes for a rookie runner, why should Broncos fans be more worried?.
Pulling off the impossible with minimal expectation removes the need not worry, because you've already completed the impossible. To the average NFL fan, the only thing more implausible than last season will be Denver's even more unexpected repeat. When you hop on the proper bandwagon, you don't worry either because you discover that to true champions, the unexpected suddenly becomes beyond plausible. It's expected. This team won because they couldn't imagine losing, kinda like Troy, the Real Broncos Fan.
So drive on big bro. Until further notice, you and Elway are the only people who seem to understand this football business, and you both have me and this team convinced of our prospects for the season ahead.
