The Darkest Of Days For The Broncos

Please help me welcome another new contributor to the PO staff. S.C. Hunt was at the “Invesco Fiasco” weeks ago and lived to tell the tale. With the Broncos playing at home for the first time since losing to the Raiders 59-14, all we can hope for is a competitive game for the sake of Bronco humanity. Enjoy S.C.’s work and leave him some feedback in the comments section.  

Humiliation.

All I could be thankful for was that I didn’t paint my face orange and blue this dark day—maybe the darkest of days. That, and the fact that misery loves company. We were hardly alone as we walked in procession across the bridge spanning the South Platte River on the edge of LoDo. Everyone was looking for somewhere to hide, somewhere to inconspicuously lose the bright orange sweatshirt in favor of something less embarrassing. Like a Wal-Mart employee uniform.

And it wasn’t even halftime.

Lecture me if you will about leaving before the final gun—a soul can only take so much torture. If it makes you feel better, I watched the balance of the “game” in a bar with like-minded compadres. If we had to endure this, we sure as hell weren’t coughing up eight bucks for draft swill, a souvenir cup and intolerable Raider fans.

59-14. Lord, how did they ever score 14?

A Bronco fan for life, I’m sure I was one of thousands who contemplated hanging it up on Oct. 24, 2010—the day that will live forever in our collective, afflicted subconscious. Lest we forget (and how could we?)

Why would we continue to put ourselves through this misery, this folly, led by a man-child with more hubris than sense? Are we nuts? We fill a stadium to the brink, only to be rewarded with a JV effort against the most-hated team of all.

But, like you, I was right back in front of the TV the following Sunday—you know, the day the Broncos penalized themselves out of an overseas victory against the other Bay Area team. Thank God for the Bronx cheer. Without it, the tiny bar in equally tiny Cedaredge, Colo., would have been mausoleum.

I was encouraged, though. Not because of the Broncos—they disgust me (and, yet, I love them, so—don’t you?) But because here, in the hinterlands of Broncos Country, there are still fans whose enthusiasm can register on the Richter scale. At the game the week before, during those first few minutes of the contest before the Raiders’ route began, the guy behind us tapped us on the shoulders and had the stones to ask, “Would you mind just standing up after the play, not during the play?”

Puh-lease.

I believe we’ve brought much of this upon ourselves. We allow Steelers fans to overtake our stadium, and Raiders fans to walk without harassment (of course I’m kidding, Officer) through the concourses of Mile High. Denver is quickly becoming a city of transplants for whom the numbers 1-9-7-7 mean almost nothing. Those of us who shot from womb in an orange and blue (predominantly orange, of course) ooze are now a minority in our own hometown.

And, now, we have the man-child. Enough said.

These are dark days, indeed, Bronco fans… dark days. But we can no sooner stop cheering for the guys wearing our laundry on the football field than we can stop breathing in and breathing out, and that, by the way, is the nebulous expiration date on my time as a Bronco fan. I suppose it’s fitting—we’ve seen the highs, the lows and a decade of average. Now we get to royally suck. We get to experience it all.

Are there brighter days to come? I’m no football expert, but I hope so.

For the sake of our sanity, I hope so.

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