A Bronco fan was born on January 25, 1987. He began his life watching a quarterback named John Elway fight for a Super bowl victory that just wasn’t meant to be. He watched the struggle of a man who had single handedly (is that a word?) taken a team that wasn’t a super bowl contender to the super bowl. The young boy of 11 dreamed of the Broncos. He fell in love with the Broncos. He became a bigger and bigger (the size of his fandom and the size of his belly) fan of the Broncos and had to watch them struggle through two more Super bowl losses to the Redskins and the 49ers. The 80’s were a rough decade for the young boy and for John Elway and his Broncos.
But they both pressed on. The boy grew into a teenager and eventually graduated from high school, now with a huge collection of Broncos clothes and John Elway football cards. He even saved cards of other Bronco players, you know, the lesser know Broncos. He watched every year religiously, through the losing years under coaches Dan Reeves
and Wade Phillips. Then they hired a man named Mike Shanahan. And he brought the Broncos something that Elway was missing all those super bowl loosing years.
A running game. The boy (now a young man) was happy that his team looked like it may be back on top again. The Broncos made a great run in 1996 which ended in the worst way possible, with Denver loosing to Jacksonville at home to end what was to be the season of the Broncos. Elway was devastated, and so was the young man. The young man, now a college student, was sorely disappointed with the end to his teams season. But he pressed on as a fan. He wasn’t going to give up just because his team was knocked out of the Playoffs way too early. He was a true fan. Almost nothing would take away his passion for Bronco football.
Of course, everyone remembers what happened the next two years. The Denver Broncos and John Elway became Super bowl champions in back to back seasons, staring the 1999 season 13-0 before loosing their first game (Mercury Morris finally breathed). The Broncos were on top of the world. And so was the young man. He was in the prime of his Bronco life, at the young age of 24. He was on top of the football world, as his team had won back to back super bowls.
Then, devastation hit. John Elway announced his retirement and actually retired (take a hint from that Brett Farve).
Bronco fans were saddened that he was calling it quits, and our young Bronco fan took it particularly hard. He was on top of the world, hoping for the first 3-peat in the history of the NFL, but now it wasn’t to be. With Elway’s retirement, a 3-peat was out of the question. His hopes dashed, he wandered aimlessly through the off-season wondering what would become of him and his team. He was confused, alone and afraid. Should he continue to follow his team without the team’s leader and hero? Should he burn all of his bronco stuff including his two Elway jerseys? Should he eat another hamburger?
At least he knew the answer to the last question.
So began the Brian Griese era, and the young fan was skeptical about the how the team would perform without their great leader. Could Griese keep the winning tradition together? The answer, was of course, no, just as the young fan had feared. Well, now we will start calling him a middle aged fan. Griese had a few bad years and then moved on to another team. It was a midlife crisis of sorts for the middle aged fan. He was trying to be totally sold out to his favorite team, but they were not exactly impressing him or doing anything to keep his confidence level up to where it should be. But he pressed on. He may have watched other teams, he may have rooted for some other quarterback on some other club, but his heart still belonged to the Broncos. At least most of it.
The came Jake “the snake” Plummer. The fan wasn’t getting any younger, and neither was Plummer. The fan was now very confused about what to do. Why Jake? What were the Broncos thinking? It seemed like a bad decision, at first, but it actually turned out well. Jake “the snake” looked better than he ever had in Arizona, and led the Broncos to the AFC Championship game in 2005, and it was in Denver. Once again, The Broncos disappointed the fan. He couldn’t believe that the Broncos had lost so badly when they had home field advantage, again. Jake “the snake” put the second nail in the coffin of this aging Bronco fan.
Then, the answer came, the late life surge for this Bronco fan, so to speak. Jay Cutler. Jay replaced “the snake” the following season about 5 games in, and, although he kinda sucked it up that first season, it was kind of expected. Jay was going to be the next great thing in Denver. Denver had a good running game, and finally, they had a quarterback again. The now aged Bronco fan knew that this was what would keep his pulse going as a Bronco fan, and hard throwing quarterback. He took a couple of seasons to get set in, but, he finally did and the Broncos started 2008 with a 4-0 record and they were looking good (if you don’t care about defense).
Then, Mr. Cutler made an offhand comment about having a stronger arm then Elway ever had, and yet another nail was put in the mans coffin. But he was willing to live with Mr. Cutler’s arrogance as long as the Cut kept winning. But the Cut did not keep winning. In fact, they were in first place from week 1 to week 16, and they blew in week 17 by getting blown out in Denver by the San Diego Chargers and their classy quarterback, Phillipe Rivers, who knew that somehow he deserved to win the game. And then the 2008 season was over.
At this point the man, now well into his late fan years, was very close to death. How could the Broncos do this to a man with a weak heart? What were they thinking sucking that bad to end the season? Where was his Metamucil? The man pondered these questions and more. And then, out of nowhere, the man died. April 25, 2009, the bronco fan in the man passed away. Well, it really wasn’t out of nowhere. It took a combination of the firing of Shanahan, the hiring of Coach McStupid,(pictured here)
the attempted acquiring of Matt Castle, the denial of said attempted acquiring, the stupid press conferences about the denial of said attempted acquiring, the talk about “Jay being our man”, the trading of the Cut, and finally the fact that Baylor scrimmaged the Bronco defense and scored 128 points against them and Coach McStupid drafted a running back in the first round. So maybe there was a reason why he died.
Either way, the bronco fan is dead, and he is not coming back, and he is ready to be re-born, he just needs to find a team to follow as religiously as he did the Broncos for all those years.
