From sighs to shrugs: A walk through the most remarkable season in Broncos’ history
Guest Blogger, our old Twitter pal from Aurora, @SchmanthonyP, brings the noise with this 3,100 word Broncos diatribe. Grab yourself a Venti coffee, fire up the Ipad and enjoy.
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At the end of the 2005 season, the Denver Broncos finished 13-3 and were eliminated one game short of the Super Bowl. Since then, the experience of being a Broncos fan has been one of frustration and disappointment. 2006′s promising 7-2 start fizzled thanks to a knee-jerk quarterback change and a 2-5 finish. 2007 was forgettable from the start, but they appeared to have it figured out by 2008, leading their division by three games with three games remaining. Three weeks later, they had become the first team in NFL history to blow a three-game divisional lead with three games remaining. This appeared to be the last straw, and owner Pat Bowlen axed long-tenured head coach Mike Shanahan. Brash wunderkind Josh McDaniels was hired and proceeded to blow up the team to considerable controversy, but it seemed to be paying off when the Broncos began 6-0, including a win on national television against their hated rivals, the San Diego Chargers. Denver proceeded from there to lose eight out of their next ten in increasingly agonizing fashion, including giving top-pick bust JaMarcus Russell his only career highlight. 2010 was the worst Broncos season since they went to a sixteen-game schedule. A 4-12 record meant McDaniels was out, and the only rousing game was conversation-topic quarterback Tim Tebow leading a comeback against the worst defense in the league when the opposing offense politely stopped scoring.
This didn’t appear to be a feasible formula going forward, so uncharismatic but solidly respectable quarterback Kyle Orton was called on to begin the 2011 season under new head coach John Fox. For those who operate on facts and rationality instead of hype when making decisions, Orton appeared to be the best option. The Broncos offense struggled in a listless season opener against scrappy rival Oakland, but the team’s weaknesses (questionable offensive line, receivers struggling to get open) would seem only to be exacerbated with the relatively green Tebow behind center (he struggled so mightily during the shortened preseason that an infamous anonymous source put Tebow at fourth on the depth chart behind career disappointment Brady Quinn and unknown Adam Weber). Orton led them to a close win over Cincinnati in Week 2, but followed that with a leaden 17-14 loss to Tennessee, a blowout vs. the champion Packers and an awful first half against San Diego as fans and media clamored for Orton’s charismatic backup. Heading for a 1-4 start, it seemed like a no-stakes time to throw Tebow out there, and Tebow shocked an entirely unprepared Chargers team, nearly leading them to a victory.
Conservative head coach John Fox seemed reluctant to allow Tebow to start the following week against winless Miami, and his skepticism appeared to be borne out when the Broncos stunk up the joint, and Miami amassed a 15-0 lead with under four minutes left. On my Twitter account, I queried with rhetorical disgust if the NFL Yearbook package on the 2011 Broncos season would simply be titled “*Heavy Sigh*“, the sound most associated with this languishing squad. Then, with the Dolphins defense relaxing, Tebow found his first groove, and the Broncos scored a touchdown, continuing the longest non-shutout streak in NFL history (since 1992!; no other team has made it more than five years). Then the Broncos recovered an unlikely onside kick, and we all got to pretend this was still a game for a few more minutes…until Tebow completed one long pass, then another, and suddenly the Broncos were in the endzone with a touchdown to cut the deficit to two. They went for two, Tebow ran it in, and delirium had set in. It wasn’t even a sense of pride or excitement, just a dazed high, witnessing the near-impossible occur without any competitive weight whatsoever.
The following week, the honeymoon appeared to be over as Denver got demolished 45-10 at home by Detroit. Week 9 brought a visit to presumptive new-division-champion Oakland, the stakes so low I watched it in an apartment full of Raider fans in the middle of Aurora, since they they could be in a celebratory mood and the Broncos would be one step closer to drafting a real franchise quarterback like Andrew Luck or Matt Barkley. Early rounds of the match maintained that storyline, with the Raiders leading 17-7 at the half. The Broncos hung around for the third quarter but it never seemed like they were on the verse of doing anything…when out of nowhere, the Broncos offensive coaching staff unleashed their secret weapon. Like the Dolphins stunning mighty New England with the Wildcat back in 2008, the Broncos reached down into the old-timey high-school playbook and brought out a zone-read option, where Tim Tebow, a running threat at quarterback, would hold the ball and decide at the last possible second whether to hand it to running back Willis McGahee or pull it back and abscond with it himself. Oakland had NO ANSWER for this simple conceit, and McGahee blazed for a bewildering 60-yard game-tying touchdown to close out the third quarter. In the 4th, struggling wide receiver Eddie Royal received a chance to return a punt, and from his fifteen yard line, stepped right, stepped correct and found an open path to the endzone. Somehow the Broncos were winning this game, dumbfounding Oakland and Denver fans alike. Oakland had a chance to answer, but ran out of time, and the Broncos added another touchdown to seal it. The improbable had happened again. I departed before the frustrated denizens of the apartment could visit bodily harm upon me, but I jumped for joy at the first possible moment.
The Broncos had unleashed the zone read on an unsuspecting Raiders defense, but the reigning division-champ Chiefs had a week to study it, so it would no longer be a surprise, and Tebow found himself unable to complete more than one solitary pass in a crushingly boring, low-scoring game. The Broncos had managed to eke out a 10-7 lead, but it seemed like eventually the defense would run out of gas and Kansas City would find a rhythm. Then, with 6:52 to go, Tebow made everyone, EVERYONE, do yet another incredulous, elated shrug when he uncorked an absolutely perfect 56-yard bomb to Eric Decker for a touchdown. That would be the last pass he completed. 2 of 8. 69 yards. One touchdown. Somehow, a victory. At this point, it remained a novelty, something that made you chuckle and shake your head, but didn’t carry a lot of long-term ramifications. It was mostly just funny that somehow the lowly Broncos had more wins than the “Dream Team” Eagles.
Four days later, the Broncos had a date on national television with the high-powered and cocky New York Jets, and all sensible members of the media insisted the Broncos would wilt in the presence of a “real team”, as the Jets had been to two straight AFC Championship games. Instead, the Broncos hung around, hung around, hung around, and with a minute left, trailing by three, Tim Tebow found an angle, turned the corner, and added another rung to his legend with a twenty-yard touchdown jaunt, followed by a dog pile from seemingly every single member of the Broncos organization as the crowd all but tore down the newly-christened Sports Authority Field at Mile High. The Broncos had reached .500, but after beating the Jets, the Broncos got another “real team” they would inevitably fall to: perpetually-tardy division giants San Diego. But again, Denver loitered for as long as they could before knocking off the Bolts in overtime. By now it felt like a rerun, the same story with different actors and a different setting, but the same result: Denver was 6-5.
They had finally built a small cadre of believers amongst the national media and football analysts in their matchup with lowly Minnesota, but instead the Broncos found themselves in a shootout. One one side was Denver’s second-year wideout Demaryius Thomas, a man open so consistently that it almost appeared he was running in from the sideline during each play. On the other end was dangerous Vikings toolkit Percy Harvin, who took short gains and turned them into long touchdowns. Late in the fourth, the era colloquially known as “Tebow Time”, there was more points than usual on the board but the Broncos again found themselves down three with three minutes to go. Thomas broke open again and Denver got close enough to tie it. It was here that a common thread emerged: teams facing the Broncos knew what was coming, yet continually made bizarre mistakes that cost them games. The Jets forgot to contain the one threat to run, the Chargers’ sure-footed kicker couldn’t find the back of the net, and in Minnesota, Vikings QB Christian Ponder somehow threw a reckless pass directly to Broncos CB Andre Goodman with 93 seconds left. On the radio call, the interception is punctuated with a small gasp from color coordinator Brian Griese, and that sharp intake of breath tells you everything you need to know. Play-by-play man Dave Logan’s exclamation of “I can’t believe he made that throw!” was just icing of the cake. From there, the win was a formality. The Broncos were 7-5, and somehow, somehow, in the driver’s seat for the AFC West.
The next opponent was Chicago, and with their magical run, it seemed fortuitous that the Bears were mired in a losing streak, having lost their rifle-armed quarterback (and ex-Bronco) Jay Cutler, replacing him with low-wattage backup Caleb Hanie. The thought was, perhaps, this could finally be a comfortable home win for Denver. But immediate success eluded the Broncos, and when Tebow put it on the ground midway through the fourth quarter, Chicago’s 10-0 lead was a deficit that finally seemed TOO insurmountable. Denver’s offense managed to eke out a touchdown just before the two-minute warning, but surely they couldn’t get another onside kick, right? In an almost mocking zapping of hope, Denver had two men with a chance at the ball before Chicago recovered, sure to run out the clock. When veteran running back Marion Barber found an open lane on the outside, though, runner’s instinct took precedent over common sense, and he was bumped out of bounds, STOPPING the clock. But there was no Tebow magic, as the drive died at the 42. Matt Prater would have to come out and blast an insanely far 59-yard field goal. The ball is snapped. Hold down. Soars through the air. Are you kidding me? Nothin’ but net. Dave Logan’s stunned cackling spoke to the madness taking place. But there was still an overtime to be played, and Chicago not only won the toss, but stormed down the field. Marion Barber took a handoff and stutter-stepped into the clear as he erased his mistake at the end of regulation with a huge overtime touchd–wait. Broncos linebacker Wesley Woodyard got a hand in on Barber’s arm, and somehow, impossibly, the ball ended up in the hands of Broncos sackmaster Elvis Dumervil. It just. Kept. Happening. The winning field goal was going to have to come from 51 yards out, but no sports movie ends with the bad guys winning right? Hell no. No sweat, Broncos are 8-5.
The following Saturday, the Broncos were the topic of a sketch on Saturday Night Live, with Jesus telling Tim Tebow he was tired of helping Denver to victory. Apparently SNL spoiled the trick, as the Broncos’ magic abruptly disappeared: after a fast start in Week 15, Denver collapsed eighteen floors to a basement blowout vs. New England, and things got worse the following weekend as they were demolished in Buffalo. The final weekend, their magic number for the playoffs was one: they would have to beat rival Kansas City, now lead by ex-Bronco Kyle Orton, or leave it in the hands of the despised Chargers to knock off Oakland. Denver came out and played their usual first-fifty-five minutes of awful, unproductive ball, but when the chips were down, no magic came, and the Broncos fell in demoralizing fashion, by a score of 7-3. For twenty horrible minutes, all Bronco fans became Charger fans, and for those twenty minutes, the Chargers did the Broncos right, playing spoiler for Oakland’s division hopes, and sending the Broncos backing into their first division title since 2005.
Taking the division title away from the other denizens of the AFC West was going to have to be its own reward for the Broncos, because they weren’t getting past perennial Super Bowl contenders Pittsburgh, right? Obviously everyone would love for Denver to win, but it seemed highly unlikely considering their recent spiral of defeat. Regardless of the status of Steelers quarterback Ben Roethlisberger, Tim Tebow couldn’t complete a pass, and the Steelers had the best run defense in the league. Many Bronco fans had preemptively arrived at “acceptance” in their Five Stages of Sports Grief. The Broncos looked lame again in a first quarter where they found themselves down six, with the second quarter, the quarter that had sent all their recent games spiraling down, waiting in the wings. After spending thirteen straight quarters looking like a beaten, broken, exhausted team, the bell rang for the fourteenth. The Broncos gingerly raised themselves off the canvas, walked up to the Steelers, touched gloves…and landed an abrupt haymaker right on their chins. Out of nowhere, Tim Tebow was BOMBING passes deep and on point, perfect throws to Demaryius Thomas and Eddie Royal earned them two touchdowns, and another late flurry earned them two more field goals. “Acceptance” had flown out the window.
If the Broncos had finally come out of their second-quarter funk, it seemed to go at the cost of their second-half spirit. Having manufactured expectations out of thin air and having erased the possibility of being satisfied with a mere division title and a first round loss, the Steelers’ methodical climb back to even proved agonizing, and Roethlisberger’s remarkable late-game touchdown bomb to Jericho Cotchery brought all those memories of 2006 and 2008 and 2009 flooding back; different personnel but that same Broncos result, easing that door of hope open juuuust enough to slam it on your hand. For once, the Broncos were going to overtime without the comeback momentum; their inert, lethargic play giving little hope for any potential positive excitement down the road, even if they won the coin toss. But hey, you might as well win the coin toss, right? Denver did, and another booming kickoff began their overtime period at their own 20 yard line. Even if they would surely run yet another demoralizing sequence of “run up the middle for one, run up the middle for none, force an incomplete pass on third down, punt”.
It happened so quickly I didn’t react. I didn’t stand. I didn’t cheer. I didn’t yell. I didn’t raise my arms I barely even widened my eyes. It came like a shotgun blast to the head, so perhaps it’s fitting that Tim Tebow took the first snap of overtime from the shotgun. He received the ball, faked a handoff underneath, and rifled a pass over the middle to a crossing Demaryius Thomas. The defenders were so close that my first emotion once the completion was made was worry. If he got tackled, something strange and cruel still had the potential to occur. But instead, Thomas turned upfield, stiff-armed Steelers cornerback Ike Taylor, and rumbled eighty yards for the instant victory. In the blink of an eye, the Broncos were moving on to the divisional round. Perhaps five minutes later, I began giggling uncontrollably.
The following week, the Broncos were assaulted so quickly by New England there was barely time to get chips and dip poured into respective bowls before their season was effectively over. By the two-minute warning of the first half, the Broncos were down 35-7 and we were pilfering the DVR for something more pleasant to watch. The New England Patriots may win the Super Bowl this Sunday, and if they do, the Broncos will appear twice as pathetic foils during their highlight video. But that frustration eventually gave way to a resurgence of acceptance; the season as a whole coming into focus: Starting 1-4 and making the playoffs. Pulling out insane last-second wins up and down the year. Keeping Oakland, San Diego and Kansas City out of the playoffs. Ending the Super Bowl hopes for the Pittsburgh Steelers. Winning more playoff games than the 15-1 Green Bay Packers. Becoming the single most talked about team in the league. Starting a national posing craze.
This has been the most remarkable season of Broncos football in my dozen years of viewership, simply because after a certain point, everything stopped making sense. I’ve never been a religious or particularly spiritual man, and during almost every minute of every game this season, I was convinced the Denver Broncos were going to lose. And yet…if the game was close late, and the Broncos had the ball in their hands, I had confidence that they would at least have a CHANCE of pulling it out. The two-minute warning used to be the essential end to a football game. With this team, it worked like an extra quarter, Even the games they didn’t pull out, you had to keep watching, because every game, they probably wouldn’t…but they might. It wasn’t even confidence, really. Instead, it felt like, well, faith. Tim Tebow’s religious or personal beliefs are a non-issue, but there was always a chance for something transcendent to occur. There’s no telling how he’ll do in this coming season. He’ll have an entire offseason to prepare, but so will everyone else. But he took over a team that was going nowhere, and gave that team reason to believe. The Broncos’ NFL Yearbook was a heavy sigh, and he helped turn it into an elated, incredulous shrug. You never knew what would happen, but you HAD to keep watching, because something insane might just be right around the corner. The Denver Broncos probably won’t win the Super Bowl in 2012……but they might.
