High expectations mean spoiled fans in Broncos Country
“Unlike in the Elway years we failed to watch the Broncos with wide-eyed amazement. Instead we anticipated victories and felt vindicated when they came. That’s why the loss in the Super Bowl hurt the way it did.”
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One year ago today Broncos Country was buoyed by high expectations. It was a foregone conclusion that the 2013 Denver Broncos were going to win the Super Bowl. The team, which had stumbled in the previous post-season in a high scoring affair versus the Baltimore Ravens, was prepared to reset, still with Peyton Manning under center and with the additions of Wes Welker, Dominique Rodgers-Cromartie and guard Louis Vasquez. The experts agreed. This was to be their year.
The 2013 Broncos season was predicated by the notion that sixteen regular season games would comprise an extended pre-season through which the team would virtually coast – and that the proverbial rubber would not hit the proverbial road until the playoffs began. That prediction came true, of course. The Broncos began the year by trouncing the rival Ravens on a Thursday night at home, knocking the monkey off their backs and triggering a six-game win streak to begin the year. They would not incur their first loss until Peyton made his much-anticipated return to Indy. The Broncos’ were edged by a hyped-up Colts team that could ill afford to lose. Denver lost again in New England and once at home to the Chargers on their way to the 13-3 season most pundits foresaw.
It wasn’t until the playoffs began that Broncos Country sat on pins and needles. Anything short of a Lombardi Trophy was to be considered a failure for the 2013 Broncos who earned a first-round playoff bye and seemed poised to plow through all comers on their way to the big game.
The Broncos’ post-season “revenge tour” involved convincing home victories against the Patriots and Chargers, two of the three teams that managed to beat them during the regular season. Denver had met the expectations of the experts and of their fans. They would represent the AFC in the Super Bowl.
We all know what happened then.
Nobody in Broncos Country had ever watched a football season the way they watched the 2013 season. Each regular season game was a formality. As the year unfolded all that there was for fans to really root for were the records that Denver’s incredible offense would break along the way. As exciting as the season was it lacked the drama of the unknown. Fans had been told from the time the team broke camp that their squad was going to the big game and as the year unfolded the prediction appeared more and more accurate. The Broncos had no equal in the AFC.
During Denver’s two playoff wins in 2013 the feeling among the fans was that the Broncos should easily dispatch both teams. It was as if the Broncos couldn’t truly “win” since winning was presumed. They could only lose the way they had lost to the Ravens the previous year. And, in the Super Bowl, they did. Only the Super Bowl was far more crushing than the divisional loss to the Ravens. The Seattle Seahawks proved that, for a dominant as Denver had been in the AFC, the gap between them and the best teams in the NFC was canyonesque.
Based on the way they were beaten in the Super Bowl the Broncos have once again turned to free agency to make vast improvements. The additions of TJ Ward, Aqib Talib and DeMarcus Ware promise to bolster a defense that got abused by Seattle. On offense the loss of Eric Decker was offset by the signing of former Steeler Emmanuel Sanders, whose speed and agility mean that Peyton Manning should hardly miss a beat. The Broncos also get back Von Miller and Ryan Clady, each of whom missed the majority of the 2013 season.
The Broncos are even better than they were a year ago.
This season, however, should not be viewed the way that 2013 was. Frankly, that wasn’t much fun. Our expectations last season caused many in Broncos Country not to enjoy the dominance of the Broncos the way they might otherwise had. Unlike in the Elway years we failed to watch the Broncos with wide-eyed amazement. Instead we anticipated victories and felt vindicated when they came. That’s why the loss in the Super Bowl hurt the way it did.
For the sake of our collective mental health as a fan base we must set the bar for the Broncos lower and strap in for the season prepared to be surprised. If our confidence is as high as it was before, if we view the coming season as a sixteen-game pre-season the way that we did last year we won’t enjoy 2014 the way that we should.
We should be savoring this. After all, the Broncos are, for the first time ever, the winningest team in pro football over a two year span. Every franchise has its up periods and its down periods. We are in the midst of an up period that is unprecedented in Denver sports history. We have become a spoiled fan base, as hard as that is to believe. We are in a position where once again we cannot be satisfied with anything less than a championship. Only in 1998, coming off Elway’s first Lombardi Trophy, did we ever have the kind of expectations we have now had for three strait seasons.
It’s best to reel ourselves in as fans and get ready to enjoy 2014. Yes, I am largely speaking to myself here. The loss in the Super Bowl was positively crushing to me. I was shocked and embarrassed. I was spoiled. And it has made me scorned and critical coming into this season. I have been robbing myself of the enjoyment of being a fan. I will not do this anymore. Maybe the Broncos will get back to the Super Bowl. Maybe they won’t. Either way I am going to enjoy this team while I can because the next long drought cannot be far away.
