Story by Jon Stalnaker AKA The Studebaker Dude
It was almost ten years ago, the last time the Broncos were in a Superbowl (they won that one against the Panthers). A lot has changed since then, most notably where I call home. Most of my California friends and family were either 49er fans or Stinkin’ Raiders fans. We had two other teams in Southern California. The Rams had just moved to LA from St Louis and the San Diego Chargers moved to LA to share a stadium with them.
If I wanted to cheer on my hometown team, I would have been a Chargers fan as that team was owned by Alex Spanos who was a well-known member of the elite in Stockton. I always expected him to move that team to Stockton as Spanos owned enough property there to build a giant stadium if he wanted. Spanos lived one block away from my mail route in Stockton and his daughter and his housekeeper both lived on my route. I wasn’t that interested in football when Spanos bought the Chargers, but it was a big deal for my then-hometown of Stockton.
When I finally became a football fan, it was the Broncos that grabbed my interest, and it had nothing to do with being my home team. They weren’t my home team, but I was a fan, anyway. And I have stuck with them through thick and thin. It’s been mostly thin in the past few years. I kinda liked the San Francisco 49ers but the Raiders, not so much. It got to the point that I took it all the way to calling them the Stinkin’ Raiders and it became fun to slam them with my friends that are Raider fans. I still have an ongoing $5 bet going with Ron, one of my best Raider fan friends. It’s a man thing as pathetic as that sounds. It kinda makes it more fun.
Since I moved to Oklahoma, the KC Chiefs have become a dynasty team. Now I am still a Broncos fan, tried and true, but I have enjoyed the Chief’s success. I like the Chiefs and have no ill will towards them, but they are in the same division as the Broncos, so I am happy that we are at the top at this point and not them.
Being a fan of a team that is not your home team doesn’t allow you to see many of their games. That didn’t work for me in California, and it hasn’t worked for me in Oklahoma either. But the fact that the Broncos were going through a rebuilding period, it was probably a good thing that I didn’t get to see them lose that often. And watching Kansas City do their dynasty thing was fun for me. It was okay for me to like them second best.
This year was different. It started out slowly for us by winning the first game then losing our next 2 games. They were close games, losing to the Colts by 1 point and losing to the Chargers by 3 points, but we didn’t get to see them on TV.
After two consecutive losses, they started winning again. We were unable to see much on TV but what we saw was that they were mostly close games. All wins were single digit points except the Bengals by 25 points and the Cowboys by 20 points. But single digit wins are still wins. They had 6 consecutive wins when they were ready to face the Stinkin’ Raiders. I sent a Facebook bit, that was pro Broncos at the Raiders expense, to my friend that I have the ongoing $5 bet with. I told Carlene that I probably jinxed myself and would probably lose to the Raiders, but we won that one too. Now we have 8 wins and 2 losses. But we got to watch that game and I was not impressed. It was another barely win.
So last week we met up with the Chiefs. I didn’t expect the Broncos to win, but they did, and it was a better-played game than the game with the last place Raiders. Now we are at 9 wins and 2 losses. The win against the Chiefs was another close game that came down to a winning field goal as the clock rolled down to zero. It was just like most of the Broncos games this season, decided by a small margin.
We’re in the lead as of now but the season is not yet over. We have to face the Raiders again. I may have to refund the $5 to my buddy Ron. We have to face Kansas City again and they’re not going to be wanting to lose to us twice. And we will have to face the Chargers again, one of the teams that beat us this year already by 3 points. And we have to face 3 more teams that we have yet to play against.
I’m not counting on another Superbowl appearance yet, but we’ve got a better shot at it than we have had in almost 10 years. It’s going to be an exciting season from this point out. The Patriots have the most appearances at the SB with11. The next 4 teams are tied with 8 appearances each. The Broncos are in that category. Win or lose, I see no reason to give up being a Broncos fan. Besides I have way too many Broncos shirts and team paraphernalia to change now.
