Newbie Does Denver

The world of suck has spread to encompass yet more real estate in the hearts of Broncos fans. They got the winning touchdown! Yes ! The defense can do this! Until they can't! GAH! I'm normally the cynic—yeah, it was a great first half, but they'll screw it up. Today I was a true believer, which proves yet again what faith  is—pretending to know what you don't know—and what it isn't—enough. I couldn't watch the game, but I listened to the KOA livestream and watched the ESPN gamecast. When the Bears/Vikings game was over, however, the last 2-or-so minutes of the Denver game popped on. "You have to get this TD. You have to get this TD," I repeated to myself. AND THEY DID! Then I saw the clock: 1:34 (or so) left in the game. " Shit ," I said. "They're fucked." This is a lesson I learned watching Tom Brady—you can't score that winning touchdown and give the other side time enough to take a massive dump on all your dr

I used to give zero shits about football. I mean, I grew up playing sports, from baseball and basketball to tennis and Tae kwon do, but no one ever taught me football. My high school didn't have a football team. I heard it in the background sometimes, at my dad's house or on Thanksgiving, but again--no one ever explained it to me, so all I had were the stereotypes and an outsider's glance at what seemed to be mindless titans demonstrating elementary physics with their bodies down a field while a bunch of lunatics in the stands screeched and roared and screamed in bad drag. Well, this is my mea culpa . I was wrong. Football does indeed offer good physics lessons and there are lunatics and the drag is terrible, but football is freaking awesome. How can you NOT know about football?  some people ask. I assumed my dad taught me nothing because it was a sport I couldn't play, which was true as a girl growing up in the 80s (and still true most places). When I asked him

I don't know a whole lot about football, perhaps as much as can be expected for someone watching her 2nd full season—ever—which I'll write about later—but come on. Isn't this obvious? Yes, the offense hasn't clicked yet, and some plays have been WTFable. Yes, Joe Flacco is not amazing, but I don't have the context to despise or doubt him like so many others. Yes, the defensive drought is a complete freaking mystery, but I don't know enough about formations and the intricacies of defensive strategies to know why. Yes, as #10 so eloquently stated, to be a Broncos fan right now is being in a world of suck. But, seriously—the O-line is the main source of trouble for this team. Has been. Still is. THAT much I do know. I know that if you have a classic pocket passer like Flacco, you have to have  an offensive line to protect him while he allows routes to play out so he can find the best targets. No, he isn't a Hopkins or Jackson or Murray or Rodgers, n