Newbie Does Denver

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...