Strike 2: The pressure is now off the Denver Broncos. They stepped up and answered the bell, beating the stuffing out of the depleted Kansas City Chiefs in a season finale that meant everything to Broncos Country. Now, all is well. And it will still be that way even if they do as expected and lose their first-round playoff game.
For now, the glass slipper is fitting nicely.
It hasn’t been that way around here for a very long time. In fact, longtime Broncos fans vividly remember the days when just reaching the playoffs was not nearly enough. When kickoff time arrived for that first postseason game, the fun stopped and cheeks puckered as the pressure intensified. By a lot.
Losing in the playoffs can become worse than not making the playoffs at all. Losing the Super Bowl can send an entire region into a deep collective depression.
The Broncos reached the big game for the first time at the end of the 1977 season. “Orange Madness” was everywhere. It didn’t matter that they lost to the Dallas Cowboys in Super Bowl XII, just getting there was enough. There was still a parade through downtown.
However…
The end result after getting back for a second shot at the end of the 1986 season meant a lot more, and it didn’t turn out any better. And the following year, when they went back again, it got even worse. A 42-10 beating from Washington turned Bronco fans gun shy, and a 55-10 thrashing by the San Francisco 49ers after the ’89 season sent Broncos Country running for the nearest bomb shelter.
Denver was 0-4 in Super Bowls to that point, joining the Minnesota Vikings as the biggest Super Bowl losers.
There was a faction of Broncos fandom that couldn’t even bear to watch Denver face the heavily favored Green Bay Packers eight years later in Super Bowl XXXII. With the weight of the entire Rocky Mountain region on their shoulders, the Broncos did finally find a way to win the ultimate game and forever shed that “losers” label that’d been stuck on them for so long.
Broncos Country exhaled.
Between 1990 and 1996, the Buffalo Bills supplanted the Broncos as the AFC’s biggest big game loser, dropping four Super Bowls in a row (the only NFL team to ever do that.) Unfortunately for fans in upstate New York, the Bills haven’t yet earned their way back, much less been able to shed the scarlet “L” the way Denver did.
Which brings us to this week. The second-seeded Bills host the upstart, just glad to be here Broncos with all the pressure from Super Bowls past squarely on the collective shoulders of the home team. These Josh Allen-led Bills have been very good for several seasons now, but have continually come up short in the playoffs. And with each playoff defeat, the pressure, already as heavy as the snowfall from a January blizzard off Lake Erie, just keeps collecting.
That is the Broncos singular advantage on Sunday: How will Buffalo handle the pressure?
So because he can, will Sean Payton throw caution to the wind, become a riverboat gambler, a loose and worry-free play caller? Decided underdogs are allowed to do and try things those under pressure can’t. Trick play? Sure. Fake punt? Why not? Go for it on fourth down in your own territory? You bet. Zero reason to play it safe or conservative.
Can the Broncos – with the pressure completely off now – execute as flawlessly as they did against the Chiefs? Theoretically, if they went into Buffalo and played an almost penalty-free game, didn’t turn the ball over, and did all the little things well (like perform well on special teams and win the field position battle) the combined impact could create an even more serious ratcheting up of the pressure on the Bills. Could a relaxed, focused and worry-free Broncos team force an uptight Bills team into uncharacteristic miscues?
Might be wishful thinking.
The home team comes in having tied for third in the NFL in fewest interceptions thrown with just six, while having intercepted 16 passes themselves. They’ve also recovered 16 fumbles while only putting on the ground themselves twice. That’s a nifty 32-8 turnover ratio, which led the NFL. They’ve committed 112 penalties (the Broncos committed 108) squarely in the middle of the pack.
So in a nutshell, during the regular season, the Bills didn’t beat themselves.
But that was during the low-pressure regular season, when the stakes are far less than they’ll be on this upcoming frigid Sunday morning. How will these Bills handle the Ghosts of Playoffs Past?
