Let’s start with the good news. When it comes to the Broncos, at least we all have one another. Right?
“Trust me, I know what it feels like to watch loss after terrible loss,” Michelle Loretan, a Detroit Lions fan based in Colorado Springs, said via email. “You need to keep the faith and lean on your fellow fans.
“Having a fan club out of state helps weather those terrible seasons. We all know what to expect from our Lions, but always believe.”
That whole “believe” part?
Gettin’ to be a mighty tough sell.
The Broncos have posted four consecutive losing seasons. It’s the first time the Front Range has had a front-row seat to such sustained struggling since 1968-72, when The Lou Saban Era limped from the AFL to the NFL.
Denver’s premier pro sports franchise has a five-year playoff drought. It’s the worst stretch of football since the Broncos’ inauspicious beginnings, 12 losing years over the franchise’s initial 13 seasons.
Only this time, coming off three decades of excellence and three Super Bowl trophies, it feels more like purgatory.
The Broncos haven’t been remotely good enough to scare the ascending Kansas City Chiefs, the reigning two-time AFC champs. They also haven’t been bad enough to pile up top-5 draft picks — the kind you can use to land, for example, your next franchise quarterback.
What’s old is new again. Except that it’s getting … well, old.
Like really old.
None of the major four North American sports leagues enforce parity the way the NFL does: Poorer teams draft first. Regular-season schedules are weighted to reward franchises that struggled the season prior while simultaneously punishing more successful clubs.
Few things are harder to maintain in the NFL than uninterrupted excellence or continuous ineptitude.
For decades, the Broncos were paragons for the former, the Steelers of the Mountain Time Zone. Which has only made their on-field performances since 2016 — Loretan’s Lions (.406) actually have a better winning percentage than the Broncos (.400) over the past five seasons — all the more painful to Broncos’ fans.
Life at UCHealth Training Center is starting to take on a sort of Arizona Cardinals vibe.
Five years. Five long years.
Were our collective souls part of the deal that brought Peyton Manning to town in March 2012? Why does it feel like we’ve paying karma back for those two Super Bowls in the 2010s, cycling through uninspired coaches and subpar quarterbacks ever since?
“Everybody who’s played the game knew that this kind of time was going to come,” said former Broncos offensive tackle and current Altitude radio host Ryan Harris. “It’s not often where you’re like the Green Bay Packers, when you go from one Hall-of-Fame quarterback (Brett Favre) and replace that with another (Aaron Rodgers).
“It was going to be a rebuild. It was a rebuild. And you’re getting toward the end of it now.”
“This league is cyclical”
Nine wins, then five, then six, then seven, then five. How did the Broncos get there? No. Scratch that. How do they get off this blasted hamster’s wheel? Does purgatory have an exit door?
“In a lot of ways, I feel like this league is cyclical,” said Broncos guard Graham Glasgow, a veteran of two 9-7 Lions squads. “Teams that are down usually ending up coming up later on. Teams that are up usually end up coming down, unless a team just has a great culture and great coaches. The Patriots had a long spell of doing well … it comes down to a lot of things. It’s schemes. It’s players. It’s culture.”
The root of the rut here comes down to three things: Manning’s retirement, poor coaching hires and — of course — quarterback misfires.
“There’s a lot of parity in the NFL,” Glasgow stressed. “This isn’t pro baseball. This isn’t the NBA. I mean, this is the most fair league that I believe there is in North American sports. Right now, a lot of our players are buying in, who want to go out there and do well.”
With the right mix — schemes, players, culture — can the Broncos break the cycle?
History says yes. In a quarterback-coach league, it only takes one great draft pick and one inspired hire to escape the NFL’s black hole of mediocrity.
Then again, if the AFC West with Patrick Mahomes in Kansas City becomes what the AFC East turned into during New England’s Brady/Belichick dynasty, all bets are off.
From 2003-2019, the three non-Patriots teams in the East — the Bills, Dolphins and Jets — combined for 51 seasons, eight of 10 wins or more, and only six playoff berths. In other words, a postseason appearance by an East team that wasn’t New England happened just once every three years.
The lesson: Don’t get stuck in a division with a Hall-of-Fame quarterback. Unless you’ve got one of your own.
“Tough to love a losing team”
How bad have things gotten along the Front Range? Broncos Country is garnering sympathy these days from fans of the Detroit Lions, the poster children of mediocrity. The Lions, the pro football franchise that hasn’t played for a league championship in 63 seasons — the longest current drought among NFL clubs.
“I have zero empathy for a fan base or franchise who have three Super Bowl victories,” Mike D. Harris, another Lions fan, offered via email, “since the last time the Lions even won a playoff game.”
OK, so it’s limited sympathy.
The Lions have posted only five seasons of double-digit victories since 1991, and only two since the legendary Barry Sanders retired in July 1999. So, yeah, Loretan and Mike Harris feel your pain. Annually.
The pair are the current co-chairs of a Detroit Lions Fan Club of Colorado Springs. The club, which debuted during the 2016 season, has more than 320 followers of its Facebook feed and often draws 40 to 50 fans in Honolulu blue for game watches at altitude. They’ve even taken part in service projects such as trail clean-ups or supporting the lion exhibit at the Cheyenne Mountain Zoo.
“You got to be tough to love a losing team,” said Davis, who, like Lortean, grew up in Michigan.
His advice to Broncos fans?
“When you’ve been spoiled with a franchise that has been good and relevant for so long, it will be tough. Just suck it up. I don’t think Broncos fans have the tough skin or mindset it takes to deal with a losing franchise.”
If there’s one thing Lions fans lead the league in, it’s scar tissue. Scar tissue, old wounds, and schadenfreude.
“I’m really looking forward to the (Week 14) game (at Empower Field) this year,” Loretan said. “The Broncos fans’ confidence has been shaken and I’m curious if it will change the vibe between the fans this year. I think their thin skin might make the trash talk more fun.”
10 worst NFL teams by win percentage, 2016-2020
While things have been bad for the Broncos over the past five seasons, they haven’t been catastrophic (translation: they haven’t been the Jets). Here’s a look at how they stack up against the worst of the worst from 2016 through 2020:
| Team | Record | Pct. |
| 1. New York Jets | 23-57 | .288 |
| 2. Jacksonville Jaguars | 25-55 | .313 |
| 3. Cleveland Browns | 25-54-1 | .319 |
| 4. Cincinnati Bengals | 25-53-2 | .325 |
| 5. New York Giants | 29-51 | .363 |
| 6. San Francisco 49ers | 31-49 | .388 |
| 7. Arizona Cardinals | 31-47-2 | .400 |
| 8. Denver Broncos | 32-48 | .400 |
| 9. Washington Football Team | 32-47-1 | .406 |
| 10. Detroit Lions | 32-47-1 | .406 |
10 longest championship game droughts
1. Detroit Lions — 63 seasons, last title game appearance was 1957 NFL championship
2. Cleveland Browns — 54 seasons, last title game appearance was 1965 NFL championship
3. New York Jets — 52 seasons, last title game appearance was Super Bowl III
4. Minnesota Vikings — 44 seasons, last title game appearance was Super Bowl XI
5. Miami Dolphins — 36 seasons, last title game appearance was Super Bowl XIX
6. Cincinnati Bengals — 32 seasons, last title game appearance was Super Bowl XXIII
7. Washington Football Team — 29 seasons, last title game appearance was Super Bowl XXVI
8. Buffalo Bills — 27 seasons, last title game appearance was Super Bowl XXVIII
9. Jacksonville Jaguars — 26 seasons, no title games in franchise history
10. Los Angeles Chargers — 26 seasons, last title game appearance was Super Bowl XXIX
