Broncos fans, there is no God.
Sorry to break the news, folks.
What’s my proof, you ask? Well for starters, God would never inflict torture on his people.
The kind of torture Broncos fans will have to endure during Sunday’s Super Bowl.
I’m being dramatic, you say? Well, let’s examine the evidence:
On one side, you have the Kansas City Chiefs. As in the same Chiefs who are among the Broncos’ archrivals in the AFC West. Denver and KC have had some knock-down, drag-out wars over the last several decades and there is no love lost between the two teams.
On the other sideline, we have the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, whom Broncos fans might not have had an issue with had TOM BRADY not signed with the team last year.
Yes, that Tom Brady. As in, the Broncos longtime nemesis who is ridiculously too handsome, married to a supermodel and has more Super Bowl rings than I have teeth!
It’s evil versus evil. Both teams may as well make the “Star Wars Imperial March” their entrance music when they take the field.
And Broncos fans can’t do nothin’ about it, either. We just gotta sit there helplessly while two of our fiercest enemies go at it in the biggest game of the year.
See. There is no God.
I recently posted a poll on Twitter this week asking Broncos fans if they’d be rooting for the Chiefs or Tom Brady in the big game. About a third of respondents said they refuse to root for either team!
My sister Julie Thuis, a die hard Broncos fan, is in that category.
“I mean, do I really want to hear, ‘Tom Brady has now won Super Bowls in the AFC and NFC and look at this, he’s the greatest of all time and blah blah blah blah?’” my sister said, who added a couple of choice words for Brady that you can’t say on the radio … or in print.
“But I also don’t want Kansas City to go back-to-back. So pretty much I’m screwed,” she said.
Yep, if Kansas City wins Sunday they’ll have won two Super Bowls in a row, something that’s only happened twice since 1998 and 1999, when the Broncos went back-to-back, and again in 2004 and 2005, with the Patriots … who were led by … yeah, you know who I’m talking about.
While many Broncos fans say they’re conflicted over their rooting interest Sunday, Christine Voss of Denver isn’t one of them.
Voss is a Colorado native. She’s such a huge Broncos fan that she has the coordinates of the 50-yard line at the Broncos stadium tattooed on her wrist. She’ll be rooting for Tampa Bay.
“I mean, it’s not a choice,” Voss said. “A divisional rival is not any team I'm ever going to cheer for. It’s anyone but the Chiefs and anybody but the Raiders — who would never be there. But there’s no choice in my mind.”
Up until last year, the Broncos were able to say they were the only AFC West team to win a Super Bowl since the 1983 Raiders. But now the Chiefs, led by 25-year-old quarterback sensation Patrick Mahomes, threaten to blow past Denver’s success during all those years the Broncos dominated the division.
Besides, Voss says, Broncos fans really don’t have an axe to grind with Tom Brady anyway.
“He does not have a winning record against the Broncos,” she said. “In the playoffs, he especially has not been able to challenge them. I mean, we hated Tom Brady because he was so good and we hated the Patriots. But that’s not a rivalry.”
That’s a really good point. In fact, mostly recently, when the Broncos last won the Super Bowl five years ago, they beat Tom Brady and his former team, the Patriots, to get there.
So, Broncos fans, why all the Brady-hating?
Well, Dave DeNovellis of Denver has a lot to say about that.
“He’s basically the Voldemort of the NFL,” DeNovellis said, comparing Tom Brady to the “Harry Potter” villain with the maniacal laugh.
DeNovellis said that ain’t even the worst part about Brady.
“He trademarked the term ‘Tom-pa Bay.’ As in T-O-M-P-A Bay,” he said. “That’s just ridiculous.”
Yes, when Tom Brady joined the Buccaneers this season, he in fact applied to trademark the phrases “Tompa Bay” and “Tampa Brady” with the U.S Patent and Trademark Office.
I’m not kidding.
That’s something perhaps even Voldemort wouldn’t do.
Former State Rep. Cole Wist grew up on the Western Slope rooting for the Broncos to stomp teams like Kansas City. But now, he’s begrudgingly backing the Chiefs in the Super Bowl. When he replied to my Twitter poll he used the hashtag, #NeverBrady.
“On the one hand, I appreciate that the guy is 43-years-old and is playing at this level,” Wist said. “On the other hand it irritates the crap out of me.”
But seriously, Broncos fans are having a really hard time picking sides. Twitter user LibPatriot said, “I’m rooting for the commercials.” SM Lindberg wrote, “My husband is rooting for a cancellation. I entered the Volvo sweepstakes, so I’m rooting for a safety.”
A friend of mine who reports for the Albuquerque Journal, Kyle Land, said, “I literally can’t bring myself to root for either (team). Just wishing baseball season would start already.”
That’s a real sore subject for Rockies fans right now, though. So let’s not even go there.
But some of you had a good idea! When in doubt, maybe root for the team with the most Colorado connections. For Kansas City, there’s offensive coordinator Eric Bieniemy, who played college football for the Colorado Buffaloes. The Chiefs also have Mike Pennel, who went to CSU-Pueblo.
But Ryan Jensen, who also played football at CSU-Pueblo, plays for Tampa Bay. As does CSU’s Shaq Barrett. So that might be a wash.
Or, you can just root for the underdog, like Christine Voss is doing.
“You know, this football season was so exciting,” Voss said. “It was exciting seeing the Bills and Browns get as far as they did. So I'm all for the underdog story. So, remove Tom Brady from the equation. Like, sure I don’t wanna see his face. Like, no one does. But take him out of the equation, they're the clear choice.”
But is there really a “clear choice” in this matchup of the Two Evils?
May God help us. If he even exists.
