ShareThisHow best to characterize these Denver Broncos. The Little Team that Shouldn't? The Improbables? The Defiant Ones?
Certainly, there is a label to compliment what the Broncos have achieved, to be where they are when logic and custom deny it, to be celebrated rather than scorned.
I bring this up just to balance the national impression the Broncos are unworthy to be included among the playoff possibilities, the real teams of the NFL.
It is as if the Broncos are a sneeze away from clinching the division and a home-field playoff game only because they've stolen the keys from the gatekeeper, they've slipped through security with their shoes on or they've got pictures and a tape recording of the commissioner being naughty.
Surely it is not because the Broncos belong, not because they are what their record says they are, not because they have a chance to finish the season with 11 wins (or 8-8 as cynics would remind).
But let's allow the other side a voice.
"Frauds. Phonies. Charlatans. Fakers. Posers. Dissemblers. Pretenders. Deceivers. Beguilers. Fakes."
That is from NFL blogger Tom E. Curran, who writes for MSNBC and carries with him a pocket thesaurus. How he missed "shams" and "impostors" and "hoaxes" is not clear.
This was written before the Kansas City game as part of an analysis of teams likely to make the playoffs. Beating the Chiefs by a single touchdown and late is not likely to change a single word.
But let's not interrupt.
"They will go to the playoffs, while teams like the Dolphins, Patriots, Ravens or Colts sit and watch. The Broncos' parade of inconsistency -- losses to the Raiders and Chiefs, a 41-7 beating by the Patriots, wins at Atlanta and the Jets -- are testimony to the fact that they have neither head nor heart. God help the AFC West. They're a bad banana with a greasy black peel."
That last part, the bad banana part, might be useful. The Bad Bananas. Sure, why not, even if it makes no sense.
Bad bananas are overripe, and the Broncos are anything but that. They are Green Bananas if anything.
And that is part of the remarkable story that gets lost in easy insults, that so many rookies and unfamiliar additions have kept the season from disintegrating into complete debris, a pile of lost tailbacks and linebackers and cornerbacks.
"There can be little argument with the fact that the Broncos have benefited from playing in the weakest division in football, as evidenced by the fact that they are the only 8-5 team in the league that isn't fighting for its playoff life at the moment."
This is from another blogger, Tony Moss on The Sports Network, and it does seem a bit odd to reproach a team for being in good shape standings-wise.
"This Broncos team isn't going to be nearly consistent enough to make a meaningful run."
Maybe so. But to even have a chance is remarkable. Replacements are replaced by replacements, like used car parts and spare tires scavenged to keep the team bus running.
The running back situation is a tale of ridiculous redundancy, almost comical, like one of those Three Stooges bits where the first stooge runs into a door, the second runs into him and the third piles on, except the Broncos had six instead of three.
The Broncos should post a sign in the backfield, "unsafe at any speed," which would also identify the various performers who have dared and ended up on the injured reserve list.
For the backfield to be down to a refugee from the cell phone stand at the local mall, it does not get any more incredible, or wondrous, than that.
Any team can win a division with healthy, seasoned players, except San Diego, it seems, but to do it with mismatched drop-ins and novices, that is a special achievement.
Are the Broncos frauds, to get back to the original smear? Well, probably so because they do not fit the NFL formula for winning. But phony they are not.
That would imply something underhanded and devious, where instead the Broncos have earned nearly everything that has come their way (not counting the botched finish to the San Diego game) and they have deserved everything that has gone wrong.
That is the identity of this Broncos team, insistent and inconsistent. No game is easy and no game is certain. Unappreciated and underestimated.
Bad Bananas, indeed.
(Contact Bernie Lincicome of the Rocky Mountain News at lincicomeb(at)RockyMountainNews.com.)
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