Skip to main content

Reason No. 123 to Love the Broncos

A Few Seconds of Panic, Stefan Fatsis' new book about his time with the Broncos as a kicker before the 2006 season, includes on its one hundred sixty-second page the following awesome quote:

This year's per-team salary cap is $101,866,000, and the Broncos will come as close to that number as possible. Fully funding the team was a condition Shanahan set when he became head coach in 1995; a few years earlier, he had spurned an offer from Bowlen for reasons of internal politics and authority.

Bowlen says he wouldn't do it any other way. 'I'm not going to be judged on how much money this organization made,' he tells me one day. 'I mean, [f], that doesn't even enter the equation. Zero. It's, 'How many games did he win? How many Super Bowls did he win?' There's not a lot of things that I really want other than winning Super Bowls. I mean, what do I want, a bigger house? No. More space in Hawaii? Own my own jet? I mean, none of that makes a hell of a lot of sense to me at this stage in my life.'

If the Nuggets' cheaping out on Marcus Camby has bothered you half as much as it has me, then Bowlen is surely a breath of fresh air. With as much as I complain when some owners let me down, let me say how much I appreciate what Bowlen's ownership has meant for my favorite team over the past two-plus decades.

* * *

I just finished reading A Few Seconds of Panic, and without spoiling anything, let me just say that if you're a serious Broncos fan, it's an absolute must-read. The book chronicles Fatsis' attempt to turn himself into an NFL-caliber placekicker despite being in his early forties. In other words, it's half semi-serious attempt, half awesome insider's look.

If you're reading the book just to hear about the Broncos, as I did, know two things going in. The first is that, focusing on the 2006 camps and preseason, it's already a little dated, as key players on the team include guys like Jake Plummer. This didn't bother me at all. (If anything, it made me miss Plummer, and the book reconfirmed my feelings on him and the still-developing Jay Cutler.) The second point is that the first few chapters are mostly about Fatsis and very little about the Broncos; believe me when I say the payoff is worth the wait. Broncos lovers will love this book.  HPS recommended.

Comments

John said…
I always accept such ringing endorsements from HPS, so I will go out and buy the book for sure. And I agree on Bowlen - he has been a great owner committed to winning, and he has contributed to the league along the way. He is precisely the kind of owner a professional sports team should have.
8:20 AM
Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Orange Julius

All right, class, what kind of things do we look for in an NBA draftee? A player who's proven, or one with oodles of upside? A guy coming off a spectacular college career, or one coming off the bench for his Serbian club team? A player who's shown constant improvement, or one who mysteriously fared worse as a senior than a junior? No, Kiki, put your hand down, it's the first answer to each of these questions, not the second. Yesterday the Nuggets picked 20th in the first round, selecting Julius Hodge, shooting guard/small forward, out of North Carolina State. College fans will immediately recognize his name, as Hodge was the ACC Player of the Year as a junior. Unfortunately, he just finished his senior year, which was marked mostly by a dip in his scoring numbers (he developed a sudden inability to hit free throws or threes) and a punch to the groin by Wake Forest guard Chris Paul. Hodge is mostly a mid-range and slashing-type scorer, kind of like the more-than-sufficient s...
19 comments
Read more

Who cares?

So we finally got done with the NBA playoffs after nearly two months of stretched-out play, and tomorrow's the draft. I really couldn't care less. I'm so burned out on the sport. Sadly, there's nothing else going on worth mentioning, so we might as well get into it. (Yes, baseball, Pugs, but I haven't really started following that this year yet, sorry.) Would the NFL hold its draft five days after the Super Bowl? Of course not, and not just because the league doesn't want to distract from the highlight of its annual calendar, the Pro Bowl. Of course, the NBA's situation is a little different. College play ended two and a half months ago, and the teams want to get draftees ready for the all-important summer league play (because the kind of guys that need the summer league always end up players). Not that when college basketball is over is relevant, anyway-the league is overrun by a bunch of high school players "just months removed from their prom" (...
12 comments
Read more

And now that it’s gone, it’s like it wasn’t there at all

I never thought this blog would last longer than Jay Cutler's career with the Denver Broncos. He was a talented young prospect so good that the Broncos, a powerhouse organization only one game removed from the Super Bowl the season before, traded up to get him—or, in other words, a player whose upside was so huge, the team sacrificed its present to get his future. And now? He's gone . How did it come to this? * * * Often I'll play devil's advocate with a move like this; you know, I'll try and explain how it makes sense from the other side of the table. Today, during the most disastrous Broncos offseason in memory—and the draft hasn't even happened yet, so settle in—I just don't have it in me. I don't think move is really defensible from a football standpoint. But what the heck: as the article above says, the Broncos are sending Cutler and a fifth-round draft pick this month to the Chicago Bears for quarterback Kyle Orton, Chicago's first-rounder in t...
11 comments
Read more