As a child, I knew nothing about most things. The list included the Periodic Table, States Rights and the Denver Broncos. This football team represents a city that could just as well have been on another planet. I was about as interested in them as I was a rodeo or a mountaineer. I had a case of xenophobia – fear of strangers.
As for the Mile High City itself, my knowledge was limited. After World War II, my uncle found work as an aircraft mechanic at the old Stapleton Airport. We visited him and his family in Aurora. Once, I think. I remember sitting in the back seat of his station wagon as he showed us around downtown. “It’s a town of cows now,” he claimed, “but you have to look to the future. Thirty years from now you won’t recognize this place. OK, I thought, the renovation plans are really exciting. But can we conclude now? I’m hungry.
There was an exception to the wall I erected in my brain. If the Broncos played against a team like the former Washington Redskins, now commanders, I at least registered some momentum. But this match was rare, because they were not in the same divisions.
When we moved to the Front Range in 2021 we decided to subscribe to You Tube TV. It wasn’t cheap, but I was determined to watch the Commanders as often as they did. Which, unfortunately, was not very common. Then, an epiphany. More often than not, I had the chance to see the Ravens. Geographically speaking, it tends to evoke overlapping emotions. I had an address in Maryland, 20 minutes from the White House. If I had chosen to stay loyal to the national team, I would have turned to the Colts, the team that preceded the Ravens in Baltimore. Alas, with the Redskins around — and as hard as I tried — I never made the Ravens shine as a backup team. Seeing the Maryland flag on their logo and feeling guilty only made things more complicated. Now, given the choice between watching the Ravens or the Broncos, I have no problem choosing the latter. It’s a breakthrough. Am I disturbed?
Consider this. We Americans – devout Christians, Jews, Muslims, agnostics and atheists – go to great lengths to satisfy our wild instincts. We are thrilled to see wealthy, adult men inflicting physical pain on other wealthy, adult men. Gaining ground by running, passing, and catching ground that stretches 100 yards in the space of 60 minutes is an extremely dangerous exercise, one that all too often impacts your mental and physical health for the rest of your life. life.
Without wading knee-deep in the stats that define a team individually and collectively, numbers that are the domain of obsessed fans glued to sports radio, I think we can all agree that Russell Wilson and Nathaniel Hackett are disappointments. After spending so many years near the water in Seattle, maybe Wilson hated being landlocked in Denver. Did someone forget to remind him that it was also the big moment? That Empower Field charged tons for parking, beer and, in Wilson’s case, a five-year contract that topped $245 million?
Given that the game of football involves so many physical and mental abilities, signing known quantities like Wilson and Hackett seemed, at the time, wise. Team owners, the Waltons, who own Walmart, didn’t spend $4.6 billion — a world record for a sports franchise — for not delivering a quality product and getting a return. They didn’t build a company with 15,000 stores worldwide (I highly recommend their Hanes men’s pajamas) just to be able to say they bought the team purely for its amusement value. And while Wilson may retreat to his mansion win, lose, or draw, what remains are Denver’s homeless people who can only settle for tattered cover under a bridge over Cherry Creek. (And I doubt they own pajamas, period.)
To be fair and balanced, the Broncos looked impressive last Sunday, beating the Arizona Cardinals without Wilson at the helm and, embarrassingly, with 18,000 fewer fans in the seats to cheer them on. Even if they were to win their last three games – and that’s a big if – they would still finish, barring a tie, with three more losses than wins.
With the close off-season, the future is cloudy. With Wilson and Hackett’s jobs still twisted in the arid high desert wind, working for the Walmart group may actually prove to be a blessing. Imagine this. On the first day of the offseason, Jan. On February 2, 2023, the pair are seen punching their punch cards at the Walmart Supercenter in Englewood. “Come, vidi, vici!” they were heard singing to each other in the storage room, as a way to motivate each other. “I came, I saw, I conquered.” (In their case, finding a job in retail.)
Assigning them to the sporting goods department was a no-brainer. At the end of the morning, a gravelly and thundering voice rang out over the loudspeaker: Attention partners in sporting goods! Yeah, Wilson and Hackett, I’m talking to you! Need to immediately clean up every deflated soccer ball squashed on the floor in aisle 16. One for each of the 17 weeks of the season.
Anthony Glaros is DC’s native and longtime reporter for numerous publications. He taught high school English in suburban Montgomery County, Maryland. His column, Longmont Lessons, appears periodically in the Times-Call.
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