Don’t feel bad, Broncos fans – the 2014 Super Bowl appearance was par for the course

I’ve been a Denver Broncos fan since way on back in 1977. Why? I always watched football with my dad and I wanted a team of my own to root for while doing it.

I suspect that a lot of people became Broncos fans in 1977 because that was the famed Cinderella year in which the Broncos beat all expectations and made it to the Super Bowl. You had a team with no significant NFL playoff history that got great all of the sudden. You had Craig Morton – the former Cowboys quarterback who was cast off in favor of Roger Staubach – was one of those guys you just had to pull for. He was nearing the end of his career and everyone likes to see the underdog defy expectations, right? You also had the Orange Crush defense that was getting games won for the team.

Yes, 1977 was a great season for the Broncos. Well, it turned sour during the 1978 Super Bowl when the Dallas Cowboys easily handled Denver and won 27-10.

That first Super Bowl appearance set Broncos fans up for more disappointment. There was the 39-20 Super Bowl loss against the Giants in 1987. That was followed by the 42-10 drubbing Denver took from Washington in the 1988 Super Bowl. And, who could forget about the embarrassing 55-10 loss to the 49ers in 1990?

Denver redeemed itself somewhat in 1998 when Denver finally won a Super Bowl by beating the Packers 31-24. Denver followed that victory by crushing the Falcons 34-19 in the 1999 Super Bowl.

Since then, well Denver’s had some great seasons but it wasn’t until the 2014 Super Bowl when the Broncos played yet again for a national championship. The result? A 43-8 loss against the Seahawks in a game where nothing went right for Denver (the Broncos fumbled the first snap of the game, resulting in a safety).

So, the Broncos have a dismal Super Bowl record of 2-5. No, this year’s Super Bowl loss was nothing new for the Broncos, was it?

Shanahan heads to Washington

Well, coaching mastermind Mike Shanahan went and found himself a new job.

Shanahan, of course, was tossed out of his job as the head coach of the Broncos before the season began. The ungrateful bastards in Denver who threw him out on his ear added insult to injury by replacing him with Josh McDaniels – a snot-nosed little punk who didn’t do a thing to earn the job but know the right people.

It didn’t take Shanahan long to find a job – he’s heading to the Washington Redskins. In other words, Denver is stuck with a head coach that’s barely old enough to shave, a no-name quarterback who would probably be panhandling for a living if he wasn't playing football and an angry fan base (you can count me among those irate fans) while Washington stands to benefit from the Broncos’ stupidity. There’s some justice there.

The news of Shanahan’s job was just the icing on the cake during a couple of months that had to be terrible for McDaniels. His team started out 6-0 (based largely on freakish, circus-like plays at the end of games -- who knew that wouldn't last?) then promptly lost 8 of its last 10 games. Two of those losses were to Kansas City (a terrible team this year) and Oakland (even worse) and Denver is out of the playoffs.

After that disastrous end, McDaniels was certainly sent off to his room without dinner. Fortunately, he quit sulking long enough to pull out his “business crayon” and write a statement congratulating Shanahan (you can see his fine penmanship (crayonmanship?) above). Good for him. The young whippersnapper showed a bit of maturity there. McDaniels might yet become a man.

The frustrating thing about all of this is that I pointed out months ago that the Broncos couldn’t have done much worse than McDaniels. He was obviously a terrible hire, so why on earth am I reading articles like this one in which people claim that the Broncos are worse off than they were a year ago? It was obvious that bringing in McDaniels and replacing quarterback Jay Cutler with an anonymous bum like Kyle Orton would result in disaster, so why is anyone surprised? Why in the hell was McDaniels hired in the first place? It makes absolutely no sense.

What is truly hysterical about this article is that the author points out that McDaniels lacks maturity and is too emotional. What did anyone expect? Denver hired a kid to coach its team, so it’s no shock that he’s prone to throwing tantrums and making terrible decisions. Good grief.

Good luck to Shanahan in Washington. It’s absolutely preposterous that he was run out of Denver, so I can’t help but wish him well somewhere else.

The Pirates set a record!

In case no one noticed, the Pittsburgh Pirates now have the longest consecutive losing streak of any team in the MLB, NBA, NFL or NHL.

On Monday, the Pirates earned their 82nd loss of the season in a game against the Cubs. With that loss, the Bucs clinched a dubious honor -- 17 consecutive losing seasons.

They came into the season tied with the Philadelphia Phillies -- a team that managed to lose 16 consecutive seasons from 1933-1949. Pittsburgh hasn't had a winning season since 1992 and seems doomed to consistent failure in the foreseeable future.

How bad is Pittsburgh? Read all about it right here. That article sums it all up better than I ever could. Besides, I'm too tired to give a damn. I've rooted for the Pirates for years and I'm about sick of caring how the team does.

In fact, the rotten Pirates are one of the reasons I don't follow baseball liked I did once upon a time. In fact, the last time I watched a full Pirates game was a few years ago. After hurling a few empty beer cans at the screen and cursing the team for being so clueless and awful, I pretty much quit watching Pittsburgh and haven't paid much attention to baseball since.

I've just about concluded that the way to get a team to turn rotten is to convince me to room for it. I've pulled for the Pirates since about 1977 and look what's happened to them. Around that same time I started rooting for the Denver Broncos and they've been getting worse since John Elway retired a decade ago.

Oh, don't get me started on Denver. They fired Mike Shanahan and alienated quarterback Jay Cutler until he made up his mind to leave. Shanahan was replaced by a punk, nothing kid of a coach named Josh McDaniels and Cutler was traded to Chicago for Kyle Orton -- a loser who is so anonymous that Denver might have been better off pulling a fan out of the stands and making him quarterback.

Denver will suck this year. Count on it. In fact, I'd be stunned if the Broncos did anything but stink up the field over the next few seasons.

As for Basketball, I followed the Bulls quite a bit. The Bulls, of course, ran off Phil Jackson, Michael Jordan and Scottie Pippen and haven't done much since then. Even my beloved Arkansas Razorbacks -- once a force to be reckoned with in the 1960s through the 1980s -- have been reduced to a fair-to-middling team since joining the SEC.

Hell, even my beloved Benton Panthers are terrible at football these days.

My wife isn't a huge sports fan. I'm starting to think she's got a point.

The Hawg considering a career change?

There are times when being a sports fan is just downright aggravating.

I'll give you an example -- I've been a fan of the Pittsburgh Pirates since about 1977. There's a team that hasn't had a winning season since 1992 and things aren't likely to change for that horrible club anytime soon.

Baseball season, then, isn't much fun.

It appears that football season isn't going to be much fun, either. I've rooted for the Denver Broncos for even longer than I've rooted for the Pirates. Watching the Broncos in the 1980s was difficult as the team made it to the Super Bowl three times at the end of that decade and got stomped into the ground each time.

Ah, but the team has been more competitive than not through the years and actually won a couple of Super Bowls in 1998 and 1999. Even when the team wasn't having a championship season, the Broncos have typically been in the running.

It appears all that has changed. What the hell is wrong with the folks running that club? Did they -- in a drunken haze -- decide it would be a good idea to fire coach Mike Shanahan? Were they hitting the Coors Light so hard that they figured hiring that kid, Josh McDaniels, to replace Shanahan was the right thing to do? How on earth did they wind up trading quarterback Jay Cutler to the Chicago Bears for Kyle Orton?

Kyle Orton? Seriously? Could they have found a bigger nobody of a quarterback than Kyle Orton? He wears #18 because that's how many people have heard of him. I hear Ryan Leaf is working at a parking garage somewhere in west Texas these days. Couldn't they have offered the job to him?

The thing that bugs me the most about all of the alcohol-fueled insanity that has possibly hit Denver was the decision to fire Shanahan then turn around and hire a punk kid to replace him. Now, don't go defending McDaniels. Hiring him was the wrong thing to do. Period. I'm right on this and anyone who disagrees is flat out wrong. That little 33-year-old nobody has done absolutely nothing to warrant being named head coach of a middle-tier college team, much less an NFL club.

Let's take a look at this little zit's resume, shall we? In 1999 and 2000 his daddy got him a job as a graduate assistant at Michigan State under Nick Saban. He spent 2001 getting coffee for people in the New England Patriots organization and was an assistant defensive coach in 2002 and 2003. From there he became the quarterbacks coach and was named offensive coordinator -- a position he kept for two whole years before being named the damned head coach of the damned Broncos.

Apparently, the Democrats ran all of the bums out of Denver when they had their convention there last year. With no bums available to take the job, McDaniels got it. As a bonus, he is also the recipient of the "Luckiest Undeserving Bastard on the Planet" award.

Well, by God, I'm not going to put up with this. I've watched the Pirates go to hell and I'm not going to sit still and watch zippy the wonder kid shove the Broncos down the same path. I'll take that coaching job at Denver and I'll be great at it, too. Here are my qualifications.

1. I like football, like, a lot. That's right. I'm 39-years-old and I've been watching football since before McDaniels was alive. I may not have spent a year running errands for the Patriots and my daddy might not have gotten me a job at Michigan State, but I do know the point of football is to (as John Madden once put it) to move the ball down the field while keeping the other team from doing the same thing. That ought to count for something, right?

2. My sister-in-law is from Denver. That's right -- The Hawg has ties to that fair city. What does Josh McDaniels have? Nothing, that's what. He's an Ohio boy and spent time in Michigan and the East Coast before giggling his way through a job interview in Denver. Compared to him, I'm practically a local. Who wouldn't want to see a local boy guide their team to victory?

3. I played a lot of that Tudor Electric Football as a kid. Oh, you go right ahead and laugh. Laugh, laugh, laugh it up, ace. I can do some strategy, man. Do you know how hard it is to win a game based solely on running plays because the "triple threat" quarterback doesn't work worth a damn? I do, kids. I was an innovator back in my Tudor Electric Football days, too. I developed the "pack two rows of linemen in front of the running back" play, the "move the little dial things so that everyone runs to the right (or left) to confuse the other team" play and the famed "arrange all those players in an unstoppable wedge and march down the field" play. I've got the ability to come up with solutions to difficult problems, see. Who wouldn't want that?

4. Institutional knowledge. While McDaniels was trying to figure out how not to pee his diaper, I was watching the Broncos face the Dallas Cowboys in the Super Bowl. I know full well the importance of that team to the fair city of Denver and will do my best to keep the fans happy. Those Denver fans go nuts, McDaniels. Remember the 1990 season (well, you probably don't, seeing how you were going through puberty and all)? Denver was having a terrible season and the fans took it badly. One radio disc jockey perched on a billboard and said he would broadcast from there until Denver won a game. He was up there in a freezing winter for weeks. One woman in Mile High stadium maced a bunch of fans for the other team and one wife and father was so distraught after a game that he came home from Mile High, held his wife and kids at gunpoint and was escorted away from his house by the cops.

Are you ready for that kind of pressure, McDaniels? I doubt it.

5. Denver couldn't do any worse. The Broncos would have been better off picking someone at random out of a phone book than choosing McDaniels. Why not give the job to a fellow who has been a loyal fan for about as long as McDaniels has been alive? Think about it, Broncos. Do the right thing.

Apparently, they've lost their minds in Denver

Well, read all about it right here -- the Denver Broncos have fired head coach Mike Shanahan.

Yes, that makes a lot of sense. After all, Shanahan hasn't achieved much -- just a couple of Super Bowl championships and a record of 130-78 over the past 14 years. That, by the way, is a winning percentage of .625, second in Broncos franchise history to Red Miller who was coach from 1977 to 1980 and compiled a winning percentage of .640.

And Shanahan's only installed one of the most potent running games in the country at a team that was notoriously inept at rushing prior to his arrival.

What did Shanahan do wrong? Apparently, missing the championships with an 8-8 record this season got him canned. Of course, it's a bit rare when the Broncos aren't in the playoffs these days and Shanahan had to deal with a slew of injuries throughout the season, but that doesn't matter much, seemingly.

Denver has canned the best coach the team has had. Period. They'll regret that decision, as will we longtime Broncos fans out there. God only knows who Denver will drag up to replace Shanahan. I shudder to think. Is there any available coach out there who will be an improvement over Shanahan? That's doubtful.

Now, I'm well aware that Broncos fans go nuts over football. Let's go back to the 1990 season for a minute. Of course, Denver got killed by San Francisco in the 1990 Super Bowl and the team simply struggled when the regular season began in the fall.

How did fans react? One lady at a home game in Mile High Stadium sprayed a bunch of opposing fans with Mace as Denver was losing. Another Denver resident, distraught after a home loss, went back to his house after the game, held his wife and kids at gunpoint and ranted for awhile until he surrendered to the police. A radio sports announcer in Denver swore he'd broadcast from on top of a billboard until Denver won a game. He was up there for a few weeks in the miserably cold Denver weather.

There's no doubt there was a lot of pressure on Denver's ownership to make a change, considering how hardcore Broncos fans tend to be. Still, firing Shanahan -- the only coach in the team's history to bring a Super Bowl title to Denver -- is a bonehead move and one team owner Pat Bowlen will regret. You're an idiot, Bowlen, and you're setting your team up to be the NFL's whipping boy next year.

If I hadn't been a Bronco's fan for over 30 years, I'd say Bowlen and his team are about to get what they deserve.

Terrible weekend for football

I've been following football for a lot of years and I can't think of a weekend that has been as aggravating as this one.

Why? My three favorite teams from the NFL, college and high school all played like garbage and got beaten. That's right, the Benton Panthers, Arkansas Razorbacks and Denver Broncos all lost. To make matters worse, that rotten former head coach for the Razorbacks led Ole Miss to a victory over #4 Florida.

It's enough to make a man swear off football for the rest of the season.

Well, probably not. Actually, definitely not.

Still, the whole thing was a mess so I'll sort through my pain and disappointment, day by day.

Friday, Sept. 26 -- Panthers fail

My beloved Benton Panthers headed to Pine Bluff to take on the Zebras. Yes, the Panthers were coming off a victory against the Conway Wampus Cats the previous week and hopes were high they'd pull off a win in their first game of conference play this season.

So, they spent the week preparing themselves for the trip to Pine Bluff by practicing hard, adjusting to wearing bullet proof vests under their pads and taking daily penicillin shots. All of that preparation was for naught as the Panthers failed, 43-25.

Honestly, Pine Bluff has a very good team this year and Benton was expected to lose. Still, Benton's first three games of the season were against 7A teams and the fact that the Panthers pulled off a victory against one of those teams and played well against another inspired some hope.

Benton, see, is a 6A school and the Panthers were holding their own against teams in the larger 7A classification. Ah, but Pine Bluff proved to be too much for the Panthers, dropping the team's record to a lowly 1-3 for the season. That's no damn good at all.

Why does The Hawg follow a high school team? I live in Benton and graduated from that school, as did my parents and my brother. Friday night football is a big deal here in the South and I'm as guilty as anyone of being a bit obsessive about it. So there.

Saturday, Sept. 27 -- Hogs still awful

No one expected the Arkansas Razorbacks to do much against the Texas Longhorns. That's a good thing because the Hogs failed miserably. Back in the old South West Conference days, the Arkansas-Texas game was the biggest one of the year for us Arkansans, and watching the team head to Austin and take a 52-10 whipping was hard for us long time fans.

That stomping, by the way, was the worst one Arkansas has taken at the hands of Texas since 1916 when the Longhorns slaughtered the Hogs 52-0. This year's contest was supposed to take place a couple of weeks ago but was delayed because a hurricane was ravaging Texas. I'm sure Razorbacks fans agree with me that the game should have stayed delayed. Like, indefinitely.

Arkansas has shown some hope in it's running game over the past few games, but Michael Smith was shut down. Alex Tejada struggled in the kicking game and quarterback Casey Dick still looks like a newcomer trying to come to grips with that new-fangled forward pass.

The Hogs got whipped last week by Alabama and have only beaten two rotten, scrubby teams this year -- Western Illinois and Louisiana-Monroe. I doubt things will get much better when Florida comes to town next week.

Yes, Florida is mad because they lost to Ole Miss on Saturday and will be out for revenge. Ole Miss, by the way, is led by Houston Nutt, the dirty bastard that used to coach Arkansas and left the Hogs with very little for current Razorbacks coach Bobby Petrino to work with.

Nutt did his typical thing -- he lost to Vanderbilt one week and then beat a far superior Florida team the next. Of course, Florida helped things by turning the ball over to Ole Miss every chance they got. It is good to see Nutt engaging in his typical behavior -- raising hopes just to dash them -- at a school other than Arkansas, however.

Arkansas will be fine once Petrino can get some of his players in here and get his system in place. Regardless, Arkansas is 2-2 (0-1 in the SEC) and things may well get worse. After Saturday's game, I have yet another reason to regret my decision to get a law degree at the University of Arkansas rather than heading to Vanderbilt to get a master's in political science (yes, I could have gotten in there) and heading to the University of Texas to get a doctorate. Stupid, stupid, stupid The Hawg.

Buckle up, Hogs fans. This year's shaping up to be a miserable one.

Sunday, Sept. 28 -- first loss for Broncos

So, the Panthers lost on Friday and the Razorbacks failed miserably on Saturday, but certainly the Denver Broncos at 3-0 would whip the lowly, 0-3 Kansas City Chiefs on Sunday, right? As it turns out, that was absolutely wrong.

While Kansas City was on a 12-game losing streak, they always play Denver tough at home and Mike Shanahan, Denver's head coach, entered Arrowhead Stadium with a 3-10 record there. Denver and Kansas City might not hate each other as much as, say, Denver and Oakland, but there's still a strong rivalry there and Kansas City played like it.

The Chiefs shut down the Broncos' running game and Denver quarterback Jay Cutler threw two interceptions, to boot. Oh, and the Broncos managed to fumble twice on Sunday, too.

In the end, Denver (AFC West) lost 19-33 and fell to 3-1 on the season. I can't help but think of that game as an anomaly as the Broncos came into Kansas City averaging 38 points per game and were leading the NFL in first downs. They'll be fine but they looked terrible on Sunday. The Broncos play Tampa Bay next week, so here's hoping they'll be back on track by then.

Denver has always had a hard time in Arrowhead and Sunday was no exception.

It's really hard to root against New Orleans

One of my favorite bloggers, Sara from News from NOLA, left me a comment after the Denver-New Orleans game congratulating me on the Broncos' victory.

I appreciated that, just as I appreciated watching the mighty Broncos get a 3-0 start on the season by pulling off another nail biter (they won 34-32 and the game pretty well went down to the wire). However, here's the problem -- it's just hard to root too hard against the Saints and I've felt that way since Hurricane Katrina came close to wiping that city off the map three years ago.

I like that city and respect the toughness of people like Sara who have remained there and have rebuilt. I'm as rabid a Broncos fan as you'll find, but it's almost impossible to work up the requisite dislike for the opponent when Denver is playing New Orleans.

Oh well.

Some of the highlights of the game were watching the continued maturation of quarterback Jay Cutler. We Arkansans know how good of a quarterback Cutler is -- he helped the Vanderbilt Commodores sneak past the Arkansas Razorbacks not that long ago. It's good to see him playing -- and doing well -- for a team I like.

Yes, Cutler did manage to throw an interception at about the worst time and give New Orleans a solid shot at pulling ahead of the Broncos, but the young quarterback also threw for 264 yards and two touchdowns. He spent most of the day throwing at Brandon Marshall, who caught 5 passes for 155 yards and a touchdown.

Sure, he made a mistake or two and struggles with running the ball, but I'm sure all of us Denver fans are hoping he'll emerge as the quarterback the Broncos have needed since the great John Elway retired.

It was also encouraging to watch a former Arkansas Razorback, rookie Peyton Hillis, make a little noise -- he returned to kickoffs for a total of 47 yards.

By the way, Denver should really trot out those orange home jerseys more often. It reminds me of how the team looked when I was a kid. Orange Crush forever, baby!

Meanwhile, the Saints are 1-2, but I can't imagine that will last for long. Quarterback Drew Brees was solid, passing for 421 yards and a touchdown. Running back Reggie Bush rushed for 73 yards and a touchdown and received for 75 yards and a touchdown.

New Orleans can score -- there's no doubt about that. That team ought to do well this year and I'm cheering for them.

Unless they play Denver, of course.

Meanwhile...

The primary components of the backfield that set all kinds of records for Arkansas last year is still performing well in the NFL. This weak, Dallas running back Felix Jones rushed for 60 years and scored a touchdown as the Cowboys beat the Green Bay Packers 27-16.

Another rookie, Darren McFadden, was quieter than normal this week -- only rushing for 42 yards on 14 carries for Oakland as the Raiders lost to the Buffalo Bills, 24-23. Maybe the Raiders should have gotten the ball to McFadden a few more times. But, I'm biased.

It's too bad Jones and McFadden chose to leave Arkansas early and enter the NFL draft. The struggling Hogs sure could use those two right now.

Denver's looking pretty good, huh?

It's been rough rooting for the mighty, mighty Denver Broncos since John Elway retired after the 1998 season.

One of the major problems with Denver is that the team has always revolved around a top-notch quarterback. A lot has been said about Denver's running game, but there was a time when the Broncos made it to Super Bowls based solely on the determination of Elway.

Just remember the problems the Broncos had in those painful Super Bowls of 1988, 1989 and 1990 -- the team didn't have much in the way of a running game and suffered because of it. When the team did achieve a balanced attack, the Broncos won a couple of Super Bowls in 1998 and 1999 because Elway's talents were complimented by an excellent running game.

Yes, the run game has remained solid, but Denver hasn't gotten far without a solid passing game.

After Elway retired, there was a lot of talk about how any quarterback could step into Denver's system and do well. That wasn't the case as quarterbacks Brian Griese and Jake Plummer were both failures. Longtime fans like me found it ironic that Denver finally had a great running game but was lacking in the passing department.

Those of us who follow the Broncos, then, can't help but be encouraged by Jay Cutler's performance so far this year. Cutler was drafted from Vanderbilt, played a bit in the 2006 season and started throughout the 2007 season. Last year, he managed to put together a fair-to-middling QB rating of 88.1, but has come out on fire this year.

Just take a look at the stats so far -- QB rating of 118.6, a 70.3 pass completion rate 650 passing yards and 6 touchdowns. That's pretty good and here's hoping he keeps up that level of play. Denver Coach Mike Shanahan obviously has faith in Cutler as evidenced by that risky, two-point conversion that put the Broncos past the Chargers in the final few seconds of Sunday's game.

By the way, that play in the final seconds in which an errant whistle gave a fumble back together was such a fundamentally unfair call that the NFL is considering a rule change. Good for them. San Diego got robbed. I'm thrilled that Denver won, but fair is fair, right?

But, back to Cutler. Remember that even the great Elway struggled for a couple of seasons. He needed time to mature. Hopefully, Cutler is going through that maturation process right now and will turn into the quarterback that we Broncos fans have been wanting for a decade.

Those of us in Arkansas certainly know that Cutler is an impressive quarterback. The beloved Razorbacks struggled with Vanderbilt, in fact, when Cutler was leading that team. Generally, when the Hogs dropped a game to the likes of Ole Miss, Mississippi State or Vanderbilt, we'd blame it on that idiot, Houston "Stinkbutt" Nutt, who wound up coaching the Razorbacks because we evidently don't discriminate against embarrassing fools in Arkansas.

Cutler and Vanderbilt beat the Razorbacks legitimately. Nutt only gets half the blame for that loss.

Razorbacks tearing up the NFL!

I don't give a damn for either the Dallas Cowboys or the Oakland Raiders, but it's been fun watching two rookies who played for the Razorbacks making a splash on those teams this year. Darren McFadden rushed for 164 yards and a touchdown for Oakland on Sunday, whereas Felix Jones returned a kickoff for 98 yards for Dallas on Monday.

Jones, in fact, compiled a ridiculous 247 return yards. Oh, and last week, Jones rushed for 62 yards and scored a touchdown.

Bear in mind that McFadden and Jones were the central performers in the Razorbacks' backfield last year. Arkansas had a great rushing game, indeed, and the team really should have put together an outstanding season rather than another one capped by a loss to an inferior team in a middle-tier bowl (the Hogs lost to Missouri in the Cotton Bowl).

What was the problem? The problem was the Razorbacks were coached by a man who is roughly as intelligent as a chunk of balsa wood. It's absolutely shocking to me that furious Razorbacks fans didn't shower Nutt with garbage or descend upon Fayetteville with torches and pitchforks during that horrible little man's last few seasons here. Thank goodness he's at Ole Miss now. Fans over there can put up with his subliterate babble and rudimentary coaching skills until they run him out of their state.

I find it funny as hell that McFadden has been given credit for saving the job of Oalkand's head coach, Lane Kiffin. Why? McFadden saved Nutt's job a couple of times. He really is that good of a player.

By the way, fellow Arkansan -- Paul at Paul's Health Blog -- posted a comment on an earlier post of mine asking why I didn't acknowledge another former Razorback, Peyton Hillis.

Well, Paul, I figured Peyton has done well enough for himself by playing for the Denver Broncos. He plays for the supreme team in the NFL, so what congratulations could I possibly add to that? At any rate, let Hillis make a highlight reel, and you'd better believe I'll be crowing about him.

I'm all set to visit with Paul on Friday, by the way. He's coming to Benton to watch his Conway Wampus Cats take on my beloved Benton Panthers. Paul's got a kid who plays for Conway. I go to all the Benton home games with my dad, so I'm looking forward to meeting Paul and his wife, Laura (she runs Junk-Foodaholic).

I should point out that Benton is absolutely horrible this year and the Wampus Cats (I still don't know what the hell a wampus cat is) ought to absolutely roll over the poor Panthers. Regardless, believe my write-up of the game before you believe Paul's. Since he's got a kid playing I'm sure he'll be biased.

Heh!

Good luck to your team and your son, Paul!

Where the heck is my Broncos game?

How do you like that old school Denver Broncos logo?

Yes, that can only mean one thing -- football season is in full swing and The Hawg is already mad about something.

Why? Let me explain. I've been a Broncos fan since that old school logo I posted here was relatively new. When it's football season, I don't bother much with anyone else in the NFL but Denver.

How much do I like Denver? I'll put it this way. Back in 1988 the Broncos were getting stomped in the Super Bowl by the Redskins. I was a college freshman and was watching the game in my room with about a dozen other dejected Broncos fans. A Redskins fan showed up and started running his mouth.

We chased him through the dorm, grabbed him and shoved him a trash can. He had it coming.

You do realize why there are 32 teams in the NFL, don't you? That's so Denver can have someone to play.

At any rate, I was all set to watch the Broncos play this afternoon, so I turned over to CBS and was greeted with -- the Jets/Patriots game.

What the hell? Who makes these decisions? I was all ready to fire off an angry letter to the pinhead at CBS and had imagined it would read something like this:

Dear Mr. P. Head:

What the hell, man?

Warmest regards,
The Hawg

I figured that would do no good, however, so I started thinking up a new plan. I need to invest in one of those football packages so I can do what God intended and watch the mighty Broncos whenever they take to the field. The network guys are obviously heathens and can't be counted on to air the Broncos here in central Arkansas, so I'll have to take matters into my own hands if I want to watch America's team -- God's favorite team! -- play.

There are two problems with that plan, however. First of all, I'm a cheap bastard and things like football packages cost money. I don't like spending money. Second, my wife hates the Broncos and probably wouldn't go for spending money on a package so I could watch the Broncos all season.

I am ashamed, by the way, to be married to an anti-Broncite. She's a Dallas fan. Oh, the pain!

I'll still think about that football package, of course. That might be the way to go.

I did get to see the last quarter of the Broncos game after that snooze fest that the Patriots and Jets participated in ended. I'm proud to say that the Broncos beat the Chargers and that puts my lads at 2-0. The first when of the season, of course, came last week when they simply ground the Raiders into the dirt.

There's one thing I can't help but mention about that Broncos-Chargers game, however. I'll say it once and then never repeat it:

The Chargers were totally robbed!

It's true. Any Chargers fan knows what I'm talking about. Denver clearly fumbled the ball in the last few seconds of the game, a bonehead official ruled it an incomplete pass, Denver took over on the Chargers' 10-yard-line and promptly won 38-37. Calls like that stink because you just know your team will get popped with one of those eventually.

Go right here if you want to read about the controversial calls against San Diego for yourself. Hey, I'm a Broncos fan and even I was wondering what the heck was happening.

In addition to the Broncos winning their home opener on Sunday, another great thing happened in the NFL -- Darren McFadden rushed for 164 yards and scored a touchdown. McFadden, a former Arkansas Razorback, is a rookie and a first-round draft pick for the Raiders.

He set all sorts of records for the Hogs and we're all hopeful he'll make a big splash in the NFL. He ought to be playing for Denver, of course, but it's good to see a local kid doing well in the pros, regardless.

Oakland went on to beat the Chiefs in Kansas City, 23-8. Keep an eye on McFadden. He may well make a lot of defenses cry in the years to come.

Meanwhile...

Our friend Theresa Komor over at A Bumpy Path and Eyebald got the lead story this morning in the Daily Citizen of Searcy, Ark. Way to go, Theresa!