Throwback Thursday: Sunday's Denver Broncos game full of 2006 irony

 

Life is full of irony.

Everywhere you look, you can see it. Sometimes it’s harder to locate, but you’ll find it.

Can vegetarians eat animal crackers?

Alanis Morissette’s song “Ironic” isn’t ironic, which is ironic.

You can find it in sports, too. The most recent example comes this Sunday when Brock Osweiler makes his first career start against the Chicago Bears.

Now, that in itself isn’t ironic. But when you see who the quarterback is for the Bears, it makes complete sense.

In 2006, Jake Plummer and Jay Cutler were the quarterbacks for the Denver Broncos. Cutler was a first-round pick from Vanderbilt and Plummer was the starter. It was only a matter of time before then-coach Mike Shanahan made the switch to Cutler. Even though the Broncos were 7-3, you just knew that Shanahan would make the move.

It happened on Thanksgiving against the Kansas City Chiefs, a 19-10 loss at Arrowhead Stadium.

The rest, as they say, is history.

Plummer would retire to focus on handball and drink beer.

Cutler would get traded to Chicago when a certain hooded disciple appeared in Denver, and here we are.

Of course Osweiler would make his first career start facing a situation similar to young Cutler’s. Though, Manning probably can’t play handball and doesn’t love beer as much Plummer.

At the moment, Denver is 7-2. That’s a little ironic.

It’s not Thanksgiving, but still a week away. That’s a little ironic.

What makes this even more ironic is Rick Dennison is the offensive coordinator. He held the same position for Denver in 2006, so this isn’t anything new for him.

It’s also possible we’ve seen the last game Manning plays. That’s ironic given what happened with Plummer. If Osweiler performs well, would the Broncos go back to Manning? It’s possible the only way Manning sees the field again is if Osweiler is terrible…as in “Manning terrible” from the first nine games.

Broncos Country should hope this scenario produces a better outcome. After the 7-3 start in 2006, including the Kansas City game, the Broncos finished 2-4.

The end of that season was no fun at all.

And that was the beginning of the end for Shanahan in Denver.

There is one big difference between these two scenarios: Patience.

There is no patience with this fanbase nine years later. That’s ironic in itself because the goal of the organization has always been to win the Super Bowl.

If this team wins two of the last seven games, Denver will riot. You thought people lost their minds after a 7-2 start.

The loss of patience could be because of social media. Twitter wasn’t really active back then and MySpace was just as big as Facebook. So it may just appear that fans have lost their patience.  

But if Osweiler loses, the pitchfork-and-torch crowd will pop vessels in their brains. Again.

“Put in Trevor Siemian! Brock is finished,” they’ll yell. 

Just like Cutler in 2006, it was only a matter of time before Osweiler got his start.

It’s just ironic he does so against Cutler.

Life has a way of coming full circle.