No Cigar: Can the Broncos, Nuggets, and Avalanche Learn From Their Near-Misses, or Is Everything Up in Smoke?

I was nine years old and gambling in Las Vegas. Wait. Start over. Before the gaming commission makes a drive over to my place… I was nine years old, and doing the thing CLOSEST to gambling that Las Vegas would legally allow a kid to do. I was roaming the top floor of Circus Circus, messing around at the shooting gallery and trying my hand at all of the “games of skill and chance” kids were allowed to play for a quarter. I kept losing at the spray-in horse racing, the coin toss onto the plate, the basketball shooting, and the baseball toss. I’d often come exceptionally close to winning a prize, but just couldn’t seem to find my way to it. Every time I’d come close, the guy running the game would say something akin to, “close, but no cigar”. I had heard the phrase so many times in my nine years that I didn’t really consider wanting a cigar. It was just something you said. But boy, had I gotten close.

When my parents came up to grab my sister and I, we wandered back down the long circular ramp towards the casino floor, and halfway down there was a small landing with one more game kids were allowed to play, the ring toss. My stepdad gave me a quarter to try, and we were all amazed when my last toss of a ring actually landed on a bottle. Not just any bottle, but one of the few that were bright blue. I was given a choice of any of their largest prizes.

The stuffed Saint Bernard I chose was nearly as tall as I was, even though he was seated. I had a hell of a time carrying him back to the car, we had a hell of a time finding room for him in the trunk on the way back to our hotel, and I further struggled carrying my prize from the car to the elevator, where “Bernie” (I know, I wasn’t so original as a nine-year old) would stay in the room with my sister and I until we drove back to L.A. On the elevator ride up, a gent who was riding along offered me fifty dollars for Bernie. My stepdad used to laughingly tell the story of me somewhat pointedly telling that guy that he was the one who could get stuffed. The ride home to L.A. was… cramped.

Games of skill and chance have existed for decades, in sports, for Joe Public, and in gaming halls for years. The earliest use of the phrase “close, but no cigar” was a very literal one uttered by the carneys running those same sorts of games outside of circuses in the early 20th century. Cigars were often the given prize for winning a penny toss or a ring toss, as they were cheap, storable, and the very symbol of victory of that era. Longtime carneys also came to realize that the closer a person got to winning a game, even one that was rigged against them, the more likely they were to keep trying. While a penny-a-try probably didn’t seem like TOO steep a price at that time, the cents sure added up quickly in the pursuit of a cigar that would have cost two or three pennies to just buy, instead. Cents, but no sense. That close call was just too heady for most humans to not step back up and try again.

Im psychology, it’s called the near-miss effect, the idea that coming close portends that ultimate victory is just around the corner. In sports, or games of skill, that idea makes some sense, but still not fully. If you’ve gotten fairly close to your goal, it would logically follow that a few small tweaks, or even just another try, would point you towards the win you want. But even in games of statistical equality, like a slot machine, the near-miss effect will trigger a mental/emotional mechanism for that gambler to feel certain the big win is right around the corner. Statistically, ALMOST getting three BARs is no different than not getting any at all. But tell that to the ALMOST reward system in your monkey brain. If that middle BAR had just been one more space up…

But no cigar.

Colorado sports fans have had three near-misses in the last five months, with the Denver Broncos getting one game away from the Super Bowl, the Denver Nuggets getting three rounds from the Championship, and the Colorado Avalanche making it one round from the Stanley Cup before flaming out this last Tuesday in a sweep. Each of them only a BAR (or three) from achieving their ultimate goal, and each of them recent enough champions to still believe that a ring was within their grasp. Amazingly, each of them is probably looking at very different ALMOST methodologies to reach their target, and much of that based on trajectory and circumstance.

For the Broncos, they are so far ahead of schedule on the Bo Nix Project, they probably feel as if they are playing with house money. They didn’t expect to be quite so good quite so fast, and still ended up (probably) a Nix injury away from having made it to the Super Bowl last season with a decent chance of winning it all. Why mess with what got you there, and with a few minor tweaks, just roll it back and pull that lever again. Maybe call Von Miller up, just for good luck.

For the Nuggets, their single championship was followed by two second-round exits, and now most recently a first-round dispatch. Perception is probably reality in this game, and the perception/consensus is that they are moving in the wrong direction, with one of the best players in the world still steering the boat in Nikola Jokic. With salaries and caps also a big part of the Nuggets puzzle, they have already committed to bringing back their coach for at least one more run. But Joker and David Adelman may be the only sure peice of the puzzle at this moment. Most knowledgable observers’ money say that the needed changes are coming on the floor, but with very little agreement as to what those changes should be. By the time the Nuggets start their next season, the makeup of the team may look very different before they take another crack at pulling that lever themselves.

And finally the Avalanche, where expectations were sky-high after showing themselves to be the best team in the league. Or so it seemed. After hitting an unanticipated wall this past week-plus, rumors are rampant with speculation of their coach losing his job, or theories as to what might need to happen to get them a rung or two higher. Had they taken their conference finals run to seven games, the tenor of things might be different. But after a sweep (after going 8-1 to get to that tier), the wind came very suddenly out of those sails. No one wants a chance to pull that lever again more than the Avs, but what the team and bench will look like when they do is fans current obsession. The mind boggles.

Was it simply a matter of injury for all three squads? Nix for the Broncos, Aaron Gordon, Peyton Watson, and others for the Nuggets, and at least Cale Makar for the Avalanche? Are they all able to climb any higher if they’d simply been healthy? That’s for smarter minds than mine, or the psychic tent over by the ring toss. All we all know is that after three highly encouraging seasons, we saw three rather deflating near-misses. Another shot for everyone is coming back around, theoretically with changes that give them all even better odds. But for 2026? Close, but no cigar.