It’s amazing what a championship can do to unite a city. Of course, you know all about the Super Bowl parade. Considering over a million people attended, there’s a pretty good chance that, if you’re reading this, you were there. One million people all uniting for the same thing is nothing short of incredible.
I was almost as, if not just as amazed, though, when I took a trip to DIA a couple weeks ago.
After checking in for my flight with my family and walking towards security, I got to the top of the escalators, looking over the fully packed security line.
“Look how many people are wearing orange,” I said to my sister.
“Oh my god,” she replied as she looked over the group.
Here we were, months after the Super Bowl and the security line at DIA looked more like the line to get into Mile High. The most prevalent color in the line was orange. A marvel.
But as fans remain three sheets to the wind in a sea of orange, one small block of Broncos Country has begun to remedy the Super Bowl hangover. On the corner of E Broncos Pkwy and S Potomac St, they’ve swept up the confetti and thrown away the solo cups, cleaning up the place in hopes of hosting another party.
“Fan’s are still happy about Super Bowl 50,” C.J. Anderson told a small group of media at Broncos headquarters on Tuesday. “We’re trying to move to 51.
“We just moved on, that’s the first thing we put on, 2015 was over and we’re just going to move on,” he added. “I think it’s nice, [Gary Kubiak] said this morning, ‘We have 42 new faces on this football team, let’s go give those 42 people the experience of winning a championship.'”
Now they have the blueprint.
It’s interesting, heading into Super Bowl 50 the Broncos had only one player on the roster who had experienced winning a Super Bowl—Peyton Manning, you may have heard of him—That player is gone this year but now the roster has more than 40 guys who have that experience.
“We have to show them what it takes and what it means to sacrifice the things that you love to do to go win a championship,” Anderson said of the new guys. “Sacrifice for your teammates, sacrifice for your brothers, coaching staff making the sacrifice of staying here late, let’s put it all together.”
There is, though, just one player on the roster this year who has played in back-to-back Super Bowls, Russell Okung, who did so with the Seahawks in 2013 and 2014.
“The great thing about it is there isn’t necessarily talk about being a defending Super Bowl champion,” he said of the message in the locker room he is very new to. “We’re just as in pursuit to win another one.”
Don’t worry about defending Super Bowl 50, nobody can take that one away, worry about winning the one that hasn’t been claimed yet.
“That was our goal last year,” Anderson said. “That’s our goal this year.”
Broncos fans are still happy about Super Bowl 50, that’s how it should be. As you all know, even for a franchise as proud as the Denver Broncos, championships don’t come around all too often. So celebrate, celebrate, celebrate. Celebrate until another fan base can claim that Lombardi trophy.
As for the Broncos, it’s their job to make sure the only way that happens is if that trophy is pried from their cold, dead hands.
They’ve already clocked in.
