Over the line

Coming into the 1976 NFL season, the league added two new teams into the mix in the Seattle Seahawks and the Teams amp Bay Buccaneers. Seattle had a rough go of it, not winning a game until Game 6, and finishing their season 2-12. But the Bucs…

Whoa, the Buccaneers.

Tampa Bay lost every game of their inaugural season, one of five teams in league history to have a winless season. They didn’t have a much easier time of it in the 1977 season, losing their first 12 before finally hanging a win on the New Orleans Saints in Week 13. They would win the following week to finish that season 2-12. Out of the gates with your fanbase with 26 straight losses. Anyone sitting in the stands for that first win should have gotten lifetime season tickets, they were so loyal to be along for that ride.

But .500 ball didn’t come for the Bucs until Season Three, when wins in Weeks 3 and 4 brought them to 2-2, a new high-water mark for the franchise. They would go on to see 3-3 and 4-4 records before finally falling again. Between the time the franchise started play and the time they finally hit .500, it was 742 days of tough sledding. That shows some patience.

Which is what makes it remarkable that when your Denver Broncos play this Sunday, they will have gone 708 days since the last time they were above .500, with a win needed against the Atlanta Falcons just to lift them back to that point. Should the stars align for the 3-4 Broncos on Sunday against the 2-6 Falcons with a win, Denver will have gone just shy of two years since their last sighting of that Mason-Dixon delineation. Should they lose, they’ll be at least two weeks away from another crak at it, if they can get back to that point at all. If they win, they actually have a crack at making some noise towards the playoffs for the first time in a while, as well-clarified in this great piece by Zac Stevens.

Though the Broncos didn’t have their first winning season until year 14, this is an organization now used to winning and far higher standards. Since hanging up 12 of 13 losing seasons to start, Denver has only had 10 more in their entire history. The fanbase, players, and organization all expect big things, every year.

Which is why Sunday shapes up to be a much more important moment for Denver fans than the third-place-in-the-AFC-West Broncos going up against the last-place-in-the-NFC-South Falcons. It means a path back to normalcy and respectability. Hell, possibly even the Playoffs, as Zac mentions. A reset on what looked to be another disastrous year for a franchise used to so much more. A win gives them a chance to see if they can play winning ball in the second half of the year with a lot of good things possibly on the horizon.

And a loss? Well, a loss isn’t a forever setback, but with four of those last eight games in the division, the pressure will already be high. A loss this weekend to a beatable team might be a tough speed bump to get back up to pace from. Can Denver keep putting the pieces together in time to get rolling for the second half? Sunday morning will tell us a lot. If nothing else, a win will at least get us back to a spot not seen since 2018. So, Go Broncos. I never thought I’d say it, but I’d be pretty excited to simply get ourselves back to even.