Why the idea of Sunday being a "trap game" for the Denver Broncos is ridiculous

ENGLEWOOD, Colo. — Change your narrative.

All around town, folks are looking for a way to spice up the Denver Broncos’ trip to Western New York this weekend with a two-word phrase that has no business entering the discussion.

“Trap game.”

Meh.

“Not in the NFL.”

“This is the NFL.”

“It’s the NFL.”

The words of Derek Wolfe, Justin Simmons and head coach Vance Joseph, respectively.

As those three men quickly pointed out, this is the National Football League. You only get 16 of these and they all matter. A lot.

“Trap game” is a phrase made for basketball, where the regular season matters so little that teams rest starters in the middle of the year. “Trap game” could work in college football, where 18-year-old kids are prone to schedule circling. But this is not the Spurs-Sixers on the second half of a back to back, nor is it Bama-Vandy a week ahead of the Iron Bowl. This is a team that missed the playoffs last season—after starting 4-0 at that—a team that still has everything to prove, going across the country with a chance to start 3-0.

“It’s crazy,” Simmons said of the notion that it’s anything but that. “Someone asked me [if it was a trap game] earlier and I immediately wanted to just stop them and say, ‘There’s no such thing.’ This is the NFL; everyone is here for a reason… Trap games, in my opinion, don’t exist.”

If we’re talking bad sports cliches, this one may actually be closer to the “must win” end of the spectrum than it is to the “trap game” side. While it’s far from both, in the arms race that is the AFC West, the games you are “supposed to win” are of heightened importance. If anything, the Broncos upcoming duel with the Oakland Raiders makes a win this Sunday that much more important.

Both the Raiders and Chiefs are favored this weekend, find yourself caught in a trap with a loss to the Buffalo Bills and you could be facing a two-game deficit in the division before you know it. There’s your intrigue.

Not to worry.

“Oh yeah, it could be one of those games,” Wolfe said sarcastically. “Not in the NFL. Not when you’re fighting for your livelihood. This is your livelihood. You can’t take a snap off, let alone a game off.”

If all of that doesn’t convince you that the Broncos will enter Sunday’s game prepared, take yourself back to the preseason. In four games that don’t matter at all, the Broncos went 4-0, by design.

“I think winning is important,” Vance Joseph said of the fact that his team has won six straight. “It speaks to your preparations, it speaks to your coaching and your players’ attitudes.”

“When we play, we want to win,” he added. “It’s a habit—winning.”

The Buffalo Bills could beat the Denver Broncos on Sunday because on any given Sunday, any NFL team can beat any other, no trap needed. It’s that very notion that makes the idea of one team overlooking another a crock.

The Broncos have a nasty habit of winning right now, and they have no plans of helping themselves kick it. Don’t get trapped into thinking otherwise.