Ten Reasons Why Broncos Fans Are the Most Stressed Out in the NFL

And the Denver Broncos came out on top — a dubious distinction, to be sure — with a score of 7.96 on a ten-point scale.

Of course, this isn’t news for Broncos faithful. We might not have known we were the most anxiety-ridden fans in the NFL, but at the same time, we recognize that we’ve galloped along a pretty rough road with high highs, low lows and some inexplicably swampy places where we’ve just been wading through gridiron muck.

It’s not just the stats that tell the story, though. There are a bunch of other reasons why the Broncos have been the nail-bitiest team in football throughout their more than sixty-year history. With the help of Broncos Superfan-Dan, we’ve listed our top ten:

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Bears Stadium in 1960, its baseball origins still apparent.

1. The Broncos Were Founded Because Denver Got Double-Snubbed
It wasn’t an auspicious start, Denver’s entry into football in 1960. In fact, it was because baseball skipped over the Mile High City that it happened at all. Denver Bears Triple-A owner Bob Howsam expanded the stadium to qualify for a Major League expansion…which fell through. Then he expanded again in order to bring an NFL franchise…which was quashed by an owners’ group headed by George Halas. Howsam went on to develop the AFL out of spite (and a fear of defaulting on his many loans), and the Broncos became one of the founding teams in that short-lived league.

2. Our First Decade? Terrible.
As a founding team in the AFL, the Broncos were dependable…dependably terrible. Despite some auspicious successes (like being the first AFL team to beat an NFL team, in a 1967 pre-season game against the Detroit Lions) and winning their very first game (against the then-Boston Patriots), they ended their first season at 4 and 9, with one tie. In the ten years the AFL was in business, the Broncos never did better than a 50 percent win percentage, and was the only original team never to make it to the title game.

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Lyle Alzado, one of the Orange Crush keys early on.

3. The Big Promise/Big Letdown Cycle Was Established Early
Denver’s first big star player was the late, great Floyd Little, who didn’t just lead the AFL in rushing, but also outpaced anyone in the NFL. But neither he nor the vaunted Orange Crush in the Broncos’ early years in the NFL ever brought the team the winning record fans expected.

4. So Was the Sellout Streak
Still, Denver fans were faithful, perhaps to a fault. In their first NFL season, the team continued its strictly average streak with a record of 5-8-1. In its second season, it matched the disappointment of the inaugural season in the AFL with a record of 4-9-1. During all this time, the home sellout streak never faltered. Commendable, right? Proof of an awesome and loyal fan base — but perhaps also evidence to ownership that winning wasn’t necessarily directly tied to fan support.

5. The Miracle Season
In 1977, Coach Red Miller and QB Craig Morton led the Orange Crush to its first impressive season: 12 and 2, capped with a decisive win against Pittsburgh to clinch the division. The Broncos faced down their rival (and previous Super Bowl winner) Raiders and won a close one to take the conference title, earning them a trip to Super Bowl XII. There, Denver choked, turning the ball over eight times against the Cowboys, who didn’t fail to capitalize, beating the Broncos in front of football’s biggest audience, 27-10.

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John Elway, right before The Drive.

6. The Long Promise of Elway
John Elway’s start with Denver came after he’d been drafted by the Colts. Elway refused to play until and unless he was traded to any one of a handful of teams — Denver being one of them. He led the team through exciting seasons that ultimately fell short of the big prize. The Drive. The Fumble. The snowball game. But also: three Superbowl losses in the ’80s, including what’s considered the most lopsided loss in Super Bowl history against the 49ers, in 1990. Yes, Elway was still Denver royalty, and yes, he capped his career with back-to-back wins…but those two wins were a long, super-stressful time coming.

7. Big Losses on the Big Stage
Speaking of lopsided Super Bowl losses…over the years, the Broncos have been on the losing side in three of the top five worst beatings in the NFL’s big game, according to BleacherReport.com. In addition to the 55-10 spanking by the 49ers, fans also had to endure the 1987 loss to the Giants (39-20) and the 42-10 loss against Washington the very next year.

Peyton Manning and Shannon Sharpe demonstrate the stress of being a Broncos fan in September 2022.

8. Bad Choices
Great googly moogly, have the Broncos made some terrible calls over the years in terms of coaching hires, picks and trades. In the modern era, it started with letting Josh McDaniels run Jay Cutler out of town on an orange-and-blue rail, and then realizing what an ineffective asshat McDaniels was and rightly firing him. The parade of would-be QBs and coaches would be laughable if it weren’t so dispiriting for fans. Let’s hope recent additions like Sean Payton and Frank Clark will change this pattern of behavior on the part of the front office.

9. Quarterback Strategy
Speaking of QBs, we all loved the Peyton Manning era. It was fun to watch, and fun to win again, even if his inconsistency toward the end made for some blood-pressure-rising games. But seriously: Can we stop offering old pigskin-pitchers a place to pre-retire? Yes, the gamble paid off with Manning, but chances are that it won’t again. The Russell Wilson era through which we’re currently suffering is good evidence of that. Can we just once and for all admit that the recent roster was designed specifically for Aaron Rogers? And when that fell through, we tried to fit a Seattle peg in a Denver hole?

10. In Football, Stress Equals Love
Here’s the thing: Denver Broncos fans wouldn’t stress so much if they didn’t care. This is the flip side to that bad lesson that ownership learned early on, that the faith of the fans would not waver for lack of wins — that we’re there through thick and thin, through wins and losses, through good ball and bad ball, stomping on those bleachers like they still bring the thunder like they used to. Go, Broncos!

And refill your Xanax.