Hell hath no fury like a woman with an El Camino scorned. Especially if that El Camino is painted orange and blue.
“I mean, I expect us to at least make the playoffs this year,” Crystal Gonzalez told me before her beloved Broncos thrashed the Rams in Denver’s preseason finale on Saturday night.
“Yeah, I’m very confident in the new coach. I think he’s going to change some things and we’re going to have a better group of guys on the field. I think we’re going to get it done. I’m pretty loyal though. I mean, look. I have a car.”
Lordy, what a car. As we talked two blocks from Empower Field, Gonzalez, Denverite and Bronco For Life, waved back at the family’s tailgate ride, a gorgeous ’70 El Camino, the way the models wave at the prize cars on “The Price Is Right.” A giant, flat-screen television sat in the middle of a bed that was lined, back to front, with soft Astroturf.
“Eleven and six,” Gonzalez continued. “I’d say 11-6. We’re going to take one from the Chiefs this year. Hopefully, we get that done. I’m tired of losing to K.C., though. I think Sean Payton is what we need.”
In Sean They Trust. With caveats. We bounced through a half-dozen tailgates before kickoff early Saturday night, just to check the unscientific temperature inside Broncos Country, and the feedback was darn near universal:
Average victories hoped for: 10.2.
Average victories expected: 8.8.
On that last one, well, blame PHSD.
As in, Post Hackett Stress Disorder.
“I’m really concerned about the same old (expletive) that the Broncos offensive coordinators bring — run, run, run, pass, or pass, pass, run or however that runs out,” Clint Kell, another Broncos lifer, told me Saturday.
“They need to have a more, more diverse (expletive) play-calling system.
“I mean, I think that this is a multi-layered cake for all of us. It’s not just the injuries, it’s not just our coaching or running and our passing game. Again, from what I’ve seen so far in preseason, I can see the urgency from Payton. But we’ll see what happens.”
For Kell, hope runs in the family. So does, shall we say, a rather healthy skepticism. He’s a third-generation season-ticket-holder. Fifty yard-line. (“Fourteen rows up, baby,” he laughed.)
Last August, most of us came out of the preseason wearing orange goggles. Russell Wilson fooled us. Hackett fooled us. It was supposed to be sunshine, rainbows and puppy dogs.
“Everybody was so jacked this time a year ago. I was not,” Kell stressed.
“(My friends were) like, ‘Oh yeah, we’re going to kick everybody’s (backside). They thought that Russell Wilson is a savior. And I was like, ‘You know, he’s, he’s getting old. I don’t know, we might have caught him after his prime.’ So we’ll see.
“I wasn’t a big fan of him from the very get-go. Same thing with Tim Tebow, though. I wasn’t a big fan.”
Alice Gallegos of Fountain admits she’s battled a little PHSD herself. She cringed during that home opener against Houston last September, but refrained from joining in to help count down the play clock.
“I was depressed,” she sighed.
Not anymore, though.
OK. Not yet.
“So I’m going to say we’ll win nine games,” Gallegos said. “Sean Payton, he’s coming in, he’s doing a great job with the team. From what I’ve seen so far, he’s done really well.
“The enthusiasm — I see more enthusiasm in the players this year than I did last year, (from) the new ones and the old ones. So I think we’re going to do amazing. It’s going to be a really good year. We’re looking at like 12 (wins). But nine would be good, based on what I saw last year. I really think the team is going to do better this year with Sean Payton.”
Fact: Payton has never won fewer than seven games as an NFL coach. We’d love to say never, but Big Russ had never thrown for fewer than 20 touchdowns, too. Until he got here.
“Nine (wins) would be (good enough) for me,” she said. “I’m not expecting us to go to the Super Bowl — that might be a little too optimistic. But, you know, I am loyal.
“So I’m going to say that it’s going to be like an 11-6 season. That’s what I’m going to stick to.”
8.8 wins?
Gonzalez is ready to fire up the El Camino and take that over for a ride. All the way to the bank.
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