Couple of teams within the National Football League have benefited from the 1970 merger between the old American Football League (AFL) as well as the well-established and successful National Football League (NFL) as much as the Denver Broncos. Not only have they maintained pretty much sell-out attendance at each and every home game since the merger, but they have also managed to parley their membership inside the larger League into world championship status. For anyone familiar with the franchise’s miserable record within the now-defunct AFL, the team’s rise to prominence is some thing spectacular indeed.
The team’s origins
The Denver Broncos had been the subject of jokes and scorn practically from the moment the franchise was awarded to Bob Howsam back in 1959. Howsam operated the group on one thing akin to a shoestring budget, and was unable and unwilling to make any serious investment from the team’s infrastructure. As a result, they had been outfitted in uniforms that had previously been worn in prior Arizona Copper Bowls – uniforms that have been so gaudy that they would have made Cindy Lauper’s attire inside 1980s look stylish in comparison. Thankfully, the team was at least provided the opportunity to burn their striped socks a few years later in what turned out to become a incredibly cathartic knowledge for all involved!
Early history
The team’s performance during those early many years was as laughable as their uniforms. Though they did manage in 1967to score the AFL’s really first win above any NFL opponent, that victory turned out to be a single of the few bright spots in an otherwise dismal existence. Things have been so bad above the incredibly first team’s time within the AFL that by the time the merger took place Denver had succeeded in compiling the worst group record inside the background on the American Football League: 39 wins, 97 losses, and 4 ties. The most that could be said for the franchise was that their threatened move to Atlanta in 1965 resulted inside team’s fans purchasing practically the entire allotment of season tickets for every year thereafter – in an attempt to demonstrate enough support to keep the team inside city.
A change in fortunes
Three many years after the 1970 merger, the Broncos finally managed to complete a winning season – the 1st inside the team’s history. More than the course with the next two decades, the team would only experience three total losing seasons, would win their division seven times, and win the AFC on four separate occasions. At the end with the 1997 season, the Broncos achieved what would have been all but unthinkable a mere three decades before as the now-retired and legendary quarterback John Elway led them to their initial Super Bowl victory. What’s far more, they proved in the extremely next season that they had been not merely a fluke, as they joined an exclusive six-team club of teams that have won Super Bowls in consecutive years. A single point is for certain; when fans now think of the Denver Broncos, laughter and derision is the last factor that comes to mind.
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