Yes, this is happening. Like it or not, I am going to tell you about this years Super Bowl! Hopefully I have left enough time for everyone interested to watch it, or hear the results. If not, go watch it now. We’ll wait…

Okay! So, for those not aware, I’m getting very into American Football. Rob is also getting into it a little, but it probably does not make his ‘top five sports’ cut. Ironically, the things that make it appeal to me are what are off-putting for Rob. It is much more commercial and arguably more accessable than most sports. All teams have a name, a mascot, a logo, as well as the quarterback who tends to act as the face of the team. So instead of supporting ‘Denver’ you are supporting ‘Peyton Manning’s Denver Broncos’, for example, which makes it feel a lot more involved. I think this is part of the reason that a much larger percentage of the population here follow American Football than follow Soccer in the UK.

The game is also broken into a series of small plays, with frequent pauses to rest, discuss the next stage or switch between the offensive and defensive players. This is a necessary part of the game, since once everyone is in a big pile on top of the ball you kind of need to stop and reset. This is also when they slip some commercial breaks in. The adverts are admittedy pretty dire, but you generally just have one or two in each short break, so it isn’t as bad as it could be! And arguably watching a ten second advert is more interesting than watching everyone line up again, although Rob vehemently disagrees…

Anyway, these individual plays have varying goals depending on whereabouts each team is in the game. Most commonly the offensive team needs to push forward 10 yards and the defensive team needs to stop them, but there are a lot of nuances to this depending on where you are, who’s in the lead, what attempt you’re on, etc… Long story short, this means that the team objectives are very short term and easy to follow – instead of the team objective being “score a goal, you have 90 minutes” it becomes “run three yards, you have 20 seconds”. For those of us who are a little attention deficit and tend to keep one eye on the nachos while watching the game, this is a big advantage 🙂

So, to last Sunday (9th Feb). Our magnificent Denver Broncos beat the abomination that is the New England Patriots (our main rivals) to win the AFC Championship. This was very exciting times, and mostly due to our outstanding defense.

This meant that we got to face the NFC Champions, The Carolina Panthers, in the Super Bowl. They were most definitely worthy and terrifying opponents, led by their Quarterback Cam Newton. They won the NFC Championships by defeating the Arizona Cardinals 49 – 15, which as you can imagine is a pretty significant lead. They also very rarely lose the lead in any of their games due to their amazing Offense, and tend to score high.

As you can imagine, we were the underdogs going into the Super Bowl, which was held in Santa Clara, CA. Nonetheless, we remained strong and optimistic, with Rob predicting a solid win for the Broncos. The whole of Colorado bought Broncos merchandise, painted everything orange, tore up some fencing to make our own ‘Defense’ signs. And we’re ready to go! Just a quick tasteful entrance…

And away we went. Fun fact – whilst the Broncos usually play in Orange, they wear White for the Superbowl, since they were wearing White in their last Superbowl win. There is a lot of superstition associated with the Superbowl, as with most sporting events, which Rob and I happily got to partake in. Since the Broncos have won every game that we’ve watched (and lost the one that we missed) we have been designed as ‘English Lucky Charms’ – we dressed appropriately:

As I said, we are really getting into this American Football mojo. So, the Superbowl!

We lost the coin toss, as always, so the Panthers kicked first. This meant that we started with the ball, and we were looking very strong both offensively and defensively. Plus all of Peyton’s limbs and joints were fully functioning, and he was shouting very decisively, which was fabulous:

I’m definitely not going to give you the whole detailed play by play, partly because it’s pretty complex but mostly because it’s obscured by alcohol. So, a quick summary of the exciting touchdowns:

And finally…

And so, final score was 24-10 to the Denver Broncos. WE WON THE SUPERBOWL! Very, very exciting times. We briefly considered rioting in Downtown Denver, but the news coverage showed everyone celebrating safely and responsibly so we stayed in. We had a few more drinks, talked about our deep love for the Broncos, and were very happy. Victory Selfie!

There was a victory parade in Denver to celebrate which was pretty amazing! The team all got driven around on big trucks for the adoration of the masses, before a party at the City & Country Building.

Which looks more impressive when zoomed out a little more:

I’m told that the final zooming doesn’t really do it justice either! Final attendance was around 1 million people, which is just absurd. Anyway, to summarise…

Go BRONCOS!!!! 🙂 🙂