Tradition Tuesday: Nothing Worse Than Saying "Bye"

The rough focus of this blog is the rivalry between the Kansas City Chiefs (heralded by Bankmeister) and the Denver Broncos (championed by Cecil and Old No. 7). It may seem unfair that it's two versus one, but once KC gets that second Super Bowl win we'll even out the delegation.

Seven years ago we started The Tradition, in which Bronco fans travel out to the Truman Sports Complex with their team, and Chief lovers return to the Rocky Mountains with theirs. We tailgate, we talk massive amounts of shit, our wives are occasionally assaulted by rival fans, and we almost always watch the visiting team lose. It's a grand old time.

Here at the HoG, we're going to keep The Tradition going with Tradition Tuesday--a weekly state-of-the-rivalry address.

If there's one thing I can't flippin' stand about football season, it's the bye week. It's sort of a semi-hypocritical thing, right? We all cherish our days off, but don't want our teams' players to get any r and r. I say "semi" because most of us --at least the HoG, anyway -- don't play a game for a living, or have to buy bigger homes in which to store our countless piles of dollars. Philosophy aside though, it sucks. The early, afternoon, night and MNF games chug along and none of it involves the only team that matters: mine. So heading into bye-week Sunday, I typically make all of these grandiose plans for projects around the house, none of which get done because -- shocker -- I wind up watching football all day anyway.

And, shoot. By the time MNF airs, one day from when my team takes the field again has already been chiseled away. That, of course, only leads to the worry of how they'll be coming off the bye. Insert any of the season-appropriate questions: Will the momentum of the pre-bye win carry into the post-bye game? Did all the players fly off to various parts of the country to eat drugs and guzzle booze? Did they catch some of the gift that keeps on giving (Editor's Note: see Ron Mexico and Lima Time. Be-LIEVE it!?)

Course, guys like Seven'd say that momentum doesn't exist and all of those factors are horse dookie; get out there and play the game. I, however, cannot. I will not. Prime example: The Kansas City Chiefs, in the 2006 playoffs, take almost three full quarters to get a first down. By the end of the "contest," they'd netted one touchdown and a two-point conversion. Fast forward to this year where they lost all four pre-season games plus the opener and week two. Now, obviously, a lot of time passed in that span, but one must at least consider such an interesting intangible. Conversely, Jason Elam, after his week off, snapped his losing streak and notched another W for Shanny on Sunday night.

And that brings me back to the task at hand: The Tradition. Yes. The Broncos are right back in the AFC West thick of things. In an astonishing bucking of all trends, they'll have consecutive prime-time matchups when they host Brett Favre and the Green Bay Packers on Monday night (Note: Wow. Look at this! This is really neat! They'll have two more Monday night games and a late-season Thursday nighter, too. More than a quarter of their season on national television, a genuine reaping of the rewards for not making the playoffs. Amazing!). And then, they'll tickle the little nephew with Jon 10-win Kitna and the Lions, just before rolling into Arrowhead. This matchup will be the first time in four years that the Broncos have traveled to KC first, which, if superstition is like momentum, may affect their preposterously atrocious winter record at the 'Head. On the other hand, the Chiefs haven't won at InAmVesCapCo since the Iron Triangle members were all single, and by "single," I mean not wed, Cecil's wife.

That said, all you HoGnation loyalists had best be ready to geek out with us here on these old IntraNets. Obviously, by "geek out," I mean that I'll post a solid five better-than-stellar posts, while Seven cranks out a solid post-World-Series orgasm paragraph and Cecil continues to find a random picture to pretty up his monthly appearance. Enough about us, though. Our teams have some interesting developments going on.

Apparently, this guy told Phil Simms and Jim Nantz that he'd be embarrassed if he told them all of the things physically wrong with him that are results of six weeks of football. I say six because he told them this the day before he went out and got tossed around like Lindsay Lohan's poon at a rehab clinic, courtesy of Warren Sapp and the Raiders D. Incredibly unsavory. Simms and Nantz kept talking about the wind during Sunday's game, and I couldn't stop thinking about the countless hours I've spent tossing around the ol' pigskin. I was unable to finger a single memory where my pass was wobbly and eight yards off the mark because of the wind. I love Damon. He's been great for us in 15 games over the last two years. He looked beat up on Sunday, yet managed to get out of some serious jams and hit guys for big plays. I just hope our O-line can get it together and get this guy some protection.

This guy? Oh, yeah. He's back. Granted, he had a couple of negative plays in Oakland, but he also hammered out a crucial eight-yard run late in the game. To each and every one out there that said he'd never make it, that it was all about money, help yourself to a warm bowl of hangover diarrhea. Never doubt three-one. In other news, party in Denver: T-Hizzie's got the hooch; Brandon Marshall will drive and supply the liquor. Woo-hoo! And of course there's Sergeant Shenanigans himself. Yup. He was able to stave off the kharmic fate of the totally legal timeout. Thanks, buddy, for being so smart that you can't even cheat right.

God bless us.