Welcome to the Week Of Shit

At one point I'd imagined that today would be a pretty good day. I might have sat here with my Broncos at 6-2, perhaps, and looming as a fast, versatile, dangerous team. I might have looked down from my mighty mountaintop and far across the high steppe of the Middle West to a metroplex on the Kansas/Missouri border, the Home...Of The...Chiefs. And I might have seen another team, maybe 5-3 or even 6-2 itself, that was building upon its surprise playoff appearance last season, adding to the development of its improving defense, and scaring the shit right out of me.

Today is not that day.

No, kids out there in the HoGosphere, today we sit a mere week away from witnessing an ugly smudge on the storied rivalry that is The Tradition. On Sunday, at venerable old Arrowhead, some 79,451 poor souls will witness about as lousy a matchup as the National Football League can deliver.

Now 79,448 of those saps will not give you premium House of Georges-level predictions and reactions concerning this debacle. But the famed Iron Triangle will be in attendance, and we will all unsheath our swords of footballery and wave them menacingly in the air to produce pronouncements worthy of the Karl Mecklenburgs and Buck Buchanans of yore. Or we'll just drink our old and flabby carcasses into a miserable heap and barely make kickoff. One of the two.

So welcome, misguided fan of AFC West football, to the Week Of Shit (patent Pending).

Fans of our two California representatives in this division, the kid-raping Raiders and pansy-sniffing Chargers, refer to the six days building up to their twice-yearly showdowns as "Hell Week." I used to listen to a lot of Jim Rome radio, back when he merely dabbled in the black arts of television and before he sold his soul to the four-letter network. Rome talked about his days as a jock on a San Diego sports talk affiliate, when Hell Week would come around and Raider Nation and the Chardonnay Merchant Marine would flood his show with calls. Rome always hated Hell Week, and now I know how he feels.

Making this trip is truly the last thing I want to do. These teams both really suck, and this game is going to be terrible. We may watch Patrick Ramsey throw to Glenn Martinez ten times. We may see a touchdown (or two) from some dude named Kolby Smith. We will certainly witness multiple repetitions of The Phony Formerly Known As Priest Holmes. It makes one long for the glory days of not too long ago, when half-ass bastards like Brian Griese, Dante Hall and Clinton Portis' mom roamed the fabled Arrowhead turf. Now those were some slightly-better-than-mediocre teams you could rally behind.

But what am I going to do, bitch? I get to fly to Denver, find a barstool in the B Concourse and knock back a dozen Sam Adams. Then I get to awkwardly hug Cecil and hop on a jet airplane bound for KC. We'll ogle the flight attendants, who will probably be men from Poland. And then we'll spill into the waiting courtesy vehicle piloted by Bankmeister and kill lots of barbecued flesh and canned beer. Good times.

You know who's trade roles with me in a minute? This guy. He's about the most hard core motherfucker I've ever seen. He's rockin the Zubaz, he's throwin down some dope signage, and he's totally up on his Broncohistoricals. Like, when asked who (whom?) his favorite former Bronco is, he drops twelve on yo ass. And one of 'em is Tony Braxton. Yo, corn flake. It's Tyrone Braxton, you fucking moron. Toni Braxton is an R&B singer that once demolished the Dallas Mavericks. Keep it straight.

I know that Broncosapien would kill to go on this trip, and he would keep it real to boot. And so I'm doing it for you, brother. You, the douchebag that makes me ashamed to root for this team (even more than their lousy record and crappy tackling). I will take this bullet for you.