A remarkable thing happened yesterday in the football world.  The Denver Broncos and the Seattle Seahawks, the only two NFL teams I really care about, both advanced to the conference championship games, one step away from the Super Bowl.  Denver just finished shutting down the (favored) underdog New England Patriots, and Seattle took apart the Washington football team (who, until they change it, will not have their team's name listed on this blog).  If everything goes according to plan, these teams will meet in three weeks on Ford Field in Super Bowl XL.  (That's Super Bowl Forty, people, not extra large.)   

I lived in Colorado during my teens, and my family stayed there until the mid-90s when, unexpectedly, we all uprooted and relocated to Washington state.  (Okay, well, my father moved out first.  And when I moved out here, I dragged my brother with me.  So maybe it wasn't so unexpected.)

When I watched the Broncos at first, they weren't a great team.  They were good.  After all, they had been to three Super Bowls (losing all three).  They had a remarkably talented quarterback, John Elway.  They had a pretty good supporting cast, with occasional standouts like receiver Vance Johnson, linebacker Karl Mecklenberg, and the good-but-easily-forgotten Sammy Winder.  But they could never quite make the leap from good to great.

And then I - we - moved to Seattle.  And then, a few years later, something happened.  The Broncos got a new coach, Mike Shanahan, and suddenly developed a running game.  They picked up a diminutive but powerful running back, Terrell Davis, who quickly proved himself one of the greats. 

They rolled to two impressive Super Bowl wins in 1998 and 1999, powered by the twin threats of Elway and Davis, and offensive weapons like Rod Smith and the human bruise, Ed McCaffrey.   And then Elway retired.  The Broncos tried to find the quarterback of the future, auditioning Gus Frerotte (no!), legacy QB Brian Griese (bust!), Steve Beuerlein (who?) and then finally settling on journeyman scrambler Jake Plummer.  Meanwhile, Davis continued to play, but in 1994 he was forced into an early retirement due to his disintegrating knees. 

New running backs continued to put up dazzling numbers - Mike Anderson, Clinton Portis, Tatum Bell.  Denver was still a good team. Not great. But good.  A contender, as they say.  No one expected them to be a serious power this season, but somehow Plummer found his stride, the running game found a rhythm by rotating two running backs, plus impressive backup Ron Dayne.  

Now I'm going to say something to upset Seahawk fans.  When I got here, I didn't care much about the team.  I didn't think much about them at all. They didn't have a history like the Broncos, they didn't have a history of success, and they were also-rans.  Who were their stars?  Brian Blades?  Eugene Robinson?  Chris Warren?  Never heard of 'em.  Joey Galloway?  Eh.  

The only thing that mattered to me was that they were in the same division as the Broncs. This meant that at least twice a year, they would play Denver, and at least once, Denver would come to Seattle (which meant it would be possible to see Denver play a live game - Mile High Stadium typically sold out for years in advance.)  Seattle fancied itself to have an intense rivalry with the Broncos.  (Funny - Denver always thought that their bitter rival was Oakland.)  

In 2002, the Seahawks jumped conferences, which meant that Denver wasn't coming to town anymore.  But something else changed around this time.  Their running back Shaun Alexander, who had always considered himself a superstar, suddenly started acting like a superstar.  The revolving quarterback door (anyone remember Jon Kitna, quarterback of the future?) had resolved itself in the person of Matt Hasselbeck.  And somehow, this season, mostly unbeknownst to me, they coalesced into a powerhouse team.  

Seattle and Denver do have one thing in common - a regional fan base.  Denver is the only football team in the Rocky Mountain region, and fans come from all across the region, from as far away as Montana and Utah.  Seattle is the only team in the drizzly Pacific Northwest, so they draw fans from Oregon, Idaho, and  even Alaska.  So they're bound to get that elusive cowboys-and-loggers demographic that the NFL has always coveted. 

So what happens if both teams make it to Super Bowl Xtra-Large?  Neither team has a guaranteed ticket - Seattle's got get past a good Carolina team, and Denver's got to take out Pittsburgh, the team that took down Peyton Manning and the almost-but-not-quite-invincible Colts.  But what if it happens?  

I'm going to make all the Seattle fans mad again.  I've got to go with my Broncos.  They've got a half-dozen players still on their team from the Super Bowl days, and they know how to win.  They dismantled New England, the defending champions.  They look like they're ready to take it all.  Seattle looks good, but my heart is with the Broncos. 

1:42:58 PM