The Denver Broncos are headed to Super Bowl 50.
“Are you kidding me?” said Pam Nelson, flush with excitement and angst at the Derailed Pour House. “I am so excited right now. We are going to the Super Bowl, and we should be. Are you kidding me?”
The win didn’t come easy. Compensating for a missed extra point earlier in the game, the New England Patriots attempted a 2-point conversion to tie the game in the final seconds of the fourth quarter – an attempt that failed.
“I was on the edge of my seat, man,” Nelson said. “Are you kidding me?”
The Broncos, pulling off a 20-18 win over the New England Patriots in the AFC Championship, are now headed to San Francisco for Super Bowl 50 on Feb. 7 . The last time the team was in the Super Bowl was two years ago, when it suffered a 35-point loss to the Seattle Seahawks.
“Epic,” said Jonnie Nelson, calming her nerves on a cigarette outside Derailed Pour House. “I couldn’t say mind-blowing, but definitely epic at the end. Yeah, epic.”
The day was not all fun for some football fans spending the cold, flurry-ridden Sunday glued to the television. Corrin Flieger, a Patriots fan, and Cale Rogers, a Broncos fan, said their favorite teams’ head-to-head match up made for a little bit of contention between the couple.
“We’re both constantly trying to convert the other,” Rogers said.
How do the two coexist in a relationship with such an irreconcilable fissure?
“It’ll only be solved if we have children, and they chose my side,” said Flieger, her boyfriend looking the other way, tight-lipped and unwilling to comment.
Another Patriots fan, who would only say his name is Joe, visibly lost his buzz as the final seconds ticked away at Sports Authority Field at Mile High in Denver.
“I’m glad the discount gear at City Market is going to good use,” said Joe, referring to the end-of-the-year sale of Broncos memorabilia at the grocery store. “It’s good for all those Broncos fans that show up at the end of the season.”
Still, Joe, a 17-year resident of Durango, wasn’t a complete sore-loser, offering support for the Broncos as the team enters one of the biggest events in sports.
“Hopefully homeboy (Peyton Manning) will do his best in the Super Bowl,” he said.
jromeo@durangoherald.com
