As I wrote in an essay (I use the term “essay” loosely) about why I find the Seattle Seahawks to be Super Annoying, I expressed my disgruntlement re: the two weeks between the conference championship games and the Super Bowl. My disgruntlement has a solid foundation in the media, an entity that latches onto a few stories about each team and beats them into the ground, thus breeding a feeling of general annoyance about both competing entities.

In the midst of dubbing the Seahawks the most annoying franchise in the NFL, I came to the nagging realization that maybe I wasn’t being very fair to put just one of the two teams that will play in Sunday’s Super Bowl on blast. Especially since I do not like either one of them. If you’re going to be a hater, you should at least be an equal opportunity hater. (Though the Broncos are much more tolerable now that Tim Tebow isn’t on their roster. OR ANY ROSTER. HA!)

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This morning, I was sitting in my boxers eating a bowl of cereal and watching SportsCenter when I saw this clip of Peyton Manning addressing an accusation from Richard Sherman that Manning sometimes throws ducks. How this exchange was newsworthy, I don’t know, because somebody saying a quarterback of professional or any other ilk sometimes throws ducks is like saying that male porn stars sometimes get erections. And you don’t see James Deen at pressers like, “Hell yeah, I agree—I definitely get boners! And many of them are largely successful!”

If the Seahawks are the most annoying franchise in football, the Broncos are up there as well—especially right now and I’m guessing through the week after the Super Bowl. At that point everybody will forget about the Super Bowl and the media will start talking incessantly about how in Mother Russia the Olympics compete in you.

But I digress.

Here are 7 reasons why I feel that the Denver Broncos are super annoying:

1. When you think Denver Broncos as a football franchise, you immediately think of John Elway—a dude who has been annoying the piss out of me since I first started liking football. He is either the best or second best (depending on where you stand re: Manning vs. Elway) quarterback in Broncos history. He led them to two Super Bowl victories, and continues to influence the franchise as its Executive VP of football operations. (I have no idea what this title means or the responsibilities it entails.) The way that Elway carries himself and interacts with others is annoying. He’s like a slightly smarter Troy Aikman. Also, Elway looks a lot like the Clydesdale that starts in this Budweiser Super Bowl commercial. And I guess this means he also looks startlingly like, well, a Bronco.

2. Peyton Manning is scary good. He’s also charismatic. But how are we not to be annoyed with the way Manning allows himself to saturate the advertising market? The dude appears on television to endorse more items than Tony Little. At first it was ingratiating—Manning was this geeky, wildly intelligent quarterback who was kicking ass and taking names. But instead of letting us know he was a cool guy by doing a humorous ad sporadically here and there, he started WAY overdoing it. I don’t even want to know how much the guy makes annually on endorsements alone. I hope a lot of that money goes to charity or something. I’m not saying Manning doesn’t deserve this type of fame. But just because you deserve something doesn’t mean it’s not going to annoy people when you get it. Another thing that annoys me about Manning are the stupid faces he makes anytime something goes wrong. His brother Eli is equally guilty of this. They adopt this bewildered, 1,000-yard stare. Somebody needs to tell them both that you don’t have to look like you’re having a ‘Nam flashback every time you throw the football to another team while you’re playing a game.

3. OMAHA!!!!!!!!!!!!! If you’ve seen the Broncos play one game, you have heard Peyton Manning bellowing the word “Omaha” at least 20 times while under center or in the shotgun. It’s an audible mechanism of some sort. But nobody seems to know exactly what it means. Which is where the media steps in to do some real hard-hitting investigative journalism. Which means to ask players from the Broncos what it means when Peyton Manning yells “Omaha” before a snap. I’ve probably heard Omaha mentioned more often than Denver this year. Earlier this week, I saw a Peyton Manning interview where the “journalist” asked him if he had ever even been to Omaha, like using the word obligates him to have visited Nebraska. Which, would be fine for Peyton, seeing as  he’s white. Maybe he’s really into World War II trivia. Who cares? Annoying.

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4. John Fox is the Denver Broncos’ head coach. In the middle of this season John Fox underwent heart surgery to correct a defective aortic valve. This is a big deal, of course. I would never, ever make light of a heart surgery. What’s annoying about this, though, is how much you have to hear about Fox’s heart and the bravery and all of the other things media entities tend to gravitate toward when they’re trying to be melodramatic about a guy who is otherwise unremarkable. Fox knew about his defective valve for many years. He knew a surgery was imminent. He kept trying to put it off. Instead of getting the surgery when he should have, he got it when it became a life-saving necessity after he collapsed on a golf course during Denver’s bye-week. This doesn’t make you heroic or remarkable. It makes you negligent. And what annoys me is that Fox is made out as some kind of martyr for getting his surgery, staying off the sidelines for about a month, and then making a triumphant return to his head coaching responsibilities. You probably won’t read any stories about how John Fox is not at all crucial to the success of the Denver Broncos. During Fox’s absence, the Broncos went 3-1. The only game they lost was to the New England Patriots, and they lost by three points. The Broncos work like this: Peyton Manning runs the offense. Jack Del Rio (who served as interim head coach) runs the defense. John Fox hangs out, doing nothing worth mentioning except having two first names.

5. The Denver Broncos front office are a bunch of drunks. This is less annoying than worrisome, really. If you’re working for a football team and are that high up on the totem pole (or, hell, if you work for a professional football team at all) you should be able to AFFORD A GODDAMN CAR SERVICE OR AT THE VERY LEAST A TAXI CAB. There is and never will be a justifiable reason for driving drunk, and it’s even more annoying when people with the means to easily avoid having to drive anywhere end up getting pulled over when their veins are occupied with as much Captain Morgan rum as a University of Colorado Boulder student who’s pledging a frat.

6. It’s annoying that the Denver Broncos are going into the Super Bowl with a crazy advantage re: playing in frigid and snowy conditions. This is, of course, not the fault of the Broncos. It’s the fault of the NFL for deciding to hold the Super Bowl in New Jersey in February, instead of in a domed stadium or a more temperate climate, as has been the NFL’s wont for as long as I can recall. It’s still annoying in its lack of fairness, though.

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7. Did you guys know that marijuana is now legal in the state of Colorado? Well, even if you didn’t know this from mainstream media coverage, because you only follow football news and not drug news, you definitely know now. Because everybody loves inserting ostensibly sly references about weed into their stories about the Broncos, as if the two are connected in some way.

So, yeah: let’s go Super Bowl commercials!

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