When September rolls around, NFL fans are champing at the bit for the season to start. They’ve already gotten a taste from the preseason, read up on their team’s draft picks, and made predictions about how the season should go with their team’s roster. Adrenaline is high during Week 1 and often doesn’t wear off until Week 18. A tough loss could end in tears, for both the team and its fans.<\/p>\n
It’s hard for people who aren’t fanatics to wrap their heads around how a sport could evoke so much emotion, but there’s a psychological explanation for fandom.<\/p>\n
For many, a team association ties into self-esteem and identity. It has been proved that people receive a self-esteem boost from associating with successful individuals or groups, which is why fans are more likely to wear team gear the day after a win than the day after a loss, and die-hards speak about team successes in first person and failures in third person. Shared fandom also provides a sense of connection, whether it be with friends who follow the same team or via strangers bonding at a game, and all humans have a need for connectedness.<\/p>\n
A Super Bowl win, the pinnacle of the sport, can bring a city together and give fans a personal sense of pride and satisfaction. Conversely, when a team has a particularly disappointing season or loses in the playoffs, it can feel like a gut punch.<\/p>\n
Stacker<\/a> compiled a list featuring the most disappointing Denver Broncos seasons since 2000 using data from Pro Football Reference<\/a>. Each season was selected based on the number of wins by which the team underperformed its preseason over\/under for that season. Ties were broken via the lowest preseason over\/under.<\/p>\n #5. Denver Broncos 2020<\/p>\n – Preseason over\/under: 7.5 wins<\/p>\n – Season record: 5-11 (2.5 games under)<\/p>\n #4. Denver Broncos 2001<\/p>\n – Preseason over\/under: 10.5 wins<\/p>\n – Season record: 8-8 (2.5 games under)<\/p>\n #3. Denver Broncos 2017<\/p>\n – Preseason over\/under: 8 wins<\/p>\n – Season record: 5-11 (3 games under)<\/p>\n #2. Denver Broncos 2010<\/p>\n – Preseason over\/under: 7 wins<\/p>\n – Season record: 4-12 (3 games under)<\/p>\n #1. Denver Broncos 2022<\/p>\n – Preseason over\/under: 10.5 wins<\/p>\n – Season record: 5-12 (5.5 games under)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"When September rolls around, NFL fans are champing at the bit for the season to start. They’ve already…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":692798,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2062],"tags":[265,648,647,5453,5445,5443,637,232,564,231,258,2426,7,636,122,6,1797,84,47357,1890,47358,632,635,9,638,23310],"class_list":["post-692797","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-denver-broncos","tag-american-football","tag-american-football-bowls","tag-american-football-competitions","tag-american-football-finals","tag-american-football-league","tag-american-football-league-teams","tag-american-football-teams","tag-broncos","tag-colorado","tag-denver","tag-denver-broncos","tag-denverbroncos","tag-football","tag-gridiron-football-variants","tag-national-football-league","tag-nfl","tag-nfl-playoff-games","tag-nfl-playoffs","tag-nfl-seasons","tag-nfl-teams","tag-nfl-teams-seasons","tag-seasons-in-american-football","tag-seasons-in-american-sport","tag-sports","tag-team-sports","tag-thestacker"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":"Validation failed: Text character limit of 500 exceeded"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/692797","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=692797"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/692797\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/692798"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=692797"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=692797"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=692797"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}