Cheers and Jeers: So long, Sanders. Hello good times at Pepsi Center
Oct 25, 2019, 6:00 AM
CHEERS | Emmanuel Sanders
Goodbye to the final offensive player from the Denver Broncos Super Bowl 50 roster.
In his five-plus seasons in orange and blue, Sanders caught 404 passes, just ahead of Riley Odoms, Steve Watson and Brandon Marshall for seventh-most in team history.
Sanders appeared in 78 games with Denver, racking up 5,361 receiving yards and 28 touchdowns.
Oh, and he was a key piece of the Broncos third world championship.
So, a big Mile High Salute to you, Mr. Sanders. Good luck in San Francisco.
JEERS | CSU Rams alumni
This one is a bit personal, but it needs to be said.
Fans of the CSU Rams have nothing but themselves to blame for the lack of “fire” and “passion” and “grit” surrounding its football team.
A former CSU letterman in the early 1970s griped to the Denver Post this week that he longs for the good ol’ days of Rams football, when Sonny Lubick coached a bunch of “tough SOBs” that left Fort Collins beaming with pride.
What good ol’ days?
Yes, Lubick’s Rams played a very strong second fiddle to the University of Colorado during the mid-‘90s and early 2000s. But during my four (let’s call it four and a half … OK it was five) years at CSU, only once did the Rams finish bowl eligible (2008).
The final two seasons of Lubick’s tenure as head coach yielded just seven wins and a 13-game losing streak — the longest in the nation at the time.
Color me guilty of not being the best alumnus. And who knows the answer to the chicken-egg equation: Is it lack of fan support or the on-field product?
But television shots of half-empty Canvas Stadium certainly don’t help. As Rams alumni, we can do better.
CHEERS | Trevor Story and Nolan Arenado
On the final day of each season, the MLB should just hand Nolan Arenado his annual Gold Glove.
In each of his six Major League seasons, Arenado has earned the award, not to mention he’s won the Platinum Glove award the past two seasons.
The surprising story here is Trevor Story has never been even nominated for a Gold Glove.
This year he had a .987 fielding percentage (only eight errors in 606 chances), which is good enough for second in the National League. He also led the N.L. in defensive WAR (2.4).
Congrats on the nominations, boys. Now, let’s bring home some hardware.
JEERS | Su’a Cravens and Malik Beasley
On Sunday, TMZ published a video of former Denver Broncos safety Su’a Cravens and Malik Beasley duking it out in the lobby of a high-end Denver apartment building.
And, honestly, no one looks good in the situation.
Beasley can be seen pacing around the lobby, shirtless, looking to confront Cravens. And Cravens, after arguably winning the kerfuffle, reportedly bragged about it on social media. In the middle of Broncos training camp — one in which he was a victim of cut-down day.
Guys, not a great look anyway, but you’ve got to know that these days there are cameras literally everywhere. If not security, someone in public likely would whip out a phone to capture these shenanigans.
Speaking of which, why didn’t anyone call the police?
Everyone take an “L” on this one.
CHEERS | The teams down at Pepsi Center
OK, so it’s not really a shock that the Colorado Avalanche and Denver Nuggets — picked by many to make deep postseason runs this year — are performing at a high level.
But, who could have expected this?
Aside from an overtime loss to Pittsburgh Penguins and a regulation loss to the defending Stanley Cup champion St. Louis Blues, the Avs haven’t really taken the foot off the pedal.
And it’s just one game, but the Nuggets heading to Portland and taking away a home win from the team who knocked them out of the playoffs a few months prior is just so satisfying.
Pepsi Center is going to the hopping for the next few months.