ESPN Ranks the 2011 Broncos Among the Five Most Compelling Teams Since 2000, Because Of Course They Do

ESPN has come up with another way to get to reference Tim Tebow. This week, they are running a series on the five most compelling NFL teams since Y2K. Of course, the 2011 Denver Broncos made the list. The other teams are three Super Bowl runner-ups, two of them losing in some of the biggest upsets in Super Bowl history, along with Brett Favre’s first year in Minnesota, a team that came within an overtime of getting there.

There have been 445 teams since the start of the 2000 season. By the measure that gets that Broncos team on this list as well as the others, then the 2003 Panthers should feel like they were done poorly. They won more close games than the Broncos, were better, won an actual exciting walkoff playoff game just like the Broncos in overtime, then followed it up with a road win in the Championship Game, and then came within a whisper of winning the Super Bowl. Heck, last year’s Colts team went 9-1 in close games with some improbable wins, had the head coach miss most of the year after a cancer diagnosis, and had a young, talented quarterback who had far more to do with the wins than the Broncos.

Then again, Tebow.

If you could actually pick any team to sit and watch all their games–like seriously every minute–how far down would that team be? I had to watch a lot of those games and they were torture. Yes, Tebow is compelling in the sense that there is interest, but then this is a circular argument, and by the same measure, Kim Kardashian is one of the most compelling actresses of the last decade.

[photo via USA Today Sports Images]