[JohnnyV13]

It's sad really.

A great football city like Denver should not have to suffer with a hack like Mark Kiszla as a columnist on its flagship paper.

Talented writers who address sports write insightful novels like Bernard Malamud (The Natural), pen colorful autobiographies like Buck O'Neil, or award winning columns like Joe Posnanski and Jason Whitlock.

Then they're no-talents like Mark Kiszla who are trying to survive.

In order to get a readership, such individuals are reduced to hurling insults at men who have enjoyed far more success in their chosen profession than he can ever dream of achieving. Even more amusing, Kiszla buys into the pleasant fiction that he is part of the team for which he cheers. This belief can provide wonderful common experiences for the people with roots in a particular geographic region. It can also help strangers to relate across vast differences that can be hard to breach.

But, the belief turns pathetic when Mark Kiszla starts crowing like he had something to do with his team's performance on the field.

That results in him calling the Kansas City Chiefs "frauds" for winning their first nine games. What are they supposed to do? Throw a game or two just to make it easier for the Mark Kiszla's of the world to determine who is the best team in the NFL? I got a clue for you Mark: that's why they play the games.

Kiszla's act might have had more credibility if he hadn't spontaneously started twerking whenever Tim Tebow glanced in his direction during Denver's fluke winning streak two years ago.

Somehow, I find it difficult to "buy" Kiszla's "tough guy" act coming from someone that can't control his quivering butt cheeks.