Broncos Offense? Or Broncos' Offense?

After giving this some thought and asking around, I can't really get a consensus and figured I'd ask here to see all of your practices.

I often see some variation of "The Broncos offense could not move the ball Sunday" a lot anymore and often wonder why it's not "The Broncos' offense." I've always used the latter and think to myself, the Broncos are the ones owning the offensive production, so it should be possessive.

However, because it's used so often without the apostrophe (as in the example), I must be missing something. It can't be that widely-used without being corrected, can it? Is the clumped "Broncos offense" be considered one packaged noun?

Or what about here: "The Saints coaching staff." Wouldn't it be "The Saints' coaching staff," since the Saints own the coaching staff? It's obvious when you substitute Sean Payton in there - "The Saints' Sean Payton" needs the possessive.

It's all got my head spinning.

Discuss.

 

If you can substitute the city name without an apostrophe, then it's probably not needed for the team name.

 

My pet peeve is when writers change it to: Bronco offense. They are not the Bronco, they are the Broncos.

 

No, but Denver's defense.

 

Joe King is right.

You substitute the city name, but don't use the "the"

Denver's offense sucked
The Broncos' offense sucked

Denver quarterback John Elway
Broncos quarterback John Elway

 

Yes, but hopefully you would never use "The Denver offense" in a sentence.

 

But I think the Broncos' offense works, too, because it is THEIR offense.

 

The Broncos' kicker, Jason Elam....

Broncos quarterback Jake Cutler

 

The Denver omelet was terrible.
The Broncos omelet tasted better, but I don't care for horse meat.
The Broncos' oemlets were serverd to the press before the game.

 

Just saying "Denver's defense..." works, too.