In 2012, the Denver Broncos threw caution to the wind and signed an injured, aging quarterback whose future was very much in doubt. At Peyton Manning’s introductory press conference, John Elway, executive vice president of football operations, was understandably asked about his backup plan in case the risky move didn’t go well. “I don’t have a Plan B,” Elway said. “I’m going with Plan A.”

Plan A paid off last year with the Broncos winning it all — Elway’s lack of a contingency plan was rewarded in a big way. But there’s a reason their season is already being called a storybook ending — this approach rarely works in real life, as many Democrats are now finding out the hard way.

Few thought Donald Trump had a realistic chance of becoming the 45th president of the United States, so it’s somewhat understandable that many Democrats were confident leading up to Election Day. According to Buzzfeed’s Kate Nocera, many Dems preceding the election found “the idea of Trump actually winning so unimaginable, no one [had] given much thought to how they’d handle him winning the election.”