Things to do in Denver when your season’s dead

I’m morbidly fascinated by what’s going on with the Broncos.

TL;DR: The team acquired superstar quarterback Russell Wilson by trading away a ton of high draft picks, a couple of solid starters, and a throw-in QB. Despite a generally outstanding defense, the team has lost four of its first six games, because the offense in general and Russell Wilson in particular have been terrible. (Advanced stats rate the Denver offense as the worst in the AFC and the second-worst in the league).

Part of what’s going on is that nepotistic why else would you employ this guy hire Nathaniel Hackett seems massively overmatched and generally incompetent in the head coaching job, making huge tactical and strategic errors on a weekly basis.

Part of it is that something definitely seems wrong with Russell Wilson. I’ve heard from some non-gruntled Seattle fans that in his last couple of seasons there Wilson made the offensive line look worse than it actually was. I have no way of knowing if that’s true, but on the other hand:

That should be an automatic easy pitch and catch for the first down in that situation (it was like third and three IIRC).

It’s one play but there’s been a lot of things that look like that.

Now the question of whether the biggest problem is Hackett or Wilson is academic in the worst sense, since the Broncos can fire Hackett at essentially no long-term cost, while getting rid of Wilson any time prior to about 2025 would be a gargantuan cap hit or something (I don’t understand nor do I wish to understand the NFL cap rules so I’m just repeating what “they” are saying).

Anyway I watched the game last night on a couple hours’ delay on DVR in googly-eyed amazement, and thanked the patron saints of Michigan football that I’m just a casual Denver fan. But that was really really ugly.