The worst words in American sports right now? Broncos prime time football.
After witnessing two of the worst displays of offensive football the Grading the Week staff’s eyes have ever seen, we offer a modest proposal: The Broncos are no longer allowed on prime time the rest of the season.
Broncos in prime time — D-
Nothing against the Broncos defense, which has been spectacular, but America does not deserve this.
The dropped passes. The missed assignments/reads. The laughingly bad decision-making, both strategic and in the heat of the moment.
Throw it all together and you get the train wreck that is the Broncos offense under the bright lights — one that, for whatever reason, the rest of the country cannot turn away from.
It’s one thing to watch comically bad football in the relative anonymity of a Sunday afternoon broadcast seen by roughly one third of the country. It’s quite another to present it to the world writ large, and have to endure a constant stream of memes and “let’s cry” laugh lines from the social media peanut gallery.
We thought the Sunday night game against the 49ers and quarterback Jimmy Garoppolo in Week 3 was rock bottom — one that produced 17 punts, two touchdowns and an absurd 11-10 final score.
Then along came Thursday night’s offensive showing — and we say that in the pejorative — when quarterbacks Matt Ryan and Russell Wilson took turns trying to give the game to other.
Twelve punts. Eight field goal attempts (one blocked). Six fumbles (none lost). Four interceptions (all indefensible). And as many rounds of boos as points scored by the home team (nine for both, by our unofficial count).
It’s hard to imagine anything much worse.
Then we look ahead at the schedule and see Broncos-Chargers on Monday Night Football in nine days … and recoil in horror at what could be coming next.
Rick George — Inc.
Controversial take: CU’s athletic director isn’t as bad as it might first appear.
While many in and around Boulder are calling for George to follow recently fired Buffs football coach Karl Dorrell out the door of the CU athletics offices, the Grading the Week staff isn’t quite there yet.
By our count, George is 1 for 2 on his football head coach hires.
Dorrell was, of course, a disaster — and one that should have been easily foreseen given that he was a candidate for zero head coaching jobs when George offered him a fully guaranteed five-year contract back in February 2020.
Throw in the fact that Bret Bielema, who’s currently resurrecting a once-dead Illinois program, was also in the running, and the Dorrell pick can only be viewed as an abject failure — even if the latter already owned a home in Lafayette.
That said, George’s hiring of Mel Tucker was a home run.
There was a palpable buzz around the program in the wake of his one and only season in Boulder. Tucker had the recruiting arrow trending up, with a pair of signature wins over Nebraska and Washington to boot. (He probably should’ve had a third vs. USC, but that’s another matter altogether.)
Is it George’s fault the Michigan State job opened up a few months later at an inopportune time? Or that MSU athletic department had the financial resources and desperation that CU didn’t?
The latter, no doubt, is the real issue facing the Buffs.
Until university honchos demonstrate a real commitment to fostering a successful football program in Boulder, the rinse-and-repeat cycle of failed football coaches will continue.
The administration’s decision to fork over $8.5 million to send Dorrell packing is a good start. But it’s going to take a lot more than that.
