Down to the Last Drop(pings): The Bird’s Week 13 Pick

Anyone who knows me is aware that for the better part of four decades I have treated Denver Broncos football as a religion.

I’ve never missed a game, and that is not hyperbole. I’ve sat through good times and bad times; seen quarterbacks from Elway to Wilson and everything in between.

I remember Rich Karlis hitting uprights and Dan Reeves using two starting quarterbacks in the same game one time against Dallas. Even learned how to do something called “Tebowing” at one point.

But what I’m feeling right now in what has become our seventh season of bad football and NFL irrelevancy is a 5-alarm, full blown test of my faith: Apathy.

Anyone who knows me is also aware that I normally reserve eye-rolls and indifference for such things as Kardashian nuptials, Grammy & Oscar speeches, MTV ever since it stopped playing music, and… the Colorado Rockies.

But never the Denver Broncos. 

Yet not only did I find myself last Sunday fighting the urge to watch Spain and Germany kick a soccer ball around, but I lamented the fact that the Broncos-Panthers game wasn’t ending fast enough. I wanted out.

And when I woke up Monday morning having skipped my usual ritual of watching Sunday Night Football and gathering my thoughts around the league’s action for this week’s blog, I realized just how apathetic the Broncos have made me.

They are so bad (and somehow still getting worse) that not only is it no longer any fun to discuss, but I flat out find it hard to care anymore. For this season. For football in general. For these picks and this blog, even. 

They are so much more of a mess than just this 3-8 debacle of a season; it’s the absence of draft picks to get out of said mess, it’s the half a billion in quarterback cash tied up in Russell Wilson, and —scariest of all— it’s the losing culture that now infiltrates the halls of Dove Valley where proud men like Pat Bowlen once walked and commanded nothing less than the exact opposite of losing.

In fact, sadly, the Broncos organization has officially reached Colorado Rockies levels of self-reflection this season by deciding to try and change absolutely nothing. Week after week after week.

Sigh.

Apathy.

Like Tom Hanks in Castaway, I’m pushing off and setting adrift. All hope and other feelings are beyond fleeting; they are gone.

This week’s blog will contain dialogue around just one game.

Good bye, Wilson.

Denver at Baltimore (-8.5)

This Bronco offense couldn’t score in a women’s prison with a handful of pardons and keys to the conjugal room.

I have a million things to rant about, from George Paton’s mortgaging of our future to Nathaniel Hackett’s pissing down the leg of our present— but I’ll spare everyone. Because I know all of us are in the same boat, paddling with the same blank stares on our faces.

So… For comedic reasons only, I’ll pander to the quarterback play today.

With Russell Wilson’s most recent display of passing ineptitude to springboard off of, last Sunday I found myself pondering just how bad this is. 

And I came up with:

Other Denver Bronco quarterbacking options I would kill for at this point:

• Tim Tebow again.
• Another Covid outbreak in the quarterbacks room so wide receiver Kendal Hinton can play QB on 24 hr notice.
• Tommy Maddox and Shawn Moore platooning every-other-play like they did that one time in 1990.
• Joe Theisman. After the Lawrence Taylor hit.
• Frank Tripucka.
• Ryan Leaf.
• Uncle Rico.
• This guy:

Even this guy, if that big ol’ Dr. Pepper can could catch,
is chucking the ball six yards downfield.
That triples the average Russell Wilson attempt!

In perhaps the most damning evidence of my discontent, last Sunday I even found myself daydreaming and drooling over Sam Darnold  —Sam Freaking Darnold!— as he stopped, dropped and rolled his way into the end zone for the most pathetic touchdown I think I’ve ever witnessed. 

Yep. Even Sam Darnold knows what to do in a fire.

Sam the Man saw the dumpster fire that is
the Denver Broncos and went into Fire Marshal Bill mode.

Stop, drop, and roll!

The next time I even suggest Denver has a chance in a game this season, please form a line and invite the masses to kick me in the nuts.

Baltimore only needs to score twice this day to win. Hell, maybe even once will do. I don’t know what else to say. 

I don’t care.

Ravens 27  Broncos 9

There you have it. If I don’t rebound spiritually in time to post another blog this season, you can blame the 2022 Denver Broncos. They’ve drained all the blood from this tulip.

I do appreciate your readership and have enjoyed the many weekly interactions with everyone. It’s fun. Well, it used to be. 

Be well, my fiends!

Season Total Straight Up Winners: 112-67-1

Season Total Against the Spread:  99-81

Lock of the Week Picks: 8-4

Trap Game of the Week:  4-8

Oh! One last parting thought of despair. Caution: read at your own risk!

Over the last 6 seasons the Broncos have had a better 
winning percentage than the Colorado Rockies exactly
ZERO TIMES.

Please, God, nobody tell the Monforts. They might misconstrue such a stat to mean they are doing just fine. Lol