As the bravado of ringing in the new year fades, Broncos Country finds themselves looking back on another lost season. More questions arise. The first question that comes to my mind is, did anything improve? What have we learned? The culture sure has changed. Football operations on the field seem better although the lengthy terminology of Sean Payton’s offense has caused the team to spend time outs to avoid penalties. Russell Wilson does not fit in Sean Payton’s offense. Period. More on that later. Both Sean Payton, and especially Vance Joseph, are able to effectively make mid-season adjustments to get more productivity from the offense and defense respectively. I could keep peeling back the layers but ultimately, we arrive at the same conclusion. It’s not good enough. Not good enough for a once great organization and a fanbase that deserves better.
It’s raiders week and with that, as usual, the moniker “raiders” will not be capitalized at any point in this article. Since taking over as Interim Head Coach, (week 9) Antonio Pierce has developed a culture closer to something Al Davis himself would appreciate. It’s my belief that the raiders should retain Pierce as the permanent HC. Although their offense has been inconsistent, and after putting up a goose egg versus the Vikings in week 14, they exploded with a 63-point outing against the Chargers the next week and have won 2 of their last 3 games. The raiders defense is the #1 scoring defense since week 9. DE Maxx Crosby is an absolute wrecking ball. He has 13.5 sacks.
The benching of Russell Wilson has caused more divide than ever among the fans. Team Russ thinks the Broncos should hang on to him. “It’s not his fault.” The other half thinks he’s been washed since 2019 and they never wanted him in Denver in the first place. I would say a large percentage of all fans are people who watch football but they don’t really “know” football–which is fine. Do you when you fan.
I think the benching was just a normal business decision that is two-fold and it got blown out of proportion. Firstly, John Elway, Peyton Manning, and Tom Brady were all asked to take pay cuts at some point. The team is trying to clear some salary cap room for the future. It’s just business. Secondly, the underlying fact is that Russ has been playing outside of the script instead of going through his progressions. All you have to do is turn on the All-22 coach’s tape and you’ll see it if you know what to look for. Former QB Chris Simms said that after a few minutes of watching, he could feel Sean Payton’s frustration jumping off the screen at him. Former Bronco Mark Schlereth agreed.
“I’m just telling you what the film says. And the film says he is not very good — well, he’s beyond ‘not good,’ he’s below-average — in operating an offense,” Said Schlereth. “Now, if you want to talk about his off-schedule ability, yeah, his off-schedule ability is good. But it’s not where it used to be.”
Let’s face it. Sean Payton was bootstrapped to Russell Wilson. He’s known since training camp that he could never get Russ to run the offense like he (Payton) wanted. Payton had to start Russ because of that atrocious contract. Russ still has some talent and he may be more successful somewhere else.
Finally, it’s being reported that the Broncos will likely retain the services of General Manager George Paton. That would be a colossal mistake, in my opinion. While there have been some decent draft picks, the unsolicited abomination that is Russell Wilson’s contract should be enough to hand Paton his papers. Blame has to be laid on the ownership group as well, although they are new to the business aspects of the NFL. Broncos QB Jarrett Stidham got another week of reps with the first teamers. I don’t think that’s a big enough body of work to handle the red-hot Raiders’ defense, so sayeth the Raincloud.
If you would like to discuss the possibility of joining our team here at Pro Football Debate, please reach out to Jake’s e-mail at J.jollymore8@gmail.com.
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