Broncos have replaced Rockies as most embarrassing team in Denver

It’s official.

A day that no one in Colorado nor the Rocky Mountain Region could have seen coming. The Rockies are no longer the most embarrassing team in town. Nope, that dishonor has been shifted to the Broncos.

What we’re seeing from the football team that wears orange and blue is dumbfounding and perplexing. It’s also incomprehensible and infuriating. Since winning Super Bowl 50, this franchise has somehow gotten worse and worse. Every time it feels like they’ve reached a new low, the following season somehow gets uglier.

This year is the biggest kick in the gut since Von Miller and an elite Denver defense helped Peyton Manning and a scrappy offense win the whole thing in February of 2016. Because this season, there was finally hope.

There was no band-aid at QB, no grumpy head coach to deal with. This was supposed to be the real deal. The energy of Nathaniel Hackett and championship experience of Russell Wilson were going to lead the Broncos back to glory. Quite the opposite has happened: this team is unwatchable.

The amount of people on social media that proclaimed they didn’t even tune it to another pitiful loss on Sunday was staggering. To wrap up Thanksgiving weekend, folks had better things to do. And frankly, I don’t blame them. If I didn’t have to do it for my job, I can promise you I wouldn’t have watched the Broncos in Carolina. I would’ve had NFL RedZone on, cringing every time they broke in for a rare Panthers update.

It’s gotten that bad and there doesn’t seem to be an end in sight. Not with the contract Wilson signed late this summer. Not with Hackett still in charge. And not with CEO Greg Penner and GM George Paton doing nothing on Monday when fans were desperate for a change.

It feels like what Rockies owner Dick Monfort and his band of loyal and internal general managers at 20th and Blake would do. Don’t mess with a darn thing, as long as the Party Deck is full and the drinks are flowing. Is this who the Broncos have become? The new Rockies? Afraid to make a big internal change even when fans are screaming from the top of the mountains?

And this isn’t just a gut thing. No, there’s evidence to back it up. 9NEWS anchor, and former sports guy, Tom Green tweeted a stunning stat on Monday afternoon. The records over the last six years show the Rockies are fielding more competitive teams than the Broncos.

Over the past 6 years, the Broncos have had a higher winning percentage than the Rockies…exactly zero times. pic.twitter.com/mtvqiyMtrE

— Tom Green (@TGreenDenver) November 28, 2022

That’s hard to comprehend, but it’s right there, and numbers don’t lie. You have a better chance of turning on a Rockies game and watching them win than you do the Broncos. That’s a far cry from the late, great Pat Bowlen teams that would win 10-plus games every year and almost always make the playoffs.

And speaking of playoffs, the Rockies have actually made the postseason twice over the last six seasons. That trumps the Broncos, who have made it exactly zero times. They’re about to have the longest playoff drought in the NFL, provided the New York Jets (of all teams) secure a postseason berth.

Until the Walton Penner Family Ownership Group (WPFOG) makes overhauling and sweeping changes, it will be more of the same at Dove Valley. Players and coaches have come and gone since Manning retired; a culture that breeds losing has remained. They’ve only owned the team since August, but come January, the WPFOG needs to bring in their own football people.

Hackett certainly isn’t the answer. And neither is Paton, who’s made more bad moves than good ones, as brilliantly outlined by James Merilatt on Monday. You can’t keep saying Paton’s had a few nice draft picks and free agent signings, when his big decisions have gone drastically wrong.

We expect this type of ineptitude from the Rockies. We don’t expect it from the Broncos. But this is now year six, you could argue seven, of complete and total incompetence. So until that’s fixed, they reign supreme in one thing in Denver sports.

And that’s the dishonor of most embarrassing franchise.

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