The Denver Broncos fell to the Kansas City Chiefs 19-8 on Thursday night, their fifth defeat of the year. The result was not unexpected.
Ever since Peyton Manning was the quarterback in 2015, Denver has failed to defeat Kansas City. Russell Wilson, the quarterback for the Denver Broncos, wanted to forget this depressing bit of recent history.
John Riker of the team’s official website reported that Wilson stated during the week, “We’ve got to create a new history.” “We have to be able to do that with one play at a time, one moment at a time, one game at a time.”
It’s a lovely quote, but Wilson, 34, hasn’t lived up to the hype with outstanding play, as has been the case frequently since he joined the Broncos. It’s now or never for the Broncos to forget the dynamic duo of Wilson and head coach Sean Payton.
Wilson performed statistically worse under Payton than he did under Nathaniel Hackett in 2022. But statistics can be misleading. Wilson had the fourth-highest passer rating in the league going into Thursday night, at 106.1. But his QBR of 45.2 was only 23rd, nearly ten points below his worst season in Seattle.
Most significantly, Denver had just one victory in its 2023 record going into Thursday.
This was not how it was intended to be. After Wilson had the worst season of his career, Denver hired Payton to help “fix” Wilson. Wilson is a nine-time Pro Bowler. In order to obtain Payton’s rights and a 2024 third-round pick from the New Orleans Saints, the Broncos had to give up a 2023 first-round pick and a 2024 second-round pick.
There was reasoning for the move, as Payton had experience developing quarterbacks. He went 5-2 with Jameis Winston in 2021 and assisted in making Drew Brees a future Hall of Famer. The coach’s first priority was to deny the quarterback’s personal team of trainers and coaches access to the team facility and to cease pampering Wilson, as the previous administration had done.
In July, Payton stated, “That wasn’t his fault,” according to Jarrett Bell of USA Today. “Those who approved of it were the parents. That doesn’t implicate him; rather, it implicates the head coach, George Paton, the general manager, Danani Leech, and everyone else who witnessed the entire event. We’re doing the opposite of everything I heard about the previous season.”
Wilson was going to be just one of fifty-three players. Denver was going to make the playoffs, and he was going to demonstrate his leadership on the field rather than in gloating social media posts.
Bell said, “I’m going to be pissed off if this is not a playoff team,” from Payton.
Given that the Broncos are far from being a contender for the postseason, Payton overestimated his own coaching abilities.
Defensive coordinator Vance Joseph was largely to blame for the first month of the season, and with good reason. Denver was dead last in terms of yards allowed and points allowed heading into Week 6.
On Thursday, though, the Denver D played its best game of the season. It held Patrick Mahomes and Co. to a mere 19 points, but it still never really felt like the Broncos were in the game. As was usually the case under Hackett, Wilson and the offense failed.
