Wow

Just wow. I can't even begin to start to formulate words, much less complete sentences, about the horrifying display of "football" that I witnessed on the part of the Denver Broncos tonight. This was a very telling game for the Broncos coming in. At 4-2 with a porous D, prognosticators across the country had the Broncos pegged as frauds who could just as easily have been 2-4. With a win, the Broncos would sail into their bye week at 5-2 with a 2 game lead on the Chargers. With a loss, the Broncos would be just another 4-3 team who's simply taking advantage of a weak division and will falter by the time the calendar turns to December. Well, it's not even the 4th quarter and I'm writing this now. That should be a telling enough sign as to how this game went. What went wrong? Shit, what went right?

1) A very inauspicious beginning
How about this as a portent of things to come? On the first play of the game Cutler dropped back to pass, followed through and bashed his right index finger on Vince Wolfork's helmet. Immediately after, Cutler was noticeably favoring the finger and his passes weren't as crisp as usual. He never recovered.

2) Andre Hall
Either I was watching the reincarnation of Tatum Bell putting the ball on the ground for the Broncos or Andre Hall had money on the Patriots. How else do you explain getting two carries and fumbling the ball twice? Shortly after the second fumble, as Hall raced to the bench to look for a shovel and an open patch of land, Shanahan's eyes rolled back in his head, he ripped off his clothes, and grew to nearly four times his normal size. Then, alternating between screaming "Beast mode!" and "Shanny angry!" he picked up the diminutive Hall by the throat and reached into the running back's chest to pull out his still beating heart. No word yet on whether charges will be filed on Shanny.

3) Penalties
We made stupid penalties all game, but none more stupider (yes, that was intentionally bad grammar to point out just how stupid the Broncos played) as when we were down 13-0 and had the Patriots pinned against their own end zone on a 3rd and 17. We forced Cassel out of the pocket and made him throw the ball away. Then, inexplicably, Jamie Winborn saw a bug on Matt Cassel's face. He tried to brush it away, but that pesky facemask was getting in the way. So in trying to help Mr. Cassel, he incidentally pulled Cassel's facemask to the ground. While trying to plead his case to the referee, the bug flew away freely as Winborn said a prayer for it.

4) 5 turnovers
Do I really need an explanation for this one? We had four turnovers when we were on the Patriots 40 yard line each time. 'Nuff said.

5) Defense
New England running back Sammy Morris had a career day rushing for 138 yards, a great day for any rusher. I'm not going to mention that he did all that damage in the first half. No, that would be an insult to our defense. No need to focus on the negatives. Over 260 yards rushing on the day given up is insult enough. Matt Cassel might as well have been Tom Brady throwing for 3 touchdowns and a QB rating of over 4,000. That's a real number. With the Patriots averaging 17 points a game coming in, their offense was obviously under fire to play well. Apparently the cure for a sputtering offense is just to play the Broncos. Just ask Kansas City. Where do you go from here? Detroit?

6) Offense
Cutler getting hurt didn't help. Either did Hall's butterfingers. Pittman ran well but he was pretty obsolete once we went down by 500. Cutler couldn't throw the deep ball and was off on his short passes. Penalties killed us all day, but I'll try not to repeat myself. As the game went on, the offense seemed to play excrementally worse. What am I trying to say? It was shitty.

7) Injuries
Jay's aforementioned injury crippled the offense at the beginning, but Champ Bailey's groin stroin or whatever it was handcuffed our already sieve-like defense. Champ was having a phenomenal game, putting the clamps on Randy Moss to the tune of 1 catch for 9 yards. After Champ exited, Moss blew up with two touchdown catches and 60 yards receiving. Also, Boss found a place on his body that he hadn't hurt yet this year and left with a knee injury. I don't know what other maladies affected our team today. Crotch rot? Scurvy? Rickets? Someone has to have rickets.

The Broncos team has some serious 'splainin to do after that abomination of a performance and we as Broncos fans have to decide whether or not our Broncos are destined for another playoff-less season. Too bad we have 13 days to think about it. This isn't the way you want to head into a bye week. Screw it, I'm done. I'm sick of talking about this game. Where's my Coors?