Every week it gets harder and harder to say that this team is headed in any direction, let alone the right direction. As injuries mount, the defense isn’t looking anywhere close to a core power of this football team. Our offense is absolutely broken from top to bottom. The kicking teams unit is still atrocious.

THIS is the kind of loss that hurts to me as a fan. I don’t mind last minute losses by one score...at least we are in the game. No, this is far worse. I’ve talked smack on the hapless Raiders for decades and I have to stand up here in front of Broncos Country and share with you the No Bull truth.

The Raiders were a well prepared, professional football team ready and willing to play the game of NFL football at the highest level. They had sound coaching, good play calling in every facet of the game, and their players executed at a far higher level than our team in every possible way. Hats off to the Raiders...imagine the Raiders are the actual real NFL team who has potential to get into the playoffs while our beloved Broncos are a dumpster fire of a team who probably couldn’t beat the top 3 college football teams if they lined up today.

Defense

The story on defense was that everyone everywhere knew the Raiders were going to run the ball often. There was nothing our team could do to stop their running game. Our front 7 were not up to the task in any way.

With the offense being completely inept, the Raiders almost had a 2:1 advantage in time of possession. That wears on a defense. Now add to it that you don’t have your full complement of defensive linemen to rotate in and out. It was simply a recipe for disaster.

One negative note:

Paul Rutherford-USA TODAY Sports

Bradley Chubb looks absolutely pedestrian out there. And when I say that, I mean that he’s not winning battles one-on-one. He looks slow off his first step and straight up lacks power to impact plays the vast majority of the time. I watched him quite a bit in this game and was sorely bummed by what I saw. At the end of the day, I conclude that he likely has lost more than I thought from his injuries.

One positive note:

Photo by Sean M. Haffey/Getty Images

Bryce Callahan absolutely is killing it this season. He’s legitimately playing top shelf coverage as a cornerback and sadly will not see much recognition for it given that the rest of the defense is made up of mostly back-ups and practice squad quality players.

Offense

As the season wears on, I’m not going to belabor the point that Pat Shurmur is out of his depth as a NFL play caller. It is what it is. Those of you who hated on Rich Scangarello’s play calling honestly should go watch some tape of the last 5 games of the season and what was called / designed. It wasn’t anywhere near as useless as the abysmal plays we’re seeing called this year.

Quarterbacks

Sorry, my dudes. I’m officially off the hope train for Drew Lock. He’s a scrub who doesn’t understand the first thing about reading a defense, working through pass progressions, or what to do when the defense covers your primary read. Bring me Brett Rypien. At least he looked like a quarterback capable of figuring out what the defense is trying to do half the time.

This season has been hailed as the season for “finding out what we have in Drew Lock.” Let me sum it up for Broncos Country with one gif:

One negative note:

The offensive line is a shell of what an NFL quality offensive line should be. Don’t listen to one damn word Dalton Risner says in his interviews about what a great game they played. No, they didn’t. Go watch the game. The Raiders brought pressure and there was NOTHING the line could do to pick up the extra blitzer. The line didn’t win up front and open holes...heck Melvin Gordon should get taken to dinner by each of the linemen for making them look far better than they played.

One positive note:

The Broncos have talented players at the skill positions on the offense. Jerry Jeudy, Phillip Lindsay, K.J. Hamler, Tim Patrick, and Noah Fant are at the top of my list for guys I see real solid skill. One day they will have a functional quarterback here or elsewhere and we’ll see them shine.

Kicking Teams

Isaiah J. Downing-USA TODAY Sports

The first order of business that should be taken whenever the Broncos decide to start caring once again about being a winning organization is to fire Tom McMahon. It is that simple.

Final Thoughts

I’m eating ‘taters tonight, Broncos Country...but don’t bother passing me the salt. I got that part covered. The only real thing I’m looking forward to at this point is maybe getting to see Von Miller return at the end of the season and do Von things on the football field.

Scratch that...I’m looking forward to seeing Vic Fangio Bronco the hell up and bench Drew Lock. It should have been done in the 2nd half of this game without question.