44-7?

Sigh...

It's a tough year to be a sports fan in Colorado. The Rockies got crushed in humiliating fashion in the World Series. The Nuggets have a shot, but look as iffy as ever. The only thing worse in the state's collegiate athletics scene than the Colorado Buffaloes' thoroughly mediocre football is the Colorado State Rams' thoroughly awful football. Okay, the Avalanche have started strong, but three quarters of the country doesn't notice or care what's going on in the world of professional ice hockey anyway. Besides, they look like a potential playoff team, but not like a potential Stanley Cup team.

And then there's the Broncos. The much-beloved Broncos, always #1 in the hearts of every Colorado sports fan, the source of the Orange-and-Blue blood of diehards up and down the Front Range, all across the Centennial State and throughout the Rocky Mountain region.

And they just flat-out suck.

They got walloped today, scoring only one garbage-time TD as the 4th quarter expired. They got beat down by the Detroit Lions, of all teams, an ass-kicking that you just can't sugar-coat.

And this is the second time this season it's happened, after a losing in similarly ludicrous fashion, 41-3, to the San Diego Chargers in week 5.

To be fair, Broncos' starting QB Jay Cutler left the game with an injury early in the 2nd quarter, which is bound to hamper the offensive scheme and execution of any football team.

To be honest as well as fair, though, there has been no evidence to date that Jay Cutler is anything more than a moderately skilled journeyman QB.

Not that you'll convince anyone in the Denver media of that. Broncos radio play-by-play man Dave Logan said as Culter was headed to the locker room after the injury, "This could be an absolute disaster for the Broncos." Hearing this, I'm thinking, "How's that, exactly?" How is there any discernable difference between Cutler and backup QB Patrick Ramsey? What does Cutler contribute that Ramsey can't? A disaster is, "Peyton Manning is injured early in the 2nd quarter and Jim Sorgi has to take over." A disaster is not, "The fair-to-middling starter is injured and the probably-middling-at-best backup QB has to take over."

The true disaster is this Broncos season. I've watched a lot of different Broncos teams over the years. They've ranged from perhaps-among-the-best-teams-ever (The 14-2 1998 repeat Super Bowl winner) to not good (the 6-10 1999 post-Elway-retirement, Terrell Davis' career-ending-injury fiasco season). I've never seen a Broncos team this bad, one to be ranked among the worst in the NFL.

They've won three games this season, squeaking each one out on last-second field goals. They still have to play in Kansas City, in Oakland and in San Diego, none of which they're likely to win. They're going to lose to Tennessee at home, could easily lose to Kansas City at home, and are pretty likely to lose on the road to Chicago and Houston. They might have a decent shot at beating Minnesota at home to close out the season. They could easily finish 4-12, which would be only their 7th losing season since the NFL/AFL merger in 1970. Of course, they could also easily finish 3-13, which would be their lowest win total since 1967. The point is, this is a historically bad Broncos team.

All I've got to keep me interested in football this season is the vague hope that someone will stop the New England Fucking Patriots (that team's new official name) from winning the Super Bowl, so as to bring a couple of months of blissful silence from the smug, self-satisfied asshole Boston sports fans of the world. On the other hand, it would be nice in its way to see the Patriots go undefeated all the way through, so that we never, ever again have to endure footage on "SportsCenter" of the 1972 Miami Fucking Dolphins (long since that team's official name) having another goddamn champagne toast.

Grr...I'm grasping at straws here. As far as I'm concerned, this season is pretty much over.