Denver Broncos need a collective ego check ASAP
By Aric Manthey
The Denver Broncos are 2-3, thanks to egos getting in the way. Can they put those aside to win?
One month into the season, The Broncos find themselves in a carousel of blame. No matter who you ask, everyone in Broncos Country has a finger to project toward a guilty party.
“The playcalling is terrible!”
“We traded for a washed QB!”
“We all know Melvin Gordon’s going to fumble (again). Why is he in there?”
That’s just one cycle around the figurative merry-go-round. It doesn’t matter how many spins we take on the ride (sorry, I had to put it in there), the axis of our problems largely falls at the feet of two people.
Nathaniel Hackett and Russell Wilson.
Denver Broncos need Russell Wilson, Nathaniel Hackett to check their egos at the door
The two men we once hailed as the leaders for our stampede back to relevance have been the source of our early season pitfalls. As I eluded to in my article last week, we should have expected a learning curve for this pairing. Rome wasn’t built in a day, and neither was any prolific NFL offense.
Yes, the early returns have been underwhelming (to put it mildly). Yes, there’s more blame on offense to go around. The offensive line alone deserves its own article for the early season woes. However, the source of the issues lies with these two gentlemen.
Today, we’re just going to focus on the Hackett/Wilson marriage and how they can right the ship for the remainder of the season. That, I believe, starts with each of them taking a long look in the mirror.
Both men have had their fair share of success in this league. Both of them have reputations for maximizing the little talent around them. While they deserve praise for the work that they’ve done, they also need to keep any inflated egos in check. There’s too much “newness” around this team for either of them to expect a juggernaut unit on day one.
In order to make the necessary progress going forward, I think each one of them needs to take a step back and re-assess their current plight.
Let’s start with Hackett and what I think he should do to help fix things.