Following the trade of Russell Wilson to the Denver Broncos in March, many had a lot of excitement about that team. That included the NFL schedulers, who set the Broncos for seven nationally-televised games. That included two Monday Night Football games on ESPN, with the first also on ABC, two Sunday Night Football games on NBC, a Christmas Day game on CBS and Nickelodeon, a Thursday Night Football game on Amazon’s Prime Video, and an international game on ESPN+.
Through six games overall and three of those national games, though, the Broncos are 2-4. And Wilson (who became the highest-paid player in Broncos’ history with a five-year, $245 million extension before the season) has been a particular target for his poor play. Things are not going well in Denver. And the team is even getting repeatedly roasted on the postgame show of the local ABC affiliate (KMGH-7, The Denver Channel) airing some of these primetime games.
The Denver Channel’s postgame show on the much–maligned Oct. 6 TNF game (a 12-9 overtime loss to the Indianapolis Colts) included station Broncos’ insider Troy Renck’s “It burned the retinas,” along with much more. And their postgame show on the Broncos’ 19-16 MNF OT loss to the Los Angeles Chargers this week (which also was blasted by ESPN MNF analyst Troy Aikman and many others) featured much further criticism. Of particular note, it saw sports director Lionel Bienvenu and sports anchor Nick Rothschild partially reenacting the famous Peanuts comic gag of Lucy pulling the football away when Charlie Brown tried to kick it:
There’s a lot in there, from news anchors Anne Trujillo and Shannon Ogden starting with terms like “fizzled,” “special-teams blunder,” “bad coaching,” and “Another primetime game that ended mostly in disappointment. Another night of underperformance by the Denver Broncos” (from Trujillo) and “Another disappointment in primetime” (from Ogden). Ogden lets out a “Ugh” as he introduces the sports team, and Bienvenu says “Poor Micah [Smith], getting fan reaction.” Bienvenu then offers a thorough roasting of the team’s play, including “So many things wrong with this football game,” and Rothschild talks about how the team’s hot start (and 10-0 lead early) led to the football-pull moment. That leads to him and Bienvenu reenacting that.
A transcription beginning at 1:40:
Rothschild: “I didn’t think it could get any worse after the Indy game, but they gave us that little morsel of goodness at the beginning of the game…”
Bienvenu: “10-0!”
Rothschild: “And then they took it away from us!”
Bienvenu: [mimes a rug-pull] “Just pulled the rug right out from under us!”
Rothschild: “Just Charlie Browning it all over again.”
Bienvenu: “Exactly. [Broncos’ head coach Nathaniel] Hackett’s holding the ball, like Lucy” [mimes hold, Rothschild mimes kick and fall], “the Broncos try to kick it, and here we go…”
Rothschild: “Human resources violation, I almost fell over there.”
The general roasting here was solid, and well-deserved for how poorly this team has been playing, but the Lucy football pull reenactment was particularly great. Here’s one version of the original, from 1969’s A Boy Named Charlie Brown:
We’re definitely here for reenactments of local sports losses through cartoon bits. Especially on the station that aired those games. Perhaps someone can pull a Wile E. Coyote next? With four more nationally-televised Broncos’ games to come (three in primetime, plus an international morning on ESPN+), some further levity may be needed…
[Awful Announcing on Twitter]