So, as I noted in the AFC Powerless Rankings, last night marked the return of Thursday Night Football with a match-up between two teams who will be playing a lot of golf come January. Shockingly, though, we were actually treated to a pretty decent game (and by "we" I mean "you," since I was busy watching Blake Wheeler score his first career hat trick against Toronto), as Brady Quinn looked great in his professional debut and Jay Cutler led his Broncos to a roaring comeback with a 21-point 4th quarter. Drama! Comebacks! Debuts! Triumphs! Sigh. How disappointing. Nonetheless, let's salvage what we can of The Worst of Thursday Night.


Kellen Winslow. In keeping with the apparent determination of both teams on the field to (for some inexplicable reason) NOT suck, Winslow actually had a great game thanks to Quinn's arm, with 10 receptions for 111 yards and 2 TDs. But that was all just setup for the colossal letdown at the end of the game, shortly after Brandon Marshall scored a touchdown with just over a minute left to put the Broncos up 34-30. Cleveland went for it on the 4th-and-1 at their own 42 with 54 seconds left... only to see the pass slip right through Winslow's hands for a cringe-worthy turnover. Brutal!

The Cleveland defense. Look, if we were still talking about the seemingly unstoppable Broncos offense that mowed through the NFL in the first part of the season, that'd be one thing. But we've seen how vulnerable this Denver team can be -- I mean, they scored 7 freaking points against the same New England defense that still has nightmares about Ronnie Brown. So it's pretty tough to forgive the Brownies' defense blowing a 13-point lead and letting the Broncos walk all over them in the 4th quarter. As Romeo Crennel put it (presumably between bites of a buffalo-meat-and-whale-blubber waffle sandwich): "A 93-yard touchdown pass should never happen -- ever." Yeah, I'll second that. In fact:

Brandon McDonald. The Cleveland cornerback let both Eddie Royal's 93-yard TD and Brandon Marshall's game-winning catch sail by him. In his defense, he's only ever played for Cleveland, so he's been deeply imbued with the toxic stench of failure. Failure and malignant bacteria.

Ryan Torain. After injuring himself in the preseason, Denver's highly-touted "secret weapon" rookie RB made his first start last night -- only to exit the game with a sprained knee in the second quarter. GET IT TOGETHER, CREAMPUFF.


Historic failure. The Broncos have now beaten the Browns 9 times in a row. Jay Cutler's no John Elway, but the man sure can engineer an Elway-like comeback when he wants, I guess. This is also the second consecutive double-digit lead Cleveland's blown. Those who fail to learn from the past are doomed to suck at football, Cleveland!

Me. Yes, me. Know why? I own Cutler in one of my fantasy leagues -- a league I'm commish of, in fact, and one in which a) touchdowns are weighted very heavily and b) there are huge yardage bonuses. So last night, thanks to a 447-yard, 3-TD performance, Cutler earned 88 motherfucking points... for my bench. Because that's where he was sitting. Oh, and my backup QB in this league is J.T. O'Sullivan, who is no longer even a starter. So I just went crawling back to the waiver wire to pick up Marc Bulger. To recap: Jay Cutler, 88 points, on my bench, Marc Bulger. GAHHHHHH.

Labels: no one should care about this game nearly as much as the NFL Network tried to make you think you should, Worst of Thursday Night Football