Grading The Week: Broncos’ passing woes wouldn’t be saved by Jaylen Waddle at NFL trade deadline

Jaylen Waddle can t throw the ball to himself It s kind of been the worst best week for the Broncos that anybody on the Grading The Week GTW crew can remember After all the orange and blue went - over the last seven days to extend Denver s lead atop the AFC West with an - record The Broncos set up a showdown with the Chiefs - at Empower Field on Nov that could officially end the Mahomes-Reid stranglehold on the division It s how they got there A mastery over the Texans - was due to a brilliant defense and a very timely injury to Houston quarterback C J Stroud A win over the Raiders - on Thursday night was an exercise in sheer agony Brilliant defense again but mostly agony In between the games Sean Payton was grouchier than usual And on Tuesday despite being on track for a No or No seed in the AFC playoffs the Broncos elected to stand pat as the exchange deadline came and went Marcedes Lewis the -year-old blocking tight end was Broncos Country s midseason acquisition of note Everybody dance Broncos at the NFL deal deadline D Payton insisted midweek that he had everything he needed inside Broncos Park Powered by CommonSpirit Against Vegas his offense presented him otherwise Several reports over the last sparse weeks had the Broncos sniffing around at offensive additions primarily at wide receiver Denver was allegedly a suitor for New Orleans wideout Rashid Shaheed only to be pipped by the Seahawks NFL reporter Jordan Schultz then claimed the Broncos reached out to the Dolphins to inquire about Shaheed clone Jaylen Waddle only to find the revealed asking price a first-round draft pick at the least to be too steep Considering the Colts - coughed up two first-round picks to free star cornerback Sauce Gardner from the Jets it puzzled the kids in the GTW offices why the Broncos wouldn t consider a corresponding move in kind Nix will only be on a rookie contract for so long and the Broncos cap situation improves significantly in Waddle would be an upgrade over Troy Franklin But we re not sure he d be a major improvement over Marvin Mims Jr assuming the latter is good to go And it would be a waste of a first-rounder to land a guy that Sean Payton would likely just be asking to block on screens anyway DePodesta is a Rockie C The GTW gang is torn on this one We re mildly and pleasantly surprised that Rockies CEO Dick Monfort hired a director of baseball operations from a outside the organization and b outside his genetic family tree Baby initiatives after all are still approaches Related Articles Once a high school tight end Broncos OLB Dondrea Tillman has become a bulldozer on defense Broncos back J K Dobbins decries illegal hip-drop tackle while awaiting word on foot injury Renck File Broncos Bo Nix is regressing and Sean Payton is failing him Parker Gabriel s thoughts following Broncos sloppy win over Raiders as Denver offense keeps letting down Super Bowl-caliber defense Is Denver s defensive dominance sustainable Broncos defense thinks so We can stop anybody That announced Paul DePodesta coming to Colorado is if not straight outta left field at least from the gap in left-center DePodesta was at the forefront of the analytics movement in baseball although that forefront was multiple decades ago the Peter Brand character in the movie Moneyball was based on DePodesta and his work with Billy Beane Not Peter Brand also hasn t worked for a baseball club in years During that aforementioned decade he was pulling strings behind the scenes with the Cleveland Browns who might be the NFL s equivalent of the Rockies in terms of dysfunction With the Browns he was part of the agreement that brought Deshaun Watson to Cleveland for six draft picks six and then agreed to ink Watson to a five-year -million deal Which panned out for the Browns even worse than that trade-and-sign with Russell Wilson worked for the Broncos We ll try to keep an open mind here although we can t shake the feeling that Monfort thought he was veritably hiring actor Jonah Hill who played Brand in Moneyball Although if Paul can somehow get Kris Bryant off the books he ll already be a improvement over Bill Schmidt Want more Broncos news Sign up for the Broncos Insider to get all our NFL analysis