Woody Paige: Broncos vs. Raiders -- maybe neither team will win

Nov. 16—Nathaniel Hackett says "somebody's gotta win this game."

Not necessarily so, coach. The Broncos and the Raiders have tied twice, and the second was 23-23 on Oct. 22, 1973, in the NFL's first overtime regular-season game and first Monday night game in Denver. This 125th duel definitely deserves 0-0.

The Broncos and the Raiders are official members of the NFL dreadpool.

The Insignificant Seven also includes the Texans, the Panthers, the Jaguars, the Cardinals and the defending world champs-turned-chumps Rams. The collective record of the slubberdegullions is 19-47-1.

Bizarrely, all the other six are scheduled against the Broncos this season. Having already lost by the biggest margin in their season in Las Vegas the 3-6 Broncos reconvene with the 2-7 Raiders on Sunday. The Broncos still have Carolina (3-7), Arizona (4-5) and the Los Angeles Rams (3-6) ahead and previously defeated Houston (1-7-1) and Jacksonville (3-7) in only two of their three victories. The Broncos also won rather unconvincingly over the 49ers 11-10. The Broncos wouldn't want to confront San Francisco now.

Of those seven franchises, only the inglorious Broncos are soon to end up with six consecutive seasons from 2017-2022 below .500.

Forgive the Broncos' rookie coach if he doesn't realize nobody could win Sunday. He and the Broncos have been off-kilter and out-of-whack habitually this season.

NFL teams often have too many or too few players on the field for a play. But the Broncos could be the first in league history to be missing one for a kickoff because he was eating a hot dog on the sideline. Hackett is the only coach who got help from a stadium crowd with the play clock. Where was The Count from Sesame Street?

The Raiders-Broncos affair will feature the two most despised coaches since Urban Mayer was run out of Jacksonville in December last year after 13 games. Although Josh McDaniels has a 21.1 percent betting chance of being fired next and Hackett is at 9.1 percent, don't expect either to be coaching his last game Sunday. Raiders owner Mark Davis, who could have been an occasional fill-in for the Three Stooges, said McDaniels is safe because "Rome was not built in a day." He is right. The Roman Empire took 800 years to rise. But McDaniels lasted only 28 games with the Broncos before being dumped in 2010. Kid McHoodie has dropped 16 of his past 21 games as a head coach,

Josh had a .393 winning percentage with the Broncos. Nathaniel has a .334 winning percentage, in comparison to Vic Fangio's .385 and Vance Joseph's .344.

This game @Mile High stadium is the least attractive matchup in the league of the 14 this week. Even the Commanders and the Texans have combined for six victories, one more than the Broncos and the Raiders. The first 70,000 through the gates should receive free nose plugs. Tickets are available on the secondary market for $81 and could be $1 game time.

The old-time rivals have played low-scoring stinkers, 9-7 in 1981 and 13-3 in 2006, and high-scoring blowouts, including 51-0 in 1967 and 59-14 in 2010 (when McDaniels was the Broncos' losing coach). The Raiders won the earlier game this season 32-23, and the over-under on the rematch is 41.5. The Broncos are favored by 2.5 points.

The Broncos continue to have the NFL's most anemic offense, although Hackett had claimed before the season that his team would score a ton of points. They've reached 131 points so far.

Yet, even with a third straight loss at home (and another 9-point output), Hackett wouldn't be discarded. The Walmart ownership already has spent its quota this year by purchasing the franchise for $4.65 billion, signing Russell Wilson to a six-year contract extension for almost a quarter of a billion dollars and, this week, agreeing to pay $3.1 billion to settle opioid lawsuits filed by state attorney generals led by Colorado's.

The Broncos are averaging 11.25 points here.

Hackett promised an outside zone run-dominated offense that originally was devised by Mike Shanahan and Alex Gibbs in Denver. Instead, Hackett has delivered a discombobulated pass-oriented scheme that fails on first down and third down and in the Red Zone (which the Broncos didn't have one play in against the Titans).

And the Raiders are just as dreadful.

Can anybody win this game?