Week 5 of the 2022 NFL season gave us arguably the worst Thursday Night Football game in the history of the broadcast. Somehow, the Jacksonville Jaguars were not involved.
Instead, it was an Indianapolis Colts-Denver Broncos showdown in which two presumptive playoff contenders combined for zero touchdowns and four turnovers. The Broncos, fresh off acquiring Russell Wilson, made four trips inside the Colts’ 20-yard line and scored three points on those drives. The fans who left before overtime — and there were several of them — missed a chance to watch Wilson blank a completely wide open K.J. Hamler and lose on the game’s final play.
It was gross. KMGH-7, Denver’s ABC affiliate, recognized this. Even though their network was just piggybacking on Amazon Prime’s production, reporters Nick Rothschild and Troy Renck felt the need to apologize for it.
"Troy, I feel the need to just apologize to the viewers. I know we didn't play, we didn't even really run this broadcast, but the fact that you had to watch that? On our air? I feel bad." pic.twitter.com/Wz75YqPDol
— Awful Announcing (@awfulannouncing) October 7, 2022
“I feel the need to just apologize to the viewers,” Rothchild said. “I know we didn’t play, we didn’t even really run this broadcast, but the fact that you had to watch that? On our air? I feel bad. I was here and I didn’t even want to watch it. Where do we begin?”
Awful Announcing, a wonderful resource for all things broadcast related, has a full breakdown on all the ways KMGH-7 blasted this stupid, terrible game. The most important factor here, however, is two broadcasting veterans who were tertiary to anything going on at Mile High Stadium were so offended by the product on the field they felt compelled to apologize.
That’s a good start. Now get Wilson to apologize for being creepy and weird every time there’s a camera on him and maybe the city of Denver can begin its healing process.
