WHEN BRADY CALLS IT “BAD FOOTBALL,’’ NFL MUST SPRAY THE STENCH

You aren’t alone in thinking the league product is putrid this year, with ugly games and 24 teams posting non-winning records, and let’s thank the G.O.A.T. for interrupting his divorce talks to say so

     Like a mob of smash-and-grabbers who clean out a Gucci store, the NFL isn’t concerned about any messes left behind. Roger Goodell and his bosses are assured of unprecedented riches — can’t repeat it enough: $113 billion in media contracts through 2033 — and residual exhaust is dismissed with shrugs and smirks. Collateral damage, you know?

     So when America surveys the current season and holds its collective nose, well, the only recourse is to boycott and stop watching. The league knows its product is irresistible, even if play is wretched and only eight of 32 teams have winning records, and there will be no acknowledgment of aesthetic deterioration from on high. The quality may be putrid, but games are games, allegiances are allegiances, and betting lines are betting lines.

     That’s why we should thank Tom Brady for pausing talks with his divorce lawyer long enough to address the slop. Someone of substance has to hold the NFL accountable for a season dominated so far by a horrifying delayed reaction to Tua Tagovailoa’s brain maulings — is he still alive? — and a parity slog diluted by new head coaches, ho-hum performances from the defending Super Bowl champions (Los Angeles Rams) and an ayahuasca-stoned hippie (Aaron Rodgers) who looks constipated in a perpetual funk that suggests he’s finished winning MVP awards. If this is a hint that Brady intends to fire robust opinions in his next gig, maybe there’s hope he’ll earn at least a small portion of his $375 million from Fox Sports.

     “I think there’s a lot of bad football, from what I watch," the soon-to-be-former Mr. Bundchen said Thursday. “I watch a lot of bad football. A lot of — yeah, poor quality of football, that’s what I see.”

     And that was BEFORE possibly the ugliest pro football game ever played, a touchdown-less eyesore that saw two once-elite quarterbacks playing themselves out of the Hall of Fame as they combined for four interceptions. All you need to know is that throngs of Denver fans, who’d spent much of the night booing so-called savior Russell Wilson, didn’t care to see overtime and fled the stadium with the score tied 9-9. That was the correct call, as the Broncos and their $245 million man — $165 million guaranteed — once again were led astray by a fraudulent first-year coach. Nathaniel Hackett can’t hack it, it’s safe to say, and those wondering what he planned for an encore after an Opening Night debacle — he prioritized a 64-yard field-goal try over 4th-and-5 — now have more vomit to choke on.

      At home, facing 4th-and-1 with 2:38 left in the extra period, the Broncos trailed by a field goal. This time, a field goal made more sense — Wilson had thrown an interception late in regulation, his latest red-zone failure, and three points could have ensured a tie or a late shot at victory against an equally inept Matt Ryan and the rushing-impotent Indianapolis Colts. Not only did Hackett again reject common sense, his choice to go for it wasn’t about picking up the yard on the ground and continuing the drive. He tried to be a hero, supporting Wilson’s wish to throw into the end zone again. In fairness to Hackett, the play call worked. Wide receiver K.J. Hamler was wide open for a potential game-winning touchdown.

     The $245 million man, the superstar who begged out of Seattle because Pete Carroll was marginalizing his skills and not letting him cook, never saw Hamler. He targeted wideout Courtland Sutton, and the pass fell incomplete. The Broncos, thought to be playoff contenders, are part of the league’s sub-.500 dreck at 2-3.

     “I could have walked in,” said Hamler, who slammed his helmet to the turf. “Got to finish, execute. We just got to execute better. Defense (is) fighting their ass off, and we got to back them up better. I did everything I can. I fought my ass off.”

     As for Wilson, he is accepting the blame while Carroll laughs his 71-year-old ass off. Turns out conventional wisdom that Wilson was being misused is wrong. He has been exposed, in fact, as successor/career backup Geno Smith leads the NFL in completion percentage, ranks among the leaders in passer rating and has accounted for seven touchdowns. So far, anyway, he’s the best quarterback in the NFC West — and he comes much cheaper than Matthew Stafford, Kyler Murray and Jimmy Garoppolo. Asked about his newest award, NFC Offensive Player of the Week, Smith fired back before hearing the entire question.

     “Are you surprised by that?” he said to his media interrogator.

     “If you told me before the season, I’d be a little surprised,” came the answer from the peanut gallery.

     “That's because you never watched me throw," Smith said. “I’m just playing ball, doing what I'm supposed to do. It's a testament to the guys I'm playing with. None of that's possible without the offensive line protecting the way they do, receivers getting open and catching the way they do. Shane (Waldron, offensive coordinator) is calling great plays. So it's more of a collective thing versus just me myself. I know that it's more that goes into it. Everyone's doing their part and pulling their weight."

     Said star receiver DK Metcalf: "I knew he was going to be great from the moment he got his chance. He just needed the opportunity. Now he's just showing everybody what we already knew. I know I keep saying that, but everybody kept writing him off and he just never had a fair shot to just be who Geno Smith really is and we are all seeing him come into his own and be a quarterback leading a franchise, leading an organization, how he wants it to be.”

     Which seems to indicate that Wilson, aside from his Super Bowl victory nine seasons ago, is little more than a frustrated politician — a has-been who shows up at celebrity events with his wife, the singer Ciara, but is in no position, going on 34, to resume championship-level football. At least until the Broncos, now controlled by the third-richest owner in global sports (Rob Walton is worth $60 billion), hire a real coach to fix a broken Russ.

     “We felt like we should have won that game. I felt like I let us down tonight,'' Wilson said. “It's very simple — at the end of the day I've got to be better, I've got to play better. The defense played their butts off tonight. At the end of the day throwing two interceptions can't happen. Can't happen. It’s having these negative plays. That’s on us. That’s all on us as players. It starts with me. It’s not on coach Hackett, it’s not on anybody else.”

     Why didn’t he see Hamler? “We had a good play call on. Guy made a good play," Wilson said. “I was ready to move around if I needed to. We went for it. We didn't want to end in a tie, we wanted to win the game. I've got to find a way to make a play, whatever it takes.”

     If nothing else Thursday, on a night of buyer’s remorse for Amazon Prime football subscribers, the concussion protocol wasn’t bastardized. Pressured by public outcry over Tagovailoa, the league made damn sure Nyheim Hines was finished for the evening after a head injury. Just after kickoff, the Colts running back was ravaged by two defenders, staggering as he was helped up by teammates. We should remain outraged that it took a misdiagnosed concussion, by a third-party consultant who was fired after allowing the Miami quarterback to keep playing last month, to close a loophole in official language between the league and NFL Players Association. Now, any player exhibiting “gross motor instability” cannot return to a game.

     Without the correction, Tagovailoa still might be playing and wobbling. Thankfully, he remains in concussion protocol and didn’t travel with the Dolphins for Sunday’s game against the New York Jets. “He’s diligently going through the process,” said rookie head coach Mike McDaniel, who still has a job. “There's several outside specialists that we're also utilizing. We'll just take it from there, but happy that he's, you know, you get to see him every day. It's nice when I walk down the hallway and I hear, ‘What up, beast?’ which is, for whatever reason, he calls me beast all the time. I don't think I give off the beast vibe, but we'll just take it day by day from there.”

     If this represents progress, in NFL 2022, we’ll have to take it. A great game, of course, quickly can remind us why tens of millions watch this league every week. Until it happens, I’ll be checking out pro pickleball … and setting up Brady with a Tinder account.

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     Jay Mariotti, called “without question the most impacting Chicago sportswriter of the past quarter-century,’’ writes general sports columns for Substack while appearing on some of the 1,678,498 podcasts and shows in production today. He is an accomplished columnist, TV panelist and talk/podcast host. Living in Los Angeles, he gravitated by osmosis to film projects.