Yesterday’s NFL Monday Night Football game between the Denver Broncos and the Houston Texans resembled a soccer game in terms of excitement, which is to say, the sixty minutes of the game, stretched out over 3-1/2 hours, was a yawn-inducer if ever there was one. The final result was Denver 27, Houston 9.
There was a modicum of pre-game drama focused on the return to Denver of bolter Brock Osweiler, who left the Broncos during the free agency period for a four-year, $72 million deal to play for Houston, despite having only started seven games in his four year tenure as the Broncos back-up quarterback to Peyton Manning.
Broncos General Manager John Elway could be seen in the observation box, laughing up his sleeve at the deal the Texans gave Osweiler.
Osweiler threw for 131 yards on 41 attempts, with 22 completions. The math indicates that at $18 million per season, each of those completions cost the Texans $818, 181.
For the Broncos, bargain-rate quarterback Trevor Siemian plays for a 2016 base salary of $525,000. His equally pedestrian results from the Monday night game, 157 yards on 25 attempts with 14 completions, meant that each completion cost the Broncos a “mere” $37,500.
Admittedly, those costs per pass figures will drop as the season progresses.
The stats through six games show Siemian has completed 112 passes, or a relatively economical $4,687 per completion. For the first seven games of the season, Osweiler has 156 completions, meaning that the price per completion is “only” $115,384.
