The Denver Broncos lost again in Week 6, falling to the Kansas City Chiefs 19-8 on Thursday Night Football. The defense played well overall, picking Patrick Mahomes off once, sacking him twice, and generally limiting the Chiefs to field goals for the majority of the game. The running game showed up, too. The team ran for a respectable 115 yards. So, when assigning blame for the Broncos' Week 6 loss, you have to go right to Sean Payton, Russell Wilson, Jerry Jeudy, and the passing game.

3. Jerry Jeudy

Retired Pro Bowl wide receiver Steve Smith Sr. absolutely ethered Jerry Jeudy before the game on NFL Network. If you haven’t seen it yet, it’s hilarious and incredibly damning for Jeudy, the No. 15 overall pick in the 2020 NFL Draft.

Smith repeatedly called Jeudy a “J.A.G.” which stands for “just a guy” and said he’s “mentally unable to handle constructive criticism from people who watch specifically, can he be a wide receiver?”

Yikes.

After “Agent 89,” as Smith called himself, challenged Jeudy to go out and prove him wrong, the Broncos wideout did the exact opposite and showed that Smith seems to be dead on with his critique that Jeudy is an average WR at best. The 24-year-old had just three catches or 14 yards.

Some of that is on Wilson, for sure, but the broadcast did a nice job of highlighting how Jeudy and his fellow Broncos WR Courtland Sutton weren’t able to get any separation at all in Week 6 from the Chiefs corners.

Jeudy didn’t make a difference at all in this game, and now that it seems a Broncos fire sale is officially on, the young wideout could be the next player to get a one-way ticket out of town.

2. Sean Payton

Broncos head coach Sean Payton likes to wash his hands of every Denver loss through his buddies in the media, but this Week 6 loss to the Chiefs is on him as much as anyone. It is true that Payton didn’t bring these players in, but the fact that they are so, so, so bad is a black mark on the head coach.

Payton got the “offensive genius” label while winning a Super Bowl with Drew Brees and the New Orleans Saints. However, what we may now be learning is that the success the Saints had may be way more due to Brees than Payton. It is similar to the Tom Brady-Bill Belichick pie chart of credit shifting with every 30-point New England Patriots blowout.

In the Broncos' Week 6 loss, the offense only managed 197 total yards, which has to fall on the “offensive genius” head coach at least a little bit. Russell Wilson looks as bad as last season, and none of Payton’s much-ballyhooed plays can make up for that.

The Denver offense simply isn’t getting it done, and as much as he badly doesn’t want to, Payton has to take some blame for that.

Payton came to the Mile High City swinging a big stick and talking a lot of trash about everyone involved with the team for this season and last. The coach better hope he can turn it around quickly once he gets his guys in, or he’s going to be the one who looks foolish.

1. Russell Wilson

Jerry Jeudy isn’t living up to his draft position, and Sean Payton seems to have given up on the team this year. These issues make Jeudy and Payton two major people to blame for the Broncos’ Week 6 loss to the Chiefs.

That said, they don’t get the biggest slice of the blame pie because that is reserved for quarterback Russell Wilson.

Wilson is cooked. There is no other way to say it. Whatever magic he had in Seattle that came from him or Pete Carroll or being with an elite defense and running game is now gone. Russ ended this game 13-of-22 for 95 yards with a touchdown and two interceptions.

And the touchdown came on a circus grab by Courtland Sutton!

Wilson simply doesn’t have it anymore, and this is now a decent sample size of games with the Broncos under two different offensive staffs. We talked above about Payton’s role in this, but the QB looks just as bad under Payton as he did with Nathaniel Hackett last season.

Speaking of Hackett, he may be the big winner in all of this. His is now in New York, getting more than anyone ever has out of Zach Wilson, and Russell Wilson and Sean Payton — who crushed Hackett this offseason — have the Broncos looking even worse than they did in the last campaign.

The Broncos lost in Week 6 to the Chiefs because of Wilson and will continue doing so unless he somehow figures something out about why he is so bad now.