Nathaniel Hackett lost his job a day after the Denver Broncos showed more fight on the sideline and in the postgame handshake line than they did in their 51-14 loss to the Los Angeles Rams.
With the embarrassing loss, the Broncos fell to 4-11 and prompted CEO Greg Penner to part ways with the rookie head coach whose mishandling of the offseason and mismanagement of games were hallmarks in a lost season that featured a shocking nosedive for quarterback Russell Wilson.
Ensuring Hackett would get no mulligan, the Broncos cratered on Christmas when the only fight they showed came during the postgame handshakes when Randy Gregory interrupted all the holiday cheer by throwing a punch at LA offensive lineman Oday Aboushi.
That, and guard Dalton Risner’s sideline shove of backup QB Brett Rypien for walking over to the O-linemen after back-to-back sacks of Wilson and imploring them to give their quarterback a hand and help him up instead of just staring at him.
Risner chalked that up to miscommunication and hugged it out with Rypien.
Gregory had no real answers for his actions, which led to a retaliatory punch from Aboushi and prompted the NFL to suspend both of them for one game.
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