Denver, CO
Keeler: Broncos, Russell Wilson, congrats! You just topped Dick Monfort, Nolan Arenado for worst trade in Colorado sports history.
Russ is cooked.
Dick Monfort should send the Broncos a thank-you card. Heck, throw in another $51 million check while you’re at it.
Because Greg Penner and George Paton somehow just got the Rockies, the dumbest franchise in town, off the hook.
Russ is cooked.
The worst trade in Colorado sports history is official now. And it wears orange and blue.
After 12 bathrooms and 11 wins, the Broncos announced Monday what everybody knew was coming since Sean Payton flipped his visor in Detroit.
They’re cutting quarterback Russell Wilson at the start of the 2024 league year next week, almost exactly two years after acquiring him from Seattle for (deep breath): a 2022 first-round pick; a 2022 second-round pick; a 2022 fifth-round pick; a 2023 first-round pick; a 2023 second-round pick; tight end Noah Fant; defensive lineman Shelby Harris; and quarterback Drew Lock.
Paton bet the farm.
Pete Carroll laughed all the way to the bank.
Russ is cooked.
Monfort should be doing backflips. The Rockies CEO seemingly had the title of “worst trade” locked up in perpetuity in 2021 when he handed third baseman Nolan Arenado, the Mike Schmidt of his generation, along with $51 million, to the stinking Cardinals for Larry, Moe, Curly, Shemp and Joe Besser.
Nolan’s averaged 30 homers and 100 RBIs in the three seasons since. The Rox have averaged 95 losses.
Heck of a bar, that. Yet the Broncos cleared it, even somehow managing to hit their head on the descent.
Arenado cost the Rockies $51 million and a generation of shame. Wilson’s divorce is going to cost the Broncos $85 million in dead cap money and $39 million in salary for next season. Russ landed a five-year, $242-million extension from Penner and Paton, $161 million of it guaranteed, and was out the door before the freaking thing even kicked in.
Russ is cooked.
Paton should’ve known that, of course. He should’ve known that Big Russ was allergic to throws between the hash marks. He should’ve known that No. 3 was a lost cause in the red zone if Plan A — which became Courtland Sutton in 2023 — happened to be covered. He should’ve known that a 5-foot-11 quarterback who relied on his athleticism had put on weight and lost a step. Or three.
He should’ve known that bringing Russ meant bringing a personal coaching team, a personal social media team, a personal security team, a personal cook, a personal masseuse, personal everything. He should’ve known that Wilson, at 33, stopped being worth the baggage about the time that the Cards fleeced Monfort.
Russ is cooked.
Oh, the Broncos had their reasons. Even noble ones. No one would say it out loud, but Mission: Franchise Quarterback was a “go” the minute Lock’s development stalled, and Russ was always Plan B. The backup big swing. There is a thread in the loom of multiverse in which the Broncos really do consummate that trade for Aaron Rodgers two winters ago in order to pair him with his best bud Nathaniel Hackett — which is the only way you can justify the hiring of the latter, in hindsight.
In this universe, our reality, Hackett and Russ were a disaster, a coach in over his skis and a QB1 past his prime. Sean Payton and Russ were better, but the egos were hilariously incompatible. Last August, they were Daniel LaRusso and Mr. Miyagi. By December, they were Bart and Homer Simpson.
Russ is cooked.
Wilson was supposed to hand the ball to Herschel Walker on the option read and get the heck out of the way. Only he misread the end and got a franchise stuck even farther behind the chains. The Broncos are staring at third-down-and-$85-million, and not even Payton has a play for that.
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Denver, CO
Cambodian Government Requests Records from Disgraced Art Historian and Denver Art Museum Board Member
The Cambodian government formally reached out to the family of Emma C. Bunker, an art historian who died in 2021 and who sat on the board of the Denver Art Museum, for her records and archival materials, the Denver Post reported.
The request follows on from the repatriation of 11 Asian artifacts by DAM in recent years to Vietnam, Cambodia, and Thailand. The works had primarily been donated by Bunker, who came under scrutiny several years ago after it was found that she sourced acquisitions of several works from Douglas Latchford, an art and antiquities dealer accused of smuggling and dealing in looted Southeast Asian antiquities. Latchford died in 2020 before he could stand trial, while Bunker died a year later and was never officially charged with any wrongdoing.
The Denver Post, however, continued to report on Bunker’s ties to Latchford after her death, releasing a three-part investigation in 2022 alleging that Bunker helped Latchford use DAM as a “way station for looted art.” Bunker had established an acquisitions fund for DAM to help set up its Asian galleries. The Post alleged that she used her scholarly reputation to vouch for Latchford and even helped the dealer forge provenance records to faciltiate the sales through the fund.
The museum cut ties with Bunker in 2023, removing her name from its Southeast Asian gallery wall and returning a sizable donation to her family.
Now the Cambodian government, through attorney Bradley Gordon, sent an email to Bunker’s son, Lambert, asking for his mother’s “extensive notebooks concerning Cambodia,” as wellas photographs of Cambodian statues that Bunker arranged for several publications co-written with Latchford.
“We are very eager to consult these materials as we continue our search for several important statues originating from the country,” Gordon wrote in the email, which the Post reviewed.
The Denver Art Museum did not respond to a request for comment at press time.
Metro Denver’s housing market usually slows around the holidays, and for the second year in a row, November experienced a big drop in both new listings and sales, according to a monthly update from the Denver Metro Association of Realtors.
Sellers put 2,620 homes on the market last month, which is 41.4% fewer than the 4,470 listed in October. For the year, new listings are down 4.6%. A year ago, the monthly drop was almost identical at 41.5%, with the annual change up 1%.
Buyers also continue to hold back. Closings fell 23.4% month-over-month and are down 13.2% year-over-year in November. That contrasts with monthly declines of around 16% the prior two Novembers.
With new listings down more than sales, the inventory of homes and condos on the market fell 15.9% in November to 10,506. The inventory remains up 12.8% from the same month a year ago.
Rather than viewing the soft numbers as signs of a breakdown, they should be looked at as a market taking its normal seasonal break, according to comments included in the report.
“It’s not that sellers don’t desire to sell their current home and move, it’s that they don’t desire to part with a low APR rate on their current mortgage and trade it for a rate that could be three to four times higher,” said Susan Thayer, a member of the DMAR Market Trends Committee and an area Realtor, in comments included with the report.
Likewise, it isn’t that homebuyers don’t trust the homebuying process as much as they may not trust the state of the economy.
“Sellers who desire to sell and price their homes accordingly will find there are still plenty of buyers out there – even in the top price range of our market,” Thayer said.
Listings took a median of 36 days on the market in November, up from 28 days a year earlier. But attracting a buyer in today’s market is only half the battle. Close to 17% of sellers in Denver had a pending sales contract fall through in October, according to the real estate firm Redfin. That is above the U.S. average of 15.1%, and sits between San Diego and Phoenix in the rankings.
Aside from uncertainty, buyers may also be sensing that a long-awaited pivot in home prices might be underway. The median price of a single-family home that sold in November was $640,000, down 1.5% from November and up 0.8% from a year earlier.
A reversal is more evident in condo and townhome prices, which are down 2% on the month and 7.3% on the year to $380,000. Higher HOA fees and more borrowing restrictions have made attached properties less appealing, even though they are more affordable on the surface.
Combine the drop in sales and the mix of homes sold, and November’s sales volume was down 25.6% from October and 11.3% a year earlier.
The slowing seen in Denver is happening in many other places. The annualized rate of existing home sales in the U.S. was 4.1 million in October, close to September’s rate of 4.05 million.
“For some perspective, this is the same activity level that prevailed in October 2008 during the middle of the Housing Bust and a month after Lehman Brothers collapsed. It’s about 20% lower than the worst month in 2001 during the dotcom bust, and light years away from the 2021 peak of 6.6 million,” noted Elliot Eisenberg, with Econ 70, who will be providing an economic forecast to DMAR next month, in an email.
Eisenberg also notes that the share of the U.S. population who considered themselves as middle class has fallen from 85% a decade ago to 54% today. More than 40% of people now consider themselves as lower or working class.
“This suggests that a very large and growing section of society no longer sees themselves as upwardly mobile and sees the finer things as increasingly out of reach,” he said.
The Denver Broncos have a mix of good and bad news to start their Week 14 preparation to take on the Las Vegas Raiders on Sunday. First, the good news. Edge rusher Jonah Elliss is a full participant to start this week after a multi-week rehab on a hamstring injury. It sure looks like he’ll be ready to return to action barring any setbacks there.
The bad news is interior defensive lineman D.J. Jones was a non-participant in practice on Wednesday. He was seen watching practice without a helmet, but no other status update on his potential availability for Sunday’s game.
Here is your full practice report for Wednesday.
Denver Broncos Injury Report
Las Vegas Raiders Injury Report
BOLD – Indicates change in status; NIR- Indicates not injury related; *- Team conducted a walk-through / report is an estimation
STATUS DEFINITIONS: Did not participate (DNP); Limited: means less than 100 percent of a player’s normal repetitions; Full—100 percent of player’s normal repetitions; Out: will not play; Doubtful: Unlikely to play; Questionable: Uncertain to play
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