by my eye, this is a case of a square peg into a round hole, repeatedly.
Before the season, Hackett said the basis of the offense was going to be wide zone runs. Accordingly, Broncos dumped Mike Munchak, who was more of a power scheme guy (and one of the best OL coaches in the business), in favor of a guy from SF. This offense works by forcing the defense to flow from sideline to sideline, covering a lot of ground vs both the run and pass - it's all about stretching the field left to right. Honestly, that was music to my ears because the Broncos won 2 SB's using that scheme, but that's not the way the roster was constructed. This is the first square peg.
Next, he implemented a west coast passing scheme which requires the QB to quickly scan the field left to right - that makes a lot of sense given the running scheme in place. However, Russ seems to be more of a vertical read guy - look deep, then look short. He isn't great at left to right. Russ himself is the second square peg.
Hackett knows the team needs to establish the run to be successful. The passing game works a hell of a lot better with a legit play-action threat, not to mention pulling at least one safety into the box. He knows this. He reportedly said at halftime on Sunday - we have got to establish the run in the 2nd half. But what happened? In the first drive, Rypien threw the ball 6 consecutive times! The damn backup QB threw the ball 46 times in a game where the Broncos never trailed by more than 7. It's insanity. Abandoning his gameplan is the third square peg.
Hackett knows what to do and he can scheme a good offense. But so far, he has not shown the ability to actually execute a game plan. He has got to be stripped of playcalling duties. If he won't give it up himself, he needs to be replaced.