ENGLEWOOD, Colo. — When the Denver Broncos were nearing the finish line in negotiations with the Seattle Seahawks in March of 2022 for a blockbuster trade of quarterback Russell Wilson, general manager George Paton went to new head coach Nathaniel Hackett and asked him to look at the veteran’s tape.
Advertisement
Hackett’s response, according to Paton: “I don’t need to watch the tape. He’s kicked my ass for many years.”
Perhaps not too much should be made of a playful anecdote shared during the euphoria of Wilson’s introductory press conference. Hackett, as he and Paton made clear, did ultimately digest the film of the quarterback’s 10 seasons with the Seahawks, a run that included nine Pro Bowl invitations. But in hindsight, amid Tuesday’s news that the Broncos are benching Wilson for the final two games of his second season with the team, it’s hard not to view the story as fitting context around what will almost certainly go down as one of the worst trades in NFL history.
The Broncos believed Wilson would be for them what he had always been in Seattle: a quarterback who simply always found a way to win, regardless of circumstance. They saw the glory, the quarterback who lifted a Lombardi Trophy and was one bad throw away from putting his hands on another. They saw a player whose playoff experience, years of gaudy numbers and veteran leadership could lift a team desperately trying to find its way back onto a winning path. The Broncos wanted all those things badly enough to send five draft picks, two of them first-rounders, and three players to the Seahawks for Wilson and a fourth-round pick.
They wanted him badly enough to avoid the warning signs that his play was on a downward trajectory.
It was a massive price to pay, even before the Broncos plopped a five-year, $245 million contract extension in front of the then 33-year-old quarterback before he had ever thrown a pass in a Broncos uniform. The entire transaction has been a major flop — the Broncos have gone 11-19 during Wilson’s 30 starts in Denver — but to pin all the problems that have plagued the franchise since the trade on Wilson would be woefully misguided.
Advertisement
The Broncos wanted everything Wilson had provided with the Seahawks badly enough to ignore — or at least rationalize — clear signs, pointed out for several years in Seattle by those who watched the quarterback closely, that his play was diminishing. The issues that plagued Wilson during the back end of his career with the Seahawks, including a notable decline in mobility that has compromised his work in and out of the pocket, have been prominent in Denver. Wilson has posted the two worst seasons of his career while in Denver in terms of EPA (expected points added). His 84.4 passer rating in 2022 was the worst of his career and the 98.0 rating he has posted this season is his second-worst since 2017.
It has all fallen so short of what the Broncos expected. But it isn’t just the quarterback who didn’t hold up his end of the bargain.
Hackett, hired less than two months before the deal for Wilson was struck, was out of his depth as a first-year coach, a fact that became clear from the start of his first season on the job. In trying to blend the offense he had helped construct in Green Bay for Aaron Rodgers with the pieces of the scheme Wilson liked in Seattle, the Broncos instead produced an offense without a discernible identity. The Broncos couldn’t protect Wilson by creating a sturdy ground game and Denver gave up a franchise record 63 sacks in 2022 — 55 of which were absorbed by Wilson in his 15 starts. Wilson’s footwork eroded amid the onslaught of pressure and his decision-making late in games — epitomized by a brutal end-zone interception in Week 5 against the Indianapolis Colts — became erratic at times.
Fifteen games into the season, after a disaster of a performance by Wilson and Denver’s offense on Christmas Day in a blowout loss to the Los Angeles Rams, Hackett was fired. The Broncos had mortgaged much of their future for a franchise quarterback, but his fit with the head coach, despite consistent public declarations of harmony, was disjointed from the start.
Wilson excitedly embraced the arrival of Sean Payton, the Super Bowl-winning coach who had helped Drew Brees, the passer Wilson most respected, author a Hall of Fame-caliber career in New Orleans after signing him as a free agent in 2006. Payton was confident he could take Wilson “off the high dive,” putting less of a burden to carry the offense on his shoulders. In doing so, the Broncos for stretches of this season played cleaner football than they did last season. During a five-game winning streak following a 1-5 start, Wilson threw no interceptions and the Broncos took advantage of the field position provided by a ballhawking defense to dig out of their early hole.
GO DEEPER
Sean Payton bemoans 'self-inflicted problems' that have torpedoed Broncos offense
But it was never an offense in which Wilson could thrive or truly play to his strengths. Despite a decline in overall athleticism, Wilson remains a talented playmaker, a quarterback who can fire big strikes down the field when operating out of structure. It was evident in Denver’s 26-23 loss to the New England Patriots on Christmas Eve. Down 23-7 in the fourth quarter, Wilson led the Broncos on two 75-plus-yard touchdown drives and capped them both with two-point conversion throws to tie the game. He improvised, moved outside the pocket and found his receivers deep down the field.
Advertisement
“We picked up the tempo a little bit and guys made some great plays,” Wilson said.
It was as close as Wilson has been this season to suggesting how he believes the Broncos should play. But Payton’s view of the sequence was different.
“A lot of it was empty with no back, and we made some plays,” Payton said, “(but) it’s hard to say you’re going to make a living that way as your base offense.”
Payton wants to play a certain way. He wants a quarterback who can routinely deliver the ball in the rhythm of his offense. Second acts, in his view, can’t be the first plan. The benching of Wilson is about playing a different way, but is it solely on Wilson that he has been asked to operate in a way that doesn’t consistently fit his strengths?
“Being around Russell, he’s one of the toughest people I’ve ever been around, especially in this sport,” Broncos right tackle Mike McGlinchey said last week. “And, obviously, nobody takes more s— than he does. The way that he constantly continues to rise above it and prepare the way that he always has prepared, and lead our football team, and has helped put us in position for a playoff run. … I think two-and-a-half months ago, you guys all would have laughed at us. So here we are with three games to go. Russell is going to do what he always has done best and compete his ass off and put us in position to win games.”
Payton on Wednesday showed some regret for his role in how Wilson’s season played out.
“There’s a part of you, certainly myself as a head coach, that feels like, ‘Man, I needed to be better.'”
The Broncos said Wednesday the move was about trying to find a spark for an offense that has floundered during the stretch. But this is clearly about the future, too. There are big financial components at play, of course. Wilson already has $39 million guaranteed for 2024, but another $37 million of 2025 salary is guaranteed for injury only. It would become fully guaranteed if Wilson were still on the team during the fifth day of the next league year in March. An injury to Wilson over the final two games that prevented him from passing a physical at that time would leave the Broncos on the hook for all of that salary. You can always follow the money in pro sports.
But moving on from Wilson may create more problems than it fixes. Cutting him would create $85 million in dead money. It could be spread out over the next two seasons with a post-June 1 designation, but a move like that would nonetheless put the squeeze on Denver’s books and possibly necessitate the shedding of other key players and their contracts. The Broncos don’t have a wealth of young, inexpensive talent in large part because the trades for Wilson and Payton zapped a total of three first-round picks for Denver across the past two years. The Broncos are in desperate need of more speed to complement their quarterback.
Advertisement
That’s to say nothing of who will replace Wilson if he has indeed played his last game with the Broncos. Payton believes Jarrett Stidham is an “ascending” quarterback, and perhaps these final two games will illustrate as much, but he’s made just two starts since entering the league as a fourth-round pick of the Patriots in 2019. There simply isn’t much to go on.
The Broncos won’t be in range to draft top prospects Caleb Williams or Drake Maye, a vision that seemed possible when Denver began the season by losing five of six games. There could be other options in the draft. Perhaps Heisman Trophy winner Jayden Daniels of LSU could be in range. Or Michigan’s J.J. McCarthy. All were first-round prospects in The Athletic’s most recent mock draft by prospect guru Dane Brugler.
But none of this will be as easy for the Broncos as changing the quarterback. If the ill-fated Wilson trade should have taught the Broncos anything, it is that most of all.
(Top photo: RJ Sangosti / Getty Images)
“The Football 100,” the definitive ranking of the NFL’s best 100 players of all time, is on sale now. Order it here.
