Devastation in Denver: The Failed Russell Wilson Experiment
Image Courtesy of Sports Illustrated
By Luke Weidenkopf
March 28, 2022, will go down as the day when the Denver Broncos Organization was flipped upside down. In one of the most lopsided trades in NFL history, the Broncos acquired quarterback Russel Wilson and a 4th round-draft pick from the Seattle Seahawks in exchange for quarterback Drew Lock, tight end Noah Fant, defensive lineman Shelby Harris, 2 first-round picks, 2 second-round draft picks, and a fifth-round pick.
At first, there was only excitement for Broncos Country. The team had been subpar ever since its Super Bowl L win and the retirement of hall-of-famer quarterback Peyton Manning. Denver was the first team in the Super Bowl era to win the trophy and then not make the playoffs the subsequent year. It has been seven years (with zero playoff appearances) since their third Super Bowl win but the acquisition of future hall-of-famer Wilson breathed new life into the fandom.
Wilson was a top five quarterback in the NFL during his 10 year stint with the Seattle Seahawks. He was a Super Bowl champion, 9-time Probowler, with 37,000 passing yards and almost 300 touchdowns. He was additionally a runner up for the MVP multiple times and the winner of the 2020 Walter Payton Man of the Year Award.
It had long been theorized that Seattle would have to choose between keeping Wilson or head coach Pete Carroll, because of the rift that had separated them. Everyone assumed that Carroll would soon find his way out the door because it is much harder to find an elite quarterback than a good head coach. But Seattle made their move and haven’t looked back. They believe that they have found their next great quarterback in Geno Smith, who led them back to the playoffs and recently signed an extension worth upwards of $105 million for three years.
The Wilson experiment was flawed from Week 1. In an all time scheduling move by the NFL, the NFL had the Broncos play the Seahawks prime time on Monday Night Football in Seattle. Things were rocky for Denver from the first snap. The offensive could not get the ball moving and Seattle Quarterback Smith was tearing up the Denver defense. The game came down to the last drive. The Broncos had the ball on their own 24 yard line, with just under 4 minutes left on the clock and only down one point. This could have been Wilson’s moment. A symbol of a new age coming to the Mile High City. Wilson is able to drive the Broncos to Seattle’s 47 yard line, with three timeouts and 1:03 left on the clock. So, what happens? Does he drive them down the field and kicker Brandon McManus nails a kick just as time expires to give Wilson his first win? Sadly, what actually happened is much less thrilling.
Wilson failed to grab a first down and head Coach Nathinel Hackett horribly mismanaged the clock, and let over 40 seconds go before he called his first timeout with 20 seconds left. Brandon McManus was then trusted to kick a 64 yard field goal (which would have been just two yards shy of the record for the longest field goal in NFL history) to seal the game, which he severely missed and the Broncos lose the game.
The 2022-23 season never got much better than that. The Broncos would go on to a 5-12 record and Hackett would be fired after a crushing 51-14 loss to the Los Angeles Rams on Christmas Day. He had one of the shortest tenures as a head coach in NFL history.
Wilson never returned to form. Some blamed the abysmal coaching, others the front office, but in football everything runs through the quarterback. It is the most important position in sports, and Wilson has not been able to hold up his end of the argument. He ended the season with a 4-11 record, 16 touchdowns and 11 interceptions, and a QBR of 38.7. For reference, Wilson’s best season was in 2019 (just two seasons before he was traded) where he had a 11-5 record, 31 touchdowns and 5 interceptions, and a QBR of 71.5. Denver believed that they were trading for this player, but in reality all they received was a shell of him.
Going into the 2023-2024 season, George Payton, general manager of the Denver Broncos, made a big swing trading a first round-pick for former New Orleans Head Coach, Sean Payton. Hope began to brew in the Bicentennial state once more, and for the first time since March 8, 2022, people began to believe in the Orange and Blue once more.
Wilson has been better for the start of his new campaign despite dropping his first two. There is still not much hope that the hall-of-famer is back to his previous glory. But whether or not Mr. Unlimited is back, the Denver Broncos Organization is saddled with him for the next 4 years.
The recent misfortunes of Russell Wilson, Aaron Rodgers and other high-priced trades should be a wake-up to any teams in professional sports that aging superstars now past their primes are a risky and generally poor investment. The Seahawks definitely go the better end of the trade, getting rid of Wilson, who was declining as his scrambling abilities faded (he never was a pocket passer; his success in his early years came from his running prowess), and one could argue that the Packers, independent of Rodger’s injury, have a better quarterback in 2023 than the aging Rodgers would have been. Paying the aging, past-his-prime, superstar outrageous sums of money and imagining that he will turn around a franchise is a poor bet, especially when the superstar is, shall we say, “difficult”? Brady was the opposite of self-centered, so that is possibly why that particular trade worked (and he also didn’t try to extort Tampa Bay unlike Wilson and Rodgers). Better to go with promising young talent.