Despite Sean Payton’s public assurances that Russell Wilson still had “gas in the tank,” it would appear that upon taking the Denver Broncos head-coaching job, he privately held reservations. Since the Broncos benched Wilson in December with two games left to go, multiple reports have surfaced purporting that Payton did have his doubts, and they were much more deep-seated.
Jeremy Fowler recently tapped the Minnesota Vikings and Tampa Bay Buccaneers as “logical fits” for Wilson — pending a Broncos release — and the ESPN insider also cited one ‘veteran AFC personnel man,’ who claimed that, from the drop, Payton never “liked” Wilson.
“Sean never liked him as the guy from Day 1 and went out of his way to make that known,” the source told Fowler.
If Payton went that “far out of his way” to make his dislike of Wilson known, somehow, it never slipped into the public realm of knowledge. Payton went to great length, especially during the offseason, to convey his belief in Wilson.
In Payton’s incendiary sit-down with USA TODAY’s Jarrett Bell, the new Broncos head coach castigated Nathaniel Hackett for his handling of Wilson the year prior. Those comments violated the unwritten coaches’ rule, in Hackett’s view, anyway, about throwing a predecessor under the bus publicly.
While Payton eventually had to eat crow when Hackett’s New York Jets defeated the Broncos in Denver in Week 5, it’s important to remember that the headline-grabbing comments provided to Bell were made in defense of Wilson. That doesn’t prove that Payton was a full-blown believer in Wilson, though.
Groomed in the Bill Parcells School of Coaching, Payton knows how to handle himself with the press, especially when it comes to protecting inside information. That would, ostensibly, include his true opinion of his starting quarterback, especially if it wasn’t a favorable one. However, Payton’s discipline relative to the press may have slipped in his conversation with Bell, who, if not a friend, is at least a friendly media acquaintance.
In a later article published in December, Bell quoted something else Payton said about Wilson last summer in that fateful sit-down in his office at Broncos HQ that was omitted from the original bombshell piece.
When Bell pressed Payton about the notion that he was “married” to Wilson by virtue of the five-year, $245 million contract extension the Broncos had given him the summer prior, Payton acknowledged the reality of the situation while pointing to the newly-signed Jarrett Stidham and the options open to the head coach “in a year” if things didn’t work out with Russ.
“I hear you. But realistically, if in a year I didn’t like it, I’m not married to him,” Payton told Bell. “I like this Jarrett Stidham now. We couldn’t get him in the draft. I liked him a lot. The kid’s sharp. Quick with the decisions. Well-trained.
“But I believe this about Russell: He’s still got gas in the tank.”
Shortly after Stidham was signed, Payton called the move “quietly… an important sign for us.” Based on Bell’s reporting and how things played out to end the season, it seems that Payton may have been itching to get Stidham on the field. Suddenly, we can’t so easily dismiss Fowler’s anonymous personnel veteran.
With a full season of the Payton/Wilson experiment now in the books, here’s my read on the subject. The Walton/Penner ownership group wanted Payton. Payton was very interested in the Broncos because of the ownership situation but likely expressed his misgivings about Wilson during his conversations with the team.
It would seem that the Walton/Penner group gave Payton assurances that if he gave it the old college try with Wilson, and it didn’t work out, he’d be given the prerogative to cut bait and make a change at quarterback, even if it came at a devastating cost the Broncos’ salary cap. Payton agreed, the Broncos acquired his coaching rights from the New Orleans Saints, and hired him as head coach.
From there, Payton got to work on figuring out how to make things work with Wilson. Payton tweaked his offense to become a heavy run-first attack to help insulate Wilson, and hopefully set up very manageable third-down situations.
Payton’s plan may have worked out, but the Broncos’ rushing attack struggled to be a productive unit on first and second down, which created one third-and-long headache after another. Those situations would see Wilson immediately looking to escape the pocket, almost as soon as he hit the back foot of his drop, which led to all manner of chaos — and, for what it’s worth, no small number of big off-schedule plays downfield.
Helping to take the sting off of Payton’s frustration at watching his play calls constantly get thrown out the window by the quarterback’s backyard style of play was Wilson’s still deadly deep-ball accuracy. Thanks to Courtland Sutton, who was on the receiving end of many of Wilson’s big vertical plays, the Broncos offense was able to stay afloat and didn’t fully fail to capitalize on the defense’s historic takeaway streak amid that five-game winning streak.
But those teams that live by the “athletic passer” (to quote Pete Carroll) also die by it. When opponents began loading the box to stop the run, Wilson couldn’t resist his penchant for hero-ball. Eventually, those chickens came home to roost.
The Broncos’ fortunes took a nose dive. And after back-to-back losses in games the Broncos absolutely had to win to stay alive in the playoff race, Payton pulled the plug on Wilson and inserted Stidham.
Offensive coaches love a quarterback who works from the pocket, and so do offensive linemen, because a.) they’re almost always where they’re expected to be and b.) they operate the offense on schedule. A coach can strategize and scheme away ’til the cows come home when his quarterback can work proficiently from the pocket, even if he’s not the second coming of Drew Brees or Peyton Manning. This is why Payton likes Stidham.
When Wilson had full command of his athletic abilities and Father Time hadn’t begun to exact his toll, he was one of the NFL’s most formidable quarterbacks. But he was also complemented by an elite defense in Seattle during that time. It was a winning combination.
Even though the age-35 Wilson has lost some of that magic in his feet, Payton’s Broncos proved that you can still win with a quarterback like him, so long as your defense is playing at an elite level. When the defense began to slip from Week 13 on, Wilson’s backyard style wasn’t able to shoulder more of the weight, and the house of cards came crumbling down.
The Broncos have a big decision to make on Wilson. Payton will be holding meetings with CEO and co-owner Greg Penner and GM George Paton to decide what to do with Wilson.
All signs point to a divorce, however. Even though publicly, Wilson has expressed a desire to remain in Denver, privately, he’s told reporters that he expects to be released.
If he’s designated as a post-June 1 release, the Broncos will eat $35.4 million in dead-money charges on the 2024 salary cap, with $18.4 million to come in each of the following two seasons. Thus, like most real-life divorces, if the Broncos find irreconcilable differences with Wilson and ultimately pull the plug, it’s going to be a bitterly expensive break-up.
