Amid the mockery of the Broncos cutting Russell Wilson and absorbing the $85 million salary cap hit, several factors are being glossed over:
· The current team ownership did not own the team when the trade was made
· The current head coach and de facto GM was not the head coach and de facto GM when the trade was made
· Retaining him for financial purposes or to save face only makes matters worse
· The money is gone regardless of whether he’s there or not
You can find the gory details of the trade itself anywhere, but the Denver Post tallied up the draft capital the Broncos surrendered to the Seahawks to acquire Wilson here.
While it’s easy and cheap to tear into the trade as a horrific gaffe – which it was – the details are conveniently shunted to the side. The Broncos franchise had only just gone on the market in February 2022. Wilson was acquired on March 16, 2022. The team was officially sold to Walmart heir Rob Walton in August 2022. They inherited Wilson much like they inherited the money to buy the team. They also inherited coach Nathaniel Hackett and the football operations staff.
The timing played a large role in the decision to cut Wilson. Once Walton took over, the 2022 team was largely set. This is not unusual when there is a new ownership in place and there was little they could do to make substantive changes immediately. They needed to live with what they had and hope for the best as they looked forward.
As the Broncos’ 2022 season unraveled almost immediately with Hackett’s ineptitude and Wilson’s seeming indifference, it was clear that the owners were going big game hunting with their new head coach. That was Sean Payton.
Payton is ostensibly functioning as its football czar. Nothing football related is going to happen without his imprimatur or he wouldn’t have taken the job. Had the Broncos told him that he needed to make it work with Wilson because of the negative implications of cutting him and swallowing the money and ridicule, the odds are that a coach in as heavy demand as Payton would have politely declined and waited out the Cowboys, the Chargers or some other more appealing job where he’d get the power he felt he needed and the money and contract security to do what he felt was right.
Historically, Wilson is not ideal for Payton’s offense. In his heyday with the Seahawks, Wilson relied on a brutal and punishing smashmouth running game, primarily with Marshawn Lynch. He used his legs to improvise and took deep shots down the field. They had a punishing defense.
None of this is indicative of Payton’s history. Drew Brees, Payton’s quarterback with the Saints, stayed in the pocket and stuck to the game plan because he and Payton were aligned in what they wanted to do and what Brees could efficiently execute. His running backs were of the Reggie Bush, Mark Ingram and Alvin Kamara ilk who are just as dangerous catching the ball as they are running it.
The difference between what Wilson did with the Seahawks and what Payton did with the Saints are not only divergent playbooks, but they’re not on the same planet. What was the team supposed to do? Just continue forward by ordering Payton to keep Wilson and figure it out? That’s not fair to Wilson or Payton.
This past season was indicative of how the forced marriage was going to proceed. After a 1-5 start, Payton patched it together but keeping games close, constraining Wilson from his usual freelancing and limiting the number of throws he made, pulling games out late. They rallied to 8-9 and were in the playoff race until late in the season – truly a remarkable coaching job.
Toward the end of the season, Wilson was benched. According to the club, it was a football decision. According to Wilson, it was because he refused to renegotiate his contract by removing the injury guarantee that would pay him $37 million in 2025. Wilson would have been a fool to do so. Payton and the Broncos are insulting the intelligence of any reasonable person by saying they felt they would get a “spark” offensively from journeyman Jarrett Stidham.
The reality is that they were cutting Wilson and they wanted to save as much money and limit their exposure when they did. The alternative was to continue down the road with a quarterback the football boss didn’t want and didn’t suit his offense while compelling a new owner to pay for past mistakes and ignore what their handpicked football boss wanted.
It’s become trendy for sports franchises to be viewed in business terms. In that context, the Wilson contract was a sunk cost. They did as much as they could to mitigate what they needed to pay him by benching him and did what everyone with a brain knew they were going to do when they cut him. Payton will find a quarterback he wants whether that’s Trey Lance, Justin Fields, someone from the draft or a name no one has considered but has caught the coach’s eye. Wilson can still play and will get a new team among the Steelers, Falcons, Raiders or Vikings and have the offense tailored to his strengths. The ridicule ignores these facts out of convenience, ignorance or both.
PAULLEBOWITZ.COM 