thelesterlee
Earlier this week, the Denver Broncos informed Russell Wilson he will be released after going 11-19 as a starter in two super strange seasons. Denver signed Russ to a $245 million extension as soon as he arrived and they might as well have lit that money on fire or spent it on one of those tacky ape NFTs that have absolutely no real, tangible value.
They honestly would’ve been better off purchasing $245 million worth of Herbalife for the team facilities.
The Broncos will have a disgusting NFL record $85 million in dead cap money.
Here’s the official statement from the organization:
“We spoke with Russell Wilson today to inform him of his release after the start of the league year. On behalf of the Broncos, we thank Russell for his contributions and dedication to our team and community while wishing him the best as he continues his career.
“As we move forward, we are focused on building the strongest team possible for the 2024 season and beyond. We are excited to improve this offseason and will have the flexibility to get better through the draft and free agency.”
Anddd here’s Russ’s farewell to the city that will never acknowledge him ever playing there.
Thank You Broncos Country 🙏🏾 – #3 pic.twitter.com/3IoVheYVyI
— Russell Wilson (@DangeRussWilson) March 4, 2024
But before we start speculating on potential Russ landing spots, let’s talk about how we even got to this point.
Why did the Denver Broncos even want Russell Wilson?
We have to take it back to the 2021 NFL season.
We were coming out of a weird ass pandemic season. John Elway, the best QB in Broncos franchise history—who brought the city 2 Super Bowl championships and the executive who got them another one of them chips—stepped down from the role of GM after a decade running the team.
So 2021 was the first year with new GM, George Patton—who had been in the Minnesota Vikings front office since 2007. The same Vikings that signed a 40-year-old Brett Favre after everyone thought he was washed. Favre led them to the NFC Championship in 2009 and may have led them to a Super Bowl, ya know, if Sean Payton’s Saints didn’t pay his defense secret cash in a brown paper bag to intentionally injure Favre.
The 2021 Broncos would start 3-0 but fell off a cliff finishing 7-10 and dead last in the AFC West. At one point, thanks to strict Covid quarantine protocols, the Broncos started Kendall Hilton at quarterback.
Kendall Hilton is a wide receiver.
Head coach, Vic Fangio, was fired after going 19-30 in 3 seasons.
George Patton would replace Fangio with Aaron Rodgers’s offensive coordinator for the last 3 seasons, Nathaniel Hackett—a smart decision if you believe Hackett was responsible for Rodgers’s success.
It worked out so well for the New York Jets in 2019 when they hired Adam Gase as their head coach thinking he was responsible for Peyton Manning’s success in Denver even though Manning was a Hall of Famer loooooong before he ever even met Gase.
I feel like John Elway would’ve been aware of this and wouldn’t have even called Hackett but again, Elway retired and George Patton is running the show now.
And if Patton believes Nathaniel Hackett knows how to work with aging, former champions then it makes all the sense in the world to give five draft picks and three starters to the Seattle Seahawks for Russell Wilson.
All of these decisions make sense if you’ve convinced yourself it does.
And especially when the team was just sold to the Walmart family. Get a celebrity quarterback instead of another temporary plug-and-play like Teddy Bridgewater was the year prior—or instead of attempting to develop a young, cheap QB, which is why they included Drew Lock in the Wilson trade.
First-time owner. First-time GM. First-time head coach.
What could possibly go wrong?
What went wrong with Russell Wilson and the Denver Broncos?
First mistake: signing Russell Wilson to a five-year, $242.6 million contract extension with about $161 million in guarantees.
The Seahawks just finished 7-10 and didn’t want Russell Wilson anymore. That should’ve been a bit of a red flag.
Hey, the Seahawks suck now and they desperately want to move on from their best quarterback ever. Hm.
Wilson finished 2021 ranked 20th in completion percentage (behind Denver’s QB, Teddy Bridgewater). He was 22nd in yards (only had about 100 more yards than Bridgewater).
But it’s cool. Nathaniel Hackett knows how to handle old men better than Anna Nicole Smith. He’ll fix Russell Wilson right up.
The wheels fell off literally Week 1. The Broncos started the year taking the L to Wilson’s old squad. The Seahawks beat Denver 17-16 following a 64-yard field goal attempt by Broncos kicker, Brandon McManus.
With barely over a minute left on 3rd and 14 and the ball on their own 45-yard line, Russ completed a 9-yard pass to Javonte Williams to bring the ball to Seatle’s 46-yard line for a 4th and 5 with 1 minute and 11 seconds left in the game.
Nathaniel Hacket let 43 SECONDS run down before calling a timeout with 20 seconds and running out the kicker for a 64-yarder he was never going to make.
They lost.
Reminder: They traded FIVE DRAFT PICKS AND THREE STARTERS for Russell Wilson and did not trust him to get the team 5 yards.
It feels important to note Russell Wilson threw for 340 yards in his Broncos debut. It would end up being the most passing yards he’ll ever have in Denver. It was literally all downhill from there. And again, they lost.
And well, since we’re talking about his downfall, let’s chat about some of his worst games.
4 weeks after losing to the team in which he created his legacy, he decided it was time to create a new legacy. With his team up 9-6 against the Indianapolis Colts, Wilson threw TWO 4th quarter interceptions.
They lost 12-9 in overtime.
But it got worse. Week 16 against the Los Angeles Rams…
The Broncos lost 14-51. Russell Wilson was sacked 6 times and threw 3 interceptions. They lost to Baker fucking Mayfield. Oh, and it was on Christmas. Big ass lump of coal in the Broncos stocking.
Nathanial Hackett was fired the next day.
Denver won only 5 games, two less than the year prior. It makes sense to blame Nathanial Hackett. He had terrible clock management, the team looked unprepared and had no discipline. The Broncos finished 2nd in team penalties and Top 10 in turnovers. You cannot win games in the NFL giving the other team the ball and better field position.
But all of the anguish is over.
George Patton quickly corrected his Hackett mistake and replaced him with the recently retired Super Bowl-winning head coach, Sean Payton. And it makes sense. Payton was responsible for beating Patton’s ass every year when he was in the Vikings front office. Maybe he’d offer Russ secret cash to like, play well.
However, since Payton was still contracted to the Saints, the Broncos had to give away a first-round draft pick for him. So Denver went into the 2023 draft having given up 5 total picks to get Russell Wilson and Sean Payton.
When your team only wins 5 games, it means you lack talent and the best to get talent on your roster is through the draft. George Patton went ALL IN on the 2023 Denver Broncos handing out draft picks like Vince McMahon handing out NDAs.
Could Sean Payton fix this team?
Sean Payton’s first decision was to give an interview shitting on the guy he replaced calling what Hackett did “one of the worst coaching jobs of all time”. Interesting move considering he hadn’t even met with everyone and hadn’t started practicing with the team yet.
He has no idea what happened in Denver last season. I’m not one of those guys who believes these people need to be ‘classy’ but maybe keep that opinion in your back pocket for your podcast after you retire again. Like, watch Russ try to throw downfield once before you throw stones.
He also went to war with Russell Wilson.
The Broncos winning 5 games wasn’t entirely on Hackett’s shoulders. Russell Wilson was acting like a sociopath all year long. Russell Wilson had his own office in the team facility on a different floor than the rest of the other 52 guys on the roster and told his teammates ‘his door was always open’.
He showed up and immediately separated himself from everyone else and acted as if he was superior to them. Wilson also traveled with his own personal support staff outside of the team’s employees.
Oh, and I can’t forget the plane ride from hell. On Denver’s way to their Week 8 game against the Jacksonville Jaguars across the pond at Wembley Stadium, Russell Wilson was doing high knees up and down the aisles to help with the hamstring injury he suffered two weeks prior but more importantly, so he could rush to tell reporters and brag about how dedicated he is. The team was minding their own business and Russ was just skipping up and down the plane aisles like he caught the holy ghost.
So I understand Sean Payton coming in and putting an end to Russ’s bizarre power trip.
Anddd it didn’t take long to realize none of Denver’s problems were magically solved.
The Broncos started the season 0-3 with that third loss being one of the most one-sided football games of the year. The Miami Dolphins beat Denver 70-20. Denver gave up 70 points and 726 yards to Miami. It was the most point allowed since the 60s when they wore old newspapers as helmets.
Three weeks later, Russ threw for only 95 yards and had two interceptions. Denver lost to the Kansas City Chiefs in one of the least impressive games of Wilson’s career. The Broncos were 1-5.
But it really all went left during the bye week when Russell Wilson claims the organization contacted his agent to change the $37 million injury guarantee in his contract. No idea why they would even include this in his contract but I think I’ve already established George Patton is playing 3D chess out here by giving him stupid contract guarantees and then desperately begging him to turn the money down. *taps temple*
Shit got so weird the NFLPA had to get involved to make sure the Broncos didn’t intentionally bench Wilson just to avoid paying him the money they chose to offer him. Denver would eventually bench him for Jarrett Stidham thus declaring the end of the Russell Wilson era.
Russell Wilson’s time in Denver ended in a 23-36 loss to the New England Patriots. Russ had what we will look back on as a classic Russell Wilson Denver game, throwing for 238 yards and naturally, throwing two 4th quarter inceptions. Death. Taxes. Russell Wilson in a Broncos jersey throwing two interceptions in the most important moments of the game.
So here we are. Russell Wilson is officially a free agent for the first time in his career. Let’s talk about the organizations that should sign him.
Here are the teams that should sign Russell Wilson:
1. New York Giants
This week, Rich Eisen reported the Giants front office is done with Daniel Jones after giving him a 4-year $160 million contract extension before the 2023 season and seeing zero development and another year that ends with him on crutches.
The Giants have the no. 6 pick in the draft which is too low to get one of the top QB prospects without giving up draft capital to trade up into the Top 3 but even then, I don’t love any of these quarterbacks outside of Caleb Williams—who is definitely going at 1 so it wouldn’t behoove the Giants to trade up for the next Daniel Jones.
But it would make sense to use that 6th pick on the best offensive lineman available and bring in Russ Wilson at a discount. The Giants aren’t talentless. They could certainly use more talented players but they aren’t void of good players. Tommy DeVito was a 3rd string undrafted rookie who led the team to a 3-game winning streak last season. Russell Wilson is better than Tommy DeVito.
This is an interesting year in the NFC East with both the Eagles and Cowboys suffering embarrassing losses in the playoffs but still electing to bring back their head coaches. Either team could fall off a cliff next season as their leader’s words may fall on deaf ears. The Commanders will be better next season with whichever QB they select with the No. 2 pick and Dan Quinn as the new head coach but they won’t be that much better.
Russell Wilson could fuck around and win double-digit games in an NFC that kind of sucks.
OR, the Giants find out Russ is totally washed, they lose a bunch of games and they end up with a top pick for the 2025 NFL Draft where they can draft a QB who can play in front of a better front office and a team that should be truly ready to compete and that’s only a quarterback away.
Even if they lose, it’s a win.
And it’s better than tricking themselves into believing Daniel Jones has some Eli Manning-esque Super Bowl run in his blood. Daniel Jones ain’t it and that’s okay. The league still needs backup quarterbacks. He’ll be around as long as he wants to be.
2. Pittsburgh Steelers
This article was supposed to come out yesterday but I realized I couldn’t confidently talk about Kenny Pickett until I truly sat down and combed through some film. I’d be lying to you if I told you I was spending my Sunday afternoons watching Kenny Picket play football. I don’t even know how many T’s are in the man’s name.
I wanted to watch his best performance and his worst—which was surprisingly hard to discern because all of his game stats and copy pasta’s of the same 200 yards, 0-1 touchdown passes. He is certainly consistent.
My biggest takeaway is Kenny Pickett is as tough as it is to get through a Katt Williams interview without pausing and being like “wait, that’s absolutely not true”.
But toughness doesn’t make him accurate. Here’s every throw Pickett made past the first down marker in Pittsburgh’s 10-13 Week 11 loss to the Cleveland Browns:
Every single Kenny Pickett pass attempt that went beyond the sticks today pic.twitter.com/srmjDt4aj2
— Benjamin Solak (@BenjaminSolak) November 20, 2023
Russell Wilson is better than Kenny Pickett.
The Pittsburgh Steelers are supposed to be a Super Bowl or Bust type organization and they’ve seemed to stop caring about winning championships. They’re happy with just floating around .500.
Yes, Russ isn’t going to win the AFC North next season but the Steelers should always be looking to improve their roster. Russell Wilson is better than Kenny Pickett, I cannot stress this enough.
3. Tampa Bay Buccaneers
I don’t know what’s going on between Baker Mayfield and the Bucs but it sounds like Baker is asking for more money than Tampa Bay is willing to pay. Last season, Tampa went 9-8 and won a playoff game against the defending NFC champs. The Bucs had a Top 10 defense and Baker made all the right throws.
With the team just re-signing Mike Evans, this offense will have the same explosiveness as last season. I’m sure there are Bucs fans who don’t want to do what the Indianapolis Colts did after Andrew Luck retired.
The Colts went from Andrew Luck to Jacoby Brissett for a year, Philip Rivers for a year, Carson Wentz for a year, and then Matt Ryan for a year before the wheels came off with Ryan leading to them getting a top pick and selecting Anthony Richardson.
I reckon it all depends on what’s important to the Bucs organization. The Tampa Bay Buccaneers sucked before signing Tom Brady in 2020.
They can start from scratch again and waste another half decade with a guy who is hopefully as decent as Jameis Winston was OR they can bring in Russell Wilson and at least go into the the 2024 season with some sense of hope.
The Bucs should be in win-now mode as long as the NFC South continues to be hot garbage. Russell Wilson is better than Bryce Young, Desmond Ridder. He and Derek Carr can have a lame-off next season to figure out who is the biggest cornball.
4. Carolina Panthers
Sooooooo, the Carolina Panthers signing Russell Wilson could go one of two ways:
1. The Panthers hired Dave Canales as their new head coach. So far, Canales has been credited with repairing Geno Smith’s career in Seattle and Baker Mayfield’s in Tampa last season. I imagine Russell Wilson’s experience in Denver humbled him a bit and he’s ready to stop doing high knees on the team planes and actually shut up and listen. While Bryce Young develops on the bench learning from one of the most successful quarterbacks of his generation, Russ can have Canales in his ear and return him to some version of his former self.
OR
2. Russell Wilson shows up in Carolina and is suuuuuper trash but so is Bryce Young. There’s drama all season long as Canales goes back-and-forth benching one for the other. So much potential Deadseriousness content from potentially one of the funniest quarterback battles of all time. Russell Wilson is the small, athletic quarterback who succeeded enough to allow guys like Bryce Young to even be selected no. 1 overall and both of them on the same roster throwing interceptions that bounce off linemen’s helmets because neither of them can see over the line of scrimmage is S-tier comedy.
Do it for the content, please.
Is Russell Wilson even good anymore? Leave a comment below. Respond on Twitter, Facebook or Instagram. Or shoot me an email at Deadseriousmailbag@gmail.com. Let’s chat, bay-beeeee. Let me know what team you think should sign Russell Wilson.
