Russell Wilson, who signed a $242 million contract in 2022, got outplayed by Sam by-god Darnold
Russell Wilson #RussellWilson
Russell Wilson was supposed to lift the Denver Broncos back to prosperity. He was the second coming of Peyton Manning — a hyped veteran capable of supercharging an offense loaded with exciting playmakers and giving a talented defense the breathing room it needed to thrive.
This made him worth a ransom of two first round picks, two second round picks and a handful of players to free him from the Seattle Seahawks’ then-impending, now-theoretical rebuild. The Broncos were so confident in his abilities he signed a five-year, $242.5 million extension before he ever played a snap in Colorado. This was the all-in move designed to snap the franchise’s six-year playoff drought.
Instead, Wilson has been one of the worst starting quarterbacks in the NFL. He’s the center of an offense that ranked 28th in overall DVOA through 11 weeks — 16 places behind the 2021 edition of this team led by Teddy Bridgewater and Drew Lock. No team in the NFL has scored fewer points, leaving a defense that ranks second in points allowed to stare at a 3-8 record and wonder how this could all possibly have happened.
The culprit, of course, is the man making an average of $49 million per year. The same guy who just got outplayed by Sam Darnold.
Darnold wasn’t especially good in his Week 12 debut. He found the end zone twice; once through the air and once, quite literally, on the ground when he rolled his way to six points like his jersey had ignited. This did not matter. Darnold — a player who was 2021’s worst starting, non-Zach Wilson quarterback — was roughly 17 expected points better than the player who will likely cost the Broncos a top five draft pick next spring.
via RBSDM.com
There were mitigating factors. Wilson was playing without much of the young receiving corps he was supposed to uplift. He doesn’t have either of his top two running backs from Week 1. His pass blocking has been merely average.
But mostly, Wilson has been a disaster. His receivers have been getting open, only to be ignored or over/under-thrown without rhyme or reason. After completing nearly two-thirds of his passes the previous four seasons (66.5 percent), Wilson’s 19 of 35 performance in Carolina against the league’s 21st-ranked passing defense has his completion rate at 58.9 percent. There isn’t a current full-time starting quarterback who has been worse.
Let’s watch this third quarter pass in which Wilson has an open man downfield. He not only throws him toward the middle of the field where safety help is waiting, but also underthrows him just enough to ensure what could have been a walk-in touchdown is instead just a loud, long incompletion.
These are not the throws Wilson wants to make. In part because he’s suddenly skittish in the pocket and no longer launching effective deep balls on the run (see the completion rate above). The Broncos trailed for 45 minutes in Week 12 but Wilson only completed three passes that traveled at least eight yards beyond the line of scrimmage.
It’s not just the misplaced shots downfield. It’s the lack of real leadership on the field, embarrassing volume of low-value checkdowns and frequency with which they’re missed. It’s stuff like this:
It’s the awareness that blanks easy touchdowns in big situations and throws passes not into the outstretched arms of defensive linemen but into their facemasks. It’s the uncertainty that results in a delay of game penalty facing fourth-and-goal. It’s the mounting frustration of doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results, and it’s creeping through the franchise starting at its quarterback.
There isn’t a way out for the Broncos. This is their path, for better or worse, for the next three seasons. Wilson carries $107 million in dead salary cap space with him into 2023, $85 million into 2024 and $49.6 million into 2025, per Spotrac. No one is going to trade for him. His bottoming-out won’t even pay off with a high draft pick; both the team’s first- and second-round picks next spring are headed to the Seahawks.
Denver needs to quickly build its boat around Wilson, who is taking on water and listing heavily to one side. The Broncos don’t have much in the way of materials besides an average amount of cap space and a free agent marketplace likely to be low on the blocking/receiving types who could ostensibly restore Wilson’s value. There’s no obvious way to fix a quarterback who, on Sunday, completed 19 passes — only two of which traveled more than seven yards downfield.
This team cannot win without even modest contributions from an offense that has offered none. It also can’t plot its escape from this situation for years to come and will have the privilege of paying Russell Wilson at least $160 million as he slowly devolves into Zach Wilson. This is how the Broncos engineered it.
The thing is, it all looked smart on paper. But in real life, the player Denver staked its next three years upon just got outplayed by Sam Darnold and a Carolina Panthers team without a permanent head coach.
This may not get worse, because it would be tough to go down from here. But it also may not get better, either.
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