Report Casts Doubt on Russell Wilson's Side of the Story with Broncos
As the Russell Wilson benching saga marches on, more information on why the Denver Broncos made the move continues to leak out.
After Wilson held court as his locker on Friday, confirming a bombshell report that the Broncos had "threatened" to bench him if he didn't remove the injury guarantees from his contract, a new report from NFL insider Ian Rapoport has provided more context into head coach Sean Payton's assertion that it was a football move first.
In an illuminating report that provided some crucial internal context to Payton's decision to bench Wilson, we learn from one source that Wilson's teammates had begun to wonder if Jarrett Stidham could do a better job of keeping the offense on schedule in the wake of film sessions revealing missed wide-open receivers.
When players watched film during the week of the past few games, they saw an endless string of open players that Wilson wasn't finding in time. Sure, the big-time plays in the fourth quarter were there, but finding the open guy in rhythm was an issue. Players saw it, and privately discussed it among themselves, sources say. Some have wondered the last few weeks if Stidham, who Payton signed early in free agency, would be better.
Any Broncos fan who's watched a game this year can attest to the broadcast replays revealing these missed opportunities by Wilson. How many lowlights have we witnessed of receivers like Jerry Jeudy running free while Wilson runs around the backfield?
It turns out that Payton simply hasn't been happy with the offense with Wilson at the controls.
Payton hasn't been happy with how his offense has been running, sources say. He's seen it at a high-level with Drew Brees, and this wasn't it. They kept needing to simplify and pare it down, they struggled to get plays in and it rarely was run to the speed he wanted. Wilson made the plays off-schedule in the fourth quarter. But Payton fumed at the lack of efficiency on a regular basis. Over the past few weeks, he's weighed a decision. This week, it seems Stidham has run the offense well in practice, with optimism rising.
Rapoport also reported that Payton had his misgivings about taking on Wilson as his starting quarterback when he initially interviewed with the Broncos. But upon taking the job, he committed to trying to restore Wilson back to a semblance of the nine-time Pro Bowler he once was but it "didn't work."
Payton was wary of Wilson during his interview with the Broncos before they hired him last offseason, sources say. While he spoke in the interview of how to help turn him into a championship QB and how to fix him, he privately wasn't as sure it could be done. By taking the job, he committed to trying. It has not worked.
Lastly, we learned from Rapoport that Wilson has overblown the notion of being "threatened" with being benched, perhaps even manufacturing it out of thin air. Broncos GM George Paton did contact Wilson's camp during the bye week in October, as reports have claimed and Wilson confirmed, but the specifics of what Rapoport's source reveals implies that the 12th-year veteran may have completely jumped the shark on the "threat" accusations.
Last summer, and again in October during the team's bye week, Broncos general manager George Paton discussed with the QB's longtime agent, Mark Rodgers, potentially altering Wilson's contract, pushing back the early vesting date of his 2025 injury guarantees. As it stands now, the $37 million injury guarantee in 2025 would become fully guaranteed in March of 2024. Paton figured that moving the date back to the start of the league year in 2025 would increase the viability of Wilson both short- and long-term, since it would eliminate the need for the Broncos to make a two-year decision on him within the next couple months, drastically raising the chances of him being a Bronco in 2024. Wilson viewed it as a threat to be benched, as he said this week. Ultimately, he was not benched until seven weeks later, with the Broncos ranking 25th in offense and their playoff hopes shrinking after a 42-17 loss to the Lions followed by a 26-23 defeat at home to the lowly Patriots on national TV on Christmas Eve.
Rapoport reports that yes, Wilson's agent did take the Broncos' request, which was a "commonplace" ask, to the NFLPA. The player's union "did not view any 'threat' of benching as a real threat."
In other words, based on Rapoport's sourcing, Wilson was never threatened, yet he stood at his locker and accused the Broncos of it. If what the NFLPA said is true, it casts Wilson in a much more dubious and far less trustworthy light.
As was his prerogative as a player under contract, Wilson ultimately declined to renegotiate his contract at all or even try to meet the Broncos' request. Payton stayed with Wilson as the starter until the Broncos were basically all but eliminated from playoff contention amid the offense's continued spiral into the NFL doldrums.
As more information comes to light, expect this stand-off to only get uglier.
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