NFL.com Exposes Sean Payton's Immense Project of Reviving Russell Wilson

Denver Broncos fans are already looking forward to 2023. After an abysmal 2022 season in which the team was seemingly slave to Murphy’s Law (anything that could go wrong, did), things are looking up early in the 2023 offseason.

With the addition of offensive mastermind head coach Sean Payton and the improved play of quarterback Russell Wilson to close out last year, one would assume the fans and the team would very much like to put the past in the rearview and look forward.

Unfortunately, while the offseason is a time for projecting the future, it is equally a time for reflecting on what has transpired. Call it a postmortem.

What went right? What went wrong? And how did things occur outside the realm of expectation?

For the Broncos last season, hardly anything or anyone did better than the lofty presumptions set by many prior to the start of the 2022 regular season.

Not only did the Broncos struggle last season, but according to NFL.com’s analytics expert Cynthia Frelund, the offense was the second most-underperforming unit in the entire NFL.

The Broncos had the NFL's lowest scoring offense in 2022 when averaging 16.9 points per game, and in allowing an 11.0 sack rate (30th), the Broncos will certainly welcome back left tackle Garett Bolles, who sustained a season-ending leg injury in Week 5. PFF graded first-year Bronco Russell Wilson as the 29th-ranked QB this season -- on par with his win-share ranking (28th).

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Only outdone by the Las Vegas Raiders’ pass rush (thank goodness Denver did not sign Chandler Jones to the massive contract he received,) the Broncos' offensive preseason ranking (12th) wound up finishing 29th after the season had come to a close.

Of course, with so many new pieces in scheme, coaching, and quarterback — on top of an insane bout of injury misfortune — it’s easy to see why Denver failed to meet expectations, but even considering those factors, the team was exceedingly disappointing.

According to Frelund in the article, the Broncos had the worst-scoring offense last season, averaging just 16.9 points per game. Denver also was one of the worst sack rate teams in the NFL last season at 30th overall. While the article points to left tackle Garett Bolles' return helping the unit, Denver has three other spots on the offensive line that all are massive question marks entering this offseason.

Again, there are many reasons for Denver’s offensive failure in 2022, but Frelund points to Wilson being the biggest culprit for the Broncos’ failure to launch.

Other advanced analytical models are also harsh on Wilson’s play in 2022. With Wilson’s EPA-per-play ranking 25th out of 32 for quarterbacks with at least 300 dropbacks and a completion percentage above expectation of -1.1, which ranked 26th out of 32 quarterbacks, his output last season puts him in the bottom-quarter of quarterbacks in the NFL.

Further piling on Wilson’s play last year is Football Outsiders’ metrics of DYAR (defense-adjusted yards above replacement) and DVOA (defense-adjusted value over average), which also paints his 2022 campaign in a very negative light. Ranking 29th in DYAR and 28th in DVOA, the veteran's play was poor.

While it certainly wasn’t all on the quarterback, and there are reasons for his poor play, it will be up to Payton to separate the true reasons from the excuses for Wilson last season and get him back on the right path toward a Hall of Fame career.

Frelund continues:

However, with new head coach Sean Payton coming to town, we should see some keen offseason moves that will increase the odds of success for 2023. Creating the right system with Wilson is absolutely key as the defense, even factoring in trading away Bradley Chubb midseason, had the biggest difference between defensive and offensive win share, with the defense accounting for 2.4 more wins than the offense.

Denver's defense did fall off rather dramatically as the season progressed as the unit, specifically the defensive front, lost talented players to trade and injury. However, as Frelund wrote, even after the Chubb trade, the gulf between the contributing Broncos' defense and the frustrating offense remained.

Hopefully, next season, the Broncos can find themselves on the overperforming expectations side of the equation. Broncos Country is looking forward, but hopefully, those in Dove Valley can look back, assess where things went wrong, and learn from last season’s shockingly poor performance over the course of the previous season.

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