Russell Wilson is becoming the Broncos’ worst nightmare

I don’t blame you if you didn’t buy into the Broncos hype for 2022, hell, I didn’t either. Anointing Denver as a Super Bowl favorite simply because they traded for Russell Wilson was a belief clouded by the Buccaneers’ and Rams’ instant success, thinking you could instantly port that over to any good team who acquired a franchise QB.

That hype ignored that Denver wasn’t that bad at QB in 2021, it failed to account for first year head coach Nathaniel Hackett, and it subverted the time-honored football truth that winning in the NFL isn’t easy, often requiring time and chemistry to put it all together.

Still, for all the hating you could have ever mustered before this season began, I don’t think anyone could have predicted that the Broncos would be on fire after five games. Nobody believed fans would be booing Russ this early, and we’re fast approaching a point where trading for Wilson isn’t just going to be be the worst roster move of 2022, but potentially one of the worst in NFL history.

It’s so bad that fans couldn’t even be bothered to see if Denver could win. They just didn’t care anymore. Welcome to apathy country, where Russ is sheriff.

This is absolutely a problem the Broncos brought on themselves. The organization was so desperate to create buzz amidst a team sale that the front office pushed to trade for Wilson even when it felt like a really odd decision. It’s not that Denver wasn’t a team with talent, and based on everything we knew Russ was a great QB, but they were throwing themselves deeper into a buzzsaw in the AFC West where the Chiefs were one of the best teams in the NFL, the Chargers were blossoming into a force inside the conference, and the Raiders were swinging above their weight class.

The most generous reading of the Russ trade was that it was going to allow Denver to be competitive in football’s most brutal division. Beyond that it was difficult to see the end goal. This wasn’t the Bucs needing to get past a hapless NFC South, or the Rams boasting the best defense in the NFC, only needing an established QB to put them over the top. The Broncos’ path to ultimate victory was a lot less clear.

Then, instead of making the bold trade but keeping expectations measured, the Broncos were giddy as an organization to stoke the flames. Nobody thought to temper the Super Bowl talk, instead choosing to feed the frenzy with “Let Russ cook” and Let’s Ride!” memes. There’s no doubt that if someone, anyone in a position of leadership had said “this is going to take time to put together,” or “we’re looking to build sustained success” it might have kept fans from freaking out five games in — but here we are.

Denver has lost to the Seahawks, the Raiders, the Colts — struggled against the Texans and barely beat the 49ers. The expectation was that the Broncos could be 5-0 right now based on the schedule. Instead they look like ass.

There’s plenty of blame to go around. Hackett looks like a guy who has no business as an NFL head coach, while the offensive line hasn’t nearly been as good as people hopes — but it all begins with Wilson as the nexus of these problems. He knows it too.

“It’s very simple — at the end of the day I’ve got to be better, I’ve got to play better,” Wilson said. “The defense played their butts off tonight, we had some key good drives. ... At the end of the day throwing two interceptions can’t happen. Can’t happen. I let the team down tonight.”

We are truly in the middle of put up or shut up time, not just on the season, but a career. The entire mythos surrounding Wilson was predicated on the belief that he was one of the best QBs in the NFL on a Seattle team that offered him no support, and a coach that didn’t believe in making him the offensive focal point. This is the heart of the entire “Let Russ cook” ethos. The assumption was that he’d get a change of scenery, inherit one of the best young receiving tandems in the NFL in Cortland Sutton and Jerry Jeudy, and being able to “cook” with the support of the Broncos’ defense would naturally be unstoppable.

Instead, Wilson isn’t just playing well below anything we’ve seen out him before, he’s legitimately one of the worst starting QBs in the NFL this season.

• 18th in yards-per-game
• 23rd in passing touchdowns (despite playing one more game than 30 other QBs)
• 28th in completion percentage
• 20th in passer rating

The $245M franchise-defining QB of Denver’s dreams is statistically playing worse football in every single area than Jacoby Brissett — who the Browns are desperate to bench again when Deshawn Watson’s suspension ends. Hell, Russ is playing vastly inferior football than Teddy Bridgewater did with the Broncos in 2021, who was jettisoned for Wilson because the team believed Bridgewater wasn’t nearly good enough to win.

It’s not just the raw stats either, but a complete lack of decision making on the field. I don’t know if the altitude is getting to him or something, but we’re seeing plays the Russ we’ve witnessed over the past 10 years would never, ever make.

The worst part might be that this is a double whammy. Not only are the beliefs about Russ ascending to greatness in a new city not happening, but he’s carried all the bad rumors about him to Denver. The talk for years was that Russ didn’t command the locker room, that his teammates didn’t respect him — and so far on the Broncos we’re seeing those negative aspects play out.

It’s one thing when a team is winning. When there’s success everyone is having fun, and more importantly — everyone is getting paid in exposure they’ll leverage in future contracts. Players being deprived of game-winning touchdowns or highlight moments hits them in the wallet, and if you look at KJ Hamler’s reaction after Russ failed to see him wide open in the end zone it wasn’t a player who had any respect for the “leader” of the locker room.

There is no silver lining. The Broncos are far too broken to turn it around in 2022. While there’s still a very good chance Wilson will improve, because he sure as hell can’t get any worse — but that doesn’t mean this experiment was a success. It’s becoming safe to say that this won’t be Peyton Manning 2.0, and instead Denver bought in based on a terrible sales pitch they sold themselves.

Like it or not, the Denver Broncos have saddled the future of their franchise directly to Russell Wilson, and he’s galloping them directly off a cliff. Let’s ride.