Can Russell Wilson be Fixed?
The short answer is maybe? The long answer is THEY'RE PAYING HIM HOW MUCH!?!?!?
Nearly eleven months ago, the Denver Broncos briefly surpassed the eventual Stanley Cup Champion Colorado Avalanche and assumed their rightful place atop the Colorado sports pecking order. The Avs were still just a talented team yet to prove itself on the big stage, while the Broncos landed a future Hall-of-Fame quarterback who would finally lead them out of the Siemlynchweilerkeenflaccallendriskpientonlockwater woods. They paired Russell Wilson with an Aaron Rodgers-certified head coach and all of Denver was swooning with dreams of a Super Bowl.
Turns out Aaron Rodgers doesn’t give great advice!
Nathaniel Hackett was out of his depth from the jump, proving his incompetence as a game manager when he chose a 64 yard field goal over his quarter-billion dollar QB attempting to gain 5 yards in the first game of the season (while he was averaging 6 yards per play in the second half).
The next week, I was one of many in the crowd chanting down the play clock at the home opener as he struggled to get the plays in on time. (fun fact: I went 2-0 at Broncos games this year). Hackett could not do the most basic tasks and those first few weeks he was the most unprepared and overwhelmed NFL head coach that I have ever seen. The dude seemed to truly believe that he didn’t need to do a lot of normal things other teams do (like practice playing football in the preseason), and thought he could navigate the Broncos to the Super Bowl entirely on vibes. George Paton could not have hired a worse head coach and now that his new owner fixed that problem for him, he is next on the chopping block should this continue to be the league’s most boring and embarrassing destination. Russell Wilson deserves to be cut a little slack given that no quarterback played in worse structural conditions this year than he did.
That said, now that the easiest excuse is out of the way, Russell Wilson will retain far more heat from the intense rage emanating from Broncos fans. The interceptions he threw against the Rams on Christmas Day were just breathtaking.
Believing that Bobby Wagner is invisible, or that lobbing it softly to Courtland Sutton in triple coverage is a good idea, or that God called on him to heave up a prayer to a rookie tight end against one of the best defensive players in the league — none of these mistakes have anything to do with Nathaniel Hackett. Zach Wilson would look at this tape and cringe. Russell Wilson is bad. Like, borderline unplayable bad.
29th in passer rating
29th in QBR
31st in DYAR
31st in DVOA
28th by PFF grade
No matter what statistic you want to use, the same names keep appearing around Russell Wilson’s: Zach Wilson, Carson Wentz, Matt Ryan, Davis Mills.
And his name is usually beneath most of theirs.
This is a complete and utter catastrophe. It is the football Hindenburg. If the Broncos were to cut Russell Wilson tomorrow and say “look we know we royally screwed up, we’re sorry. Please forgive us and accept this human sacrifice in salary cap form,” the professional team would cease to exist for at least the next two years. Cutting Russell Wilson counts $82 million towards their cap next year ($107 million in some scenarios) and almost $50 million the year after that. He’s not going anywhere for at least two more years.
Someone smarter than me already asked the question I put in the title, ESPN’s Bill Barnwell a month ago, and he was less pessimistic than I am being above (although not by much), and he highlighted a legitimate case for optimism:
It might feel like Wilson has gone from hitting one deep pass per game to one per month, but he generally has stayed effective on these throws. His QBR on deep passes has been remarkably consistent: 96.2 in 2020, 97.4 in 2021 and 93.1 this season. The latter mark ranks 13th. He averaged 1.4 deep completions per game in 2020, just over two a year ago, and is back at 1.9 per game this season.
Those throws are traveling 20 or more yards in the air. If we change the cutoff to 40-plus air yards, Wilson's four such completions are the second most in football this season, behind only Buffalo's Josh Allen. To be fair, the last time Wilson completed one of these throws was during the London game in Week 8, when he hit K.J Hamler for 47 yards.
At least 75% of the reason you get Russell Wilson is his ability to swing football games with a few perfectly placed deep balls. You can tolerate his inefficiency and inability to read the middle of the field so long as he protects the ball and keeps up his end of the bargain, and the Broncos best moments this year have come when Wilson has moved out of Nathaniel Hackett’s structure (I guess that’s what you’d call it?) and made some plays downfield in a scramble drill. The arm is still there.
But the legs aren’t—and they haven’t been in recent years—and they’re only going to get worse. Russell Wilson’s legs are what create the opportunities for Russell Wilson’s arm to make some magic. He needs to change the way he plays or else his legacy will be the standard upon which all future sports financial boondoggles will be compared to.
But he also needs a coach to tell him that he needs to change his game, and then follow through with that order by implementing a system that can complement his abilities and mask his limitations. Given Russ’s notoriously large ego and the fact that he demanded an offense he proved incapable of running, this is not a transition that should come easy and most coaches available likely do not have the chops to force Wilson to accept this harsh truth (which is why I think Sean Payton is the only man who can even hope to fix this disaster). The chains Wilson wanted to break out of in Seattle were what allowed him to create the narrative that he can cook. He wanted to be Tom Brady and it turned him into Carson Wentz. Russ has proven he cannot manage an offense that is not managing him first.
I don’t know if Russell Wilson can be fixed. Given that the arm is still there, having hope for some kind of reclamation under an actual NFL coach is reasonable. Maybe he can still be a top 16 QB in the NFL.
But justifying that quarter-billion dollar contract that has yet to even kick in?
That’s where I have some uh, serious doubts.
And that contract is why the Broncos are inevitably fucked unless Russ magically turns into the old Russ.