Russell Wilson and Sean Payton were Broncos' forced marriage – and it finally unraveled
D-Day finally came on Wednesday of Week 17.
Deliverance Day. Dismissal Day. Disassociation Day.
Pick your favorite D-word and roll with it. Sean Payton tossed Russell Wilson to the bench like he was some dirty dish rag, then declared to the world that he made the switch to Jarrett Stidham while seeking a "spark" for his Denver Broncos, who have backslid to 7-8.
Perhaps. Denver’s O, ranked 25th for yards and 16th for scoring, has looked nothing like the prolific units that Payton directed over many years with the New Orleans Saints, even with those highlight-reel catches from Courtland Sutton.
Yet this move cuts deeper than merely trying to ignite a spark. It sends the clear message that Wilson’s tenure as Broncos quarterback is over, barring some sort of emergency.
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It also signals that Payton thinks this quarterback with the cool first name might really be a long-term option rather than merely a kid getting some more season-ending mop-up duty. It’s a move that maybe Payton couldn’t wait to make ... eventually.
And that time is now.
How crazy is that? The Broncos pretty much mortgaged the franchise in landing Wilson in 2022 from the Seattle Seahawks, dealing five draft picks (including two No. 1s) and three players as part of the package. Then they signed Wilson to a five-year, $242.6 million extension.
Then in February they hired Payton.
From the start, it felt like a forced marriage. Payton inherited Wilson and the grand vision of general manager George Paton, at the expense of Denver’s salary cap books and the significant war room chips. If Payton didn’t want Wilson, that urge certainly wasn’t too strong to stop him from rolling into Broncos Country on a five-year deal with reportedly the second-largest salary for an NFL coach, estimated at $18 million per year.
In any event, it wasn’t the worst idea, pitting a former Super Bowl-winning coach with an aging, former Super Bowl-winning quarterback trying to prove he has something left.
That scenario just might have produced magic. Or not.
Stidham joined the ranks, too, this year. That may have seemed like a minor transaction, a move to upgrade the depth, but it’s relevant to know that during his tenure as Saints coach, Payton thought enough of Stidham when he came out of Auburn in 2019 that he wanted to draft him (the New England Patriots selected him in the fourth round).
Now Payton’s about to start him. We’ll see where that goes.
This QB exchange takes me back to the extended interview I had with Payton as the Broncos opened training camp in late July. I asked him if he felt married to Wilson (in a football sense, Ciara) because of the huge investment the franchise made in the quarterback. Sitting in his office, I suggested that he had no choice but to make it work.
"I hear you. But realistically, if in a year I didn’t like it, I’m not married to him," Payton told USA TODAY Sports. "I like this Jarrett Stidham now. We couldn’t get him in the draft. I liked him a lot. The kid’s sharp. Quick with the decisions. Well-trained.
"But I believe this about Russell: He’s still got gas in the tank."
Yet apparently, Payton has seen enough now to realize that Wilson, 35, isn’t his long-term answer. If he’s wrong about that, wrong about Stidham, or wrong about any other QB who may come through the door, he allowed during his media session on Wednesday that eventually there would be some other coach taking their questions.
But why now? This too, is NFL bid-ness in full effect. Stidham, a fifth-year pro, started the final two games last year for the Las Vegas Raiders, who apparently didn’t want to be on the hook for $40 million if Derek Carr was injured during those final two games. In this situation, the Broncos face the prospect of guaranteeing Wilson’s $37 million salary for 2025 if he’s on the roster five days after the new league year begins in mid-March. If Wilson is injured, the Broncos' options go kaput.
Payton didn’t deny the economic influence, but insisted, "The No. 1 push behind this is to get a spark offensively."
In other words, Wilson is such a convenient fall guy for Denver’s blown opportunity to rally from a disastrous start this season to an inspiring playoff berth.
Wilson hasn’t been terrible, which is a way of saying he’s much better than he was last year – which was always the expectation as he joined forces with a serious QB whisperer. His passer rating (98.0) and TD-to-INT ratio (26-to-8) are respectable. At times, he clicked. But the consistency has been spotty. And the Broncos have dropped three of their past four games to fall off the playoff picture.
Then again, the writing has been on the wall for this moment. It seemed so destined for an inglorious ending a week ago Saturday night in the Motor City, when Payton unmercifully dressed down Wilson with a screaming tirade on national TV during a blowout loss against the Detroit Lions. To borrow a phrase from Ricky Watters, that major diss left me wondering, “For who? For what?”
When Payton was asked about it afterward, he told the reporters that it was nobody’s business.
Yeah, right. It happened on national TV, silly.
In any event, we saw Payton’s legendary mentor, Bill Parcells, routinely blow a gasket, and quarterback Phil Simms was often the subject of abuse. But this Payton-Wilson episode was a total diss, treatment you’ve never seen for, roll call, please ... TB12. Lamar. Patrick. Peyton. Troy. Brees. And so on.
The optics were just so bad. And so revealing.
Now comes the aftershock.
Stidham, you’re up.
"We need a spark," Payton said on Wednesday. "We need something right now. We’ll handle the long term when we get there."
When they surely won’t arrive with Russell Wilson.