The Russell Wilson saga has been quite the roller coaster over the last few years.
When Wilson first came to the Denver Broncos, he was lauded as the potential savior of the franchise. He was coming off five straight Pro Bowls and had led the Seahawks to winning seasons in nine of ten campaigns as the starter.
Things quickly went south. Wilson’s contract was massive, especially for a quarterback entering his age-34 season. He had by far his worst season as a pro, going just 4-11 in 15 starts and posting a quarterback rating of 38.7. His lowest up to that point in a season was 57.1.
Last year was a bounce-back one statistically, but it wasn’t rewarded by the team. Wilson was solid, but solid isn’t good enough for a quarterback you invest that much trade capital and money into. Denver hovered around .500 all year and essentially extorted Wilson into taking the backup role down the stretch.
When the dust cleared, Denver basically was forced to eat Wilson’s whole contract, as they had spurned him so badly that the Wilson era was clearly done in Denver. After all, it wasn’t Wilson’s fault the team traded so much draft capital for him, and he provided some pretty good quarterback play for them last season.
Now, after signing with the Steelers, Wilson has a chance to prove to himself and the NFL that he can still be among the better quarterbacks in the league. And there’s the looming matchup against his old team, the Denver Broncos, which Mike Florio named his best revenge game of 2024 on Pro Football Talk.
“Regardless of who is right or who is wrong, Russell Wilson clearly believes he got mistreated. He clearly believes that the team made an improper request of him to alter his contract under threat of being benched, and the word extortion has been thrown around.” Florio said. “At some level, under that facade of a nice guy, Russell Wilson has a fire burning. He wants to stick it to Sean Payton and the Denver Broncos… somebody did poop in the dishwasher.”
Russell Wilson may not be the guy he once was, but he still ranks as one of the best quarterbacks of the last 15 years. If there’s one game left in his career he’s getting up for, it’s this one against the Denver Broncos. It’d be tough to bet against a guy who is going to come in so prepared and motivated.
Wilson projects to be the starter unless circumstances change. While we don’t yet know when the game will take place in the season, it’s more than likely that Wilson will be the signal caller.
Everyone, especially Wilson, will probably fall back on their media training and pretend this is just another game. But you’d be kidding yourself if you don’t think Wilson will have this one circled in red pen as soon as the schedule comes out. From what has been leaked about the Wilson-Broncos situation, I certainly lean on the side of Wilson, and any extra motivation the mistreatment gives him is all the better for Pittsburgh.
