It would be difficult for the Broncos to part ways with either coach or player. There is a delay of1:45. The Denver Broncos might have been at their lowest point on Sunday. Losing is nothing new for the Broncos, who have lost seven in a row on American soil. A 13 point loss to the Carolinas would be a low point for most teams, but even that underestimates how competitive this contest was. The game will be remembered for Mike Purcell screaming at Russell Wilson on the sideline. Most teams have a player shout at another player or a coach during the season, but I don't want to make a big deal of it. In the context of everything else that has happened in 2022, the rest of the franchise may not have been represented by Purcell. Matthew Stafford was supposed to do what Wilson was supposed to do for the Broncos. Wilson wants this team to look like the 2022 Rams. Wilson had his best game of the season in the 11th week of the season. One week was all it took for the change to happen. He threw four incompletions to end his day after Denver recovered an onside kick in the fourth quarter. Even if Wilson looked like the old Wilson from here on out, this would still be considered a disappointing season. I was wrong to think that the Wilson trade was a victory for the Broncos and that they would be one of the most improved teams in the league. I want to take a closer look at the situation. Wilson is in Denver. Is it possible to fix it for a player who is under contract through 2028? We should start at the time of the trade and work our way through what has happened this season before looking forward to what will happen next. Jump to a question:
Where has Wilson improved and gotten much worse?
Is there anyone else to blame for this catastrophe?
Is this Wilson trade already one of the most lopsided?
When could the Broncos move on from Wilson?
What needs to change for Denver in 2023? A lot of revisionist history is required to answer "yes". Wilson struggled at times over his last two seasons in Seattle, but he was generally very good. He ranked eighth in the league with a 64.4 QBR. Wilson was effective at the end of his time with the Seahawks after recovering from a finger injury. At the end of the year, the wheels weren't falling off. Wilson's mobility has continued to be off the pace in the years since, and that's due to the fact that his game slowed in 2021. He ran for almost 28 yards per game in 2020, but dropped to less than 11 yards per game in 2021. He has been effective when he chooses to scramble, but he doesn't often, as he's averaging only 12.5 scramble yards per game. Wilson has been a less effective passer when moving. When a quarterback passes the ball faster than 8 mph, it is considered a throw on the run. Wilson's EPA was the 11th best in the league in 2020. The mark went all the way to 27th. He's ranked 24th this season. Does Wilson need to be mobile at his height and with his skills? It might be possible. We have some evidence that he was able to succeed at a reasonable level without running the same way as he did when he was 25 years old. The other person is responsible for much of the blame for Denver's troubles. In his first stint as a head coach, could he have struggled? It seems more plausible. Before he took over in Denver, he had a limited resume. Remember that the story about the Broncos trading for Rodgers was related to the idea that the former Packers assistant was like a brother to him after three years together in Green Bay? The results were mixed after eight years as an offensive coach for the Broncos. The offenses of the two quarterbacks in Buffalo ranked 25th and 26th in offensiveDVOA. It wasn't because of their offense that the Jags advanced to the playoffs, but because of their defense, which ranked 27th, 15th and 30th. The Broncos defensive tackle got in the face of Wilson after picking up a penalty. Green Bay had some of the league's best offenses under the direction of Hackett. He wasn't calling plays for the Packers but Matt LaFleur was. The Packers had the best red zone offense in the history of the game in the 2020 season. This isn't an issue specific to the Broncos because the league isn't great at selecting head coaches. During his time with the Packers, I'm willing to bet that Hackett improved as a coach, just as someone like Brian Daboll did when he was with the Alabama team. You probably wouldn't have believed me if I said that the offensive coach who had just been fired by the Jags would be the next head coach of the team. Heading into the season, it was more reasonable to be skeptical of Wilson than it was of Hackett. Things are bad when I have to start talking about 2022 by focusing on the few parts of Wilson's game that are still intact. Wilson's game was divided into different categories and I tracked how he performed over the next three seasons. His game has not changed a lot in some places. Wilson is still the same quarterback. The game was quick. This isn't as hopeful as it sounds. When passers are expected to make decisions shortly after getting the football and then deliver accurate throws into tight windows, Wilson is never considered to be an effective quarterback. He hasn't always had a big-bodied receiver who can win in those tight spaces, but he had one in 2020 and 2021. The quick game is a pass out of the pocket. Wilson has been below average for a long time. He was 23rd in the NFL in quick game QBR in 2020 and 24th in 2021. I don't think anyone expects this to become a strong suit in Wilson's game, but it is something we often see older quarterbacks excel with as they grow more experienced. A person throwing something out of a structure. Next Gen Stats is related to throwing while scrambling. Wilson has been great at this at times during his career, but that hasn't been the case over the last three seasons. He was 15th in the league in EPA per play on throws out of structure in 2020 and 17th last season. The league's EPA per play on those attempts has gone down over time. He had a negative EPA per throw out of structure when he finished 15th. Wilson is down to minus-0.3 EPA per throw, which is a noticeable drop off, since he is 16th in the same category. It's fair to wonder if a league in which defenders are getting smaller and faster might be making Wilson less effective. It's deep passes. Wilson hasn't gone from hitting one deep pass per game to one per month, but he has stayed effective on these throws. His QBR on deep passes has been very consistent. 13th is where the latter marks rank. He averaged over 1.5 deep completions per game in 2020 and over 1.5 deep completions per game last season. The throws are going a long way. Wilson's four completions are the second most in football this season, behind only Buffalo's Josh Allen. Wilson last completed one of these throws in Week 8 of the London game. In descending order, I will run through these. Where has Wilson gone wrong? The red zone is inside the building. I wrote about Wilson's red zone performance earlier in the season, when it looked like the Broncos were going through a bad time in the red zone. The Broncos were dead last in EPA per play on offense outside the 20 and dead last on offense inside the 20. I was expecting them to protect the football and improve in the most important part of the field after they fumbled inside the 5-yard line. It hasn't happened. The Broncos released Gordon after he fumbled near the goal line again. The struggles of the rest of the offense have been brought on by the lack of performance around the field. The Broncos are still ranked 32nd in red zone EPA per play, but their offense outside of the red zone is 26th. Wilson should be blamed for the running back disasters. In recent years, the star passer did this. His 90.2 QBR inside the red zone in 2020 was fifth best in football. While dealing with a finger injury, he posted a 91.9 QBR, which was first in the league. He was in the top 15 in each of the last three years. Over the course of five years, he was the top ranked in the red zone. Wilson is the worst quarterback in the red zone this year. His QBR went from 91.9 to 6.3 That isn't a mistake. There is only one quarterback within 15 points. Wilson's completion percentage over expectation is almost seven points below that of an average passer, and he's averaging just 2.3 yards per attempt. He dominated in the red zone before Tyler Lockett arrived in Denver. This is even more staggering because of what I said about Hackett. His success building the game plan for the Packers in the red zone over the past three seasons was one of the first things on his resume. The Broncos have combined one of the best red zone quarterbacks of the last five years with a guy who was responsible for one of the league's best red zone offenses. Wilson and the players were more to blame for their red zone struggles on Sunday than the rest of the team. The tight end whiffed on a block against Brian Burns. Wilson missed a couple of throws that could have been a touchdown. One was incomplete, the other caught, but the wideout couldn't get into the end zone because he couldn't jump. The Broncos' season was summed up by another throw. Wilson had three open receiver for possible touchdown. They ended up with an incomplete ball when Wilson threw it through Courtland's hands. Three open receivers for the Broncos on a third-and-goal boot, but Russell Wilson's pass goes through Courtland Sutton's hands pic.twitter.com/hKq2oXaGq9 The Broncos' regression toward the mean and Wilson's historical success inside the 20 suggest that they should improve in the red zone. They aren't showing many signs of life after twothirds of the season. The red zone is outside. Wilson fell off the slide outside the 20-yard line. His 60.4 QBR in 2020 was good enough for 16th in the league. Wilson's 38.6 mark is 27th in the league and he fell to 21st in the league. He used to be a solid quarterback who dominated in the red zone, but he has fallen apart inside the 20. Wilson could be like Ryan Tannehill, who has been part of a functional offense without posting impressive numbers. The Broncos have been unable to overcome their mistakes at the goal line. Play-action. Wilson thrived while using play-fakes because of the importance of running the football. He was ranked in the top eight in QBR in both 2020 and 2021. The Broncos have the same part about cycling through halfbacks as those offenses. The play-action game hasn't gotten off the ground and Denver's success rate on the ground is 23rd. Wilson uses a play-action score of 43.3. He averaged nearly 9 yards per pass attempt with play-fakes between 2020 and 2021. While the league as a whole gets about nine points of QBR better with play-action, Hackett has used play-action less for Wilson. Wilson has used play-action on less than he did in the previous two seasons. I think the mark would have been higher if Wilson hadn't injured his finger. He has gone from using play-fakes more often to using them less this season due to the fact that the NFL uses play-action on about two thirds of their dropbacks. The person is under pressure. Wilson was able to make up for missed protections or indecisive work by scrambling his way out of mistakes in the past. He was able to break hearts even when under pressure because he ran away from free defenders for most of his time in Seattle. He ranked in the top 10 in QBR in both 2020 and 2021. Wilson is under a lot of pressure. The decline in escapability is one of the reasons. He was sacked less than 20% of the time between 2020 and 2021. His completion percentage under pressure has gone down even when he's gotten the ball away. You can get exclusive access to more than 3000 premium articles a year.
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Could we have seen this coming?
What about with Nathaniel Hackett?
What hasn't gone wrong for Russell Wilson?
Where has Wilson gotten worse?
Not under a lot of stress. It's bad news. When Wilson is given time to throw, he gets worse. After ranking 11th and 13th over the previous two seasons in QBR, his 49.7 mark in a clean pocket this year is 28th. It's not possible to pin this one on declining mobility.
It was against split safety coverage. You may remember this one from 2020, when the "Let Russ Cook" Seahawks went down in the second half amid a sea of high shells. With the league's shift on the whole toward more two-safety coverages, it's easy to imagine a scenario in which defenses see Wilson stagnant against split-safety looks and play them more often, resulting in reduced effectiveness.
That isn't what happened. Wilson saw a lot of split safety looks. The rate at which opponents played him with two deep safeties was the fifth highest in the league. With the league moving towards two-deep coverages, that dropped to the sixth-highest two-deep look. Wilson's rate of dropbacks against two-deep is only 13th in the league this season.
Wilson's effectiveness against those shells has fallen. His EPA per play against two-deep shells in 2020 was fourth best in football despite the issues in the second half. He fell to 17th. Wilson has a negative EPA per play against those looks.
All two-high defenses are not equal. Lining up two deep safeties before the snap and playing static isn't the same thing as disguising your coverage and showing one thing before the snap. Wilson's play has stopped there as well. Wilson's 80.0 QBR was the best when teams hid their coverage. When teams show one coverage before the snap, his QBR is 28th.
It's not easy to evaluate a quarterback's performance from the surrounding offensive infrastructure. It's something else when a quarterback works with multiple coordinators and through a generation of players like Wilson did in Seattle. We don't have that luxury in Denver, where we only see Wilson in the offense. The only real changes have been personnel and the playcaller.
We can compare what this offense does to the rest of the league in order to give Wilson an easy answer. It was important for the Seahawks to get Wilson out of the pocket and use his mobility. In Denver, we haven't seen it the same way.
The drop in play-action rate is a sign that a quarterback looks worse. Wilson is moving less frequently than he has in the past He rolled out on 12% of his dropbacks a year ago. It hasn't been as if the Broncos have dominated inside the pocket, as he has rolled out on just 7.8% of his dropbacks this season. Wilson was rolling out nearly twice as often a year ago as it is now.
Wilson had been effective outside of structure. I can't say the same thing about what he's done inside his offenses. After ranking 10th in EPA per play in structure during the 2020 season, he dropped to 21st a year later and is currently 28th. I don't think he's going to be a great quarterback within structure, but it's difficult to argue that he has consistent solutions in the offense.
Wilson seems to throw more fades to covered receiver than anyone else. It isn't far off according to Next Gen Stats. Over the course of the season, Wilson has tried 55 passes. Among passers with at least 200 attempts, his rate of throwing into tight windows is sixth highest. He was 12-of-55 for 331 yards on those throws.
Wilson has had a lot of chances to hit open targets. 21.6% of his targets have been wide open, with 5 yards of separation between them, when he has thrown ahead of the line of scrimmage. He leads the league in this category and Tua Tagovailoa is second. Wilson's passer rating and EPA/dropback are both below league averages.
It would make sense to assign some of the credit for the open receiver in the offense to Hackett. This week there was a concern that came up. At the beginning of the games, the team uses scripted play calls. Some teams only use scripted plays to start the game, but the Broncos script their third quarter plays as well.
It didn't go well. The first 24 plays of the first half and the first eight plays of the second half are not clear. The Broncos are dead last in EPA on scripted plays if we use a more generic definition. They're 24th in EPA per play after moving to real life.
This doesn't seem to be a Wilson issue. The first 15 scripted plays of the half and top spot in the league in the second half were an issue in 2021. The Seahawks were 14th in the league in EPA per scripted play and third in the league in EPA per scripted play in 2020. I'm not sure what it means, but it's hard to argue that Denver is thriving because of what the coaching staff has scripted.
There is an argument to be made that injuries and absences impact our expectation of what the Broncos would look like on offense. It looked like this could be one of the league's most robust offensive core around the new quarterback heading into the season. The Broncos were 14th in my rankings going into the season, but the feedback was that they were too low.
Things aren't the same now. Tim Patrick tore his knee and didn't play a snap. The running back tore his knee in the fourth week of the season. Mike Boone, who was part of the rotation, was injured. Chase was acquired in the Bradley Chubb deal. Hamler has been injured. Jerry Jeudy has been out with an ankle problem. Greg Dulcich was on injured reserve to start the season and Albert Okwoegbunam fell out of favor.
Wilson was out for a game with a problem in his left leg. Three of the line's probable starters are on injured reserve.
Neither of the two running backs who were on the roster to start the season were in the running back rotation on Sunday. Brandon Johnson, who caught a touchdown pass in his second career NFL game, was joined at wideout by the other two guys, including the one who caught a touchdown pass. Heading into the season Calvin Anderson was fourth on the tackle depth chart. Wilson might have been able to overcome weak spots with a more stable offense and more mobility. He doesn't seem to be able to drag a limited supporting cast to big offensive performances as he approaches his 34th birthday.
Unless it gets a lot worse. The trade has turned into a huge win for the Seahawks, who are projected to land the No. 2 overall pick in the 2023 draft. The left tackle they used was Charles Cross, who was a first-round pick of the Broncos. The defensive tackle has been a good one. It would have been a good deal for Seattle to get Cross and a top-five pick for Wilson.
The book on the trade isn't closed yet. When Washington traded a draft haul to the Rams for Robert Griffin III, they looked like geniuses. The trade looked like a huge victory for the Rams by the third year. In the end, the Rams didn't land any superstars, but they did pick up a few veteran players. After the first year, the trade looked better for Seattle than it did after the second and third years.
There are worse deals both in terms of what was offered and how it turned out. The Texans franchise was destroyed by the DeANDRE HOPKINS trade. The sending of a first-round pick to acquire Harvin and then extending the return man for what turned out to be 23 catches was a disaster, even if he did pick up a return touchdown.
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There are two legendary deals that blow this one away. In the 1999 draft, the Saints traded an entire year of draft picks and an additional first and third-round pick to get Ricky Williams. Champ Bailey, who had a better career, was grabbed by Washington. Clinton Portis was traded to the Broncos for Bailey and a second-round pick.
The Herschel Walker trade gave the Vikings four players, three first-round picks and three second-round picks. Walker was with Minnesota for 212 seasons. Emmitt Smith and Russell Maryland were both selected by the Cowboys in the first round of the draft.
An extension usually follows the trade of two first-round picks. The Broncos extended Wilson's contract by five years on Sept. 1. The Broncos have him on the books for about $295 million over the next seven seasons because he had two years left on his existing contract.
Most of the $104 million that Wilson is owed through the next three seasons is guaranteed by the end of the year. If he wants to play football, the Broncos can't get out of that money. Even in a league in which teams are willing to absorb more dead money than ever before, the first time they could really consider cutting Wilson would be in 25 years. They would still be paying him $37 million in 2025, but he would be playing somewhere else.
It would be possible if the Broncos just wanted to dump Wilson to the highest bidder. Wilson has a $20 million option bonus in March, so if they dealt him before then, they wouldn't owe any money. If the Broncos wanted nothing more than to be done with their investment, they could get out of three more years of guarantees by paying $40 million.
It would take a front office desperate for a quarterback who believes it can fix Wilson to acquire him. I don't think it's possible, but we just finished an off-season in which the team that was shopping him in the free stuff section on the internet returned serious draft capital for him, so it's not impossible. I'm not sure if Denver would be willing to sell down on its investment in order to absorb the Wilson contract.
It's not certain but history tells us it's possible. I like using Pro Football Reference's index statistics for analyses since they adjust for era and normalized statistics where a league-average performance is 100. Wilson had a 115 era-adjusted passer rating through the first 11 weeks of the season, and was at an 89 through Week 11. A 26 point swing. Have quarterbacks in their 30s been able to bounce back from a single- season falloff?
Sometimes it signaled the beginning of a very sudden end. Both Brad Johnson and Matt Schaub never started playing again after suffering similar declines. Troy Aikman retired after his last season because of chronic back pain and concussions.
At the same time, there are a lot of players who are in good shape. Philip Rivers had a Pro Bowl-caliber season the following year with the Colts after he looked like he was done in his last season with the Bolts. After disappointing seasons with the Packers in 2005 and the Jets in 2008 he came back to win the Most Valuable Player award in both of those years. Eli Manning had four more seasons that were close to or above league average before he fell off completely. Steve McNair was above average in 2005 and 2006 despite his decline in 2004.
It could be a different story if Wilson were to turn 38. Given that he was a Pro Bowl caliber quarterback as recently as last December, there is enough in the tank for the Broncos to get a return on their trade. They can't go into the next season the same way they did this season.
The Broncos need to do some things to get the most out of Wilson in the years to come.
This is the first thing. It's time to move on from him. It's difficult to find any evidence that he's suited for this job, since he's a nice guy and has survived worse starts to his head-coaching career. His early-season game management gaffes cost the Broncos at least one win, and while he has been thoughtful about bringing in help and ceding responsibility to try to create a better atmosphere, I'm not sure there's much he can hang his head on. It makes sense for Rodgers to come back to Green Bay or somewhere else.
There are two Don't let Ejiro Evero go. Evero was hired by Hackett to be his defensive coordinators. The Broncos are ranked fourth in the league in defensive EPA. Evero has built one of the league's best defenses while missing two key contributors. Gregory and Chubb played just 101 snaps together, as Gregory went down injured before Chubb was traded to the Dolphins.
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The Broncos should seriously consider making Evero their own head coach this spring, since he will attract head-coaching consideration this off-season. They wouldn't be able to give a promotion to offensive coordinators around the league if they promoted Evero. They will take a step forward and backwards if they hire an offensive coach to replace Evero.
There are three. Someone with a track record of making offenses to unique quarterbacks is a good hire. I think Denver would look at a more experienced option to take over the offense after going for a first-timer. Even after getting a first-round pick back in the Chubb deal, I don't think it has the kind of draft capital the Saints will want.
Frank Reich had built a series of offenses around different passers before things fell apart in Indianapolis. If Reich is interested in that role, the Broncos could hire him. If the Broncos look better in the second half of the season, they might be able to rebuild the offense in the off season.
Whoever runs the offense for Denver needs to build an offense around Wilson and his skills. Wilson needs to be kicked out more frequently. There needs to be more play-action. Given Wilson's stature and style, they need to create more easy answers for him. Wilson's throws to the flat are more likely to be trusted than his quick throws over the middle of the field. He needs more of a running game than he has had in the past.
There are four. Get in good physical shape. I think it's easy. The Broncos would look different with all of them on the field at the same time, something which didn't happen this season. Most of their offensive core is already present and they are likely to address the right tackle again in the next year or two. Things should get better if they are on the field.
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We can't sugarcoat what we've seen. Wilson has not been good. The Broncos haven't been very good. The best evidence that Wilson might turn things around is the game against the Raiders where the offense scored 16 points. They don't have a secret formula or hidden stat that says they're about to fix it.
A decade of play suggests Wilson is a top 10 quarterback and one season suggests he is a fabulously compensatedMitch Trubisky clone. The most recent data point is not the only one. I'm still hopeful that Wilson will turn things around and look like the guy the Broncos thought they were getting. I don't think that transformation will happen before the season is over.
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