What a difference 2 combines make. Broncos will decide soon if Russell Wilson is gone
Two years ago at the NFL combine, Seahawks general manager John Schneider learned the Denver Broncos were willing to give Seattle just about the football-trade equivalent of all the Rocky Mountains to get Russell Wilson.
It took the Seahawks’ bounty of Denver’s two first-round draft choices, two second-round picks plus three veteran starting players to convince then-Seahawks coach and ultimate Seattle decision-maker Pete Carroll to trade Wilson. That was in March 2022.
Then the Broncos gave Wilson a $242 million million contract to be their quarterback for the next five years.
Now, not even two full years later, Denver is saying at this combine they are about to decide whether to get rid of the 35-year-old former Super Bowl-winning QB.
Broncos coach Sean Payton said Tuesday his team will decide Wilson’s future in the next week or two.
“We go through the combine week here. Next week, Tuesday, Wednesday, we’ll be in meetings with ownership. So I expect we are going to know fairly quickly,” Payton said inside the Indiana Convention Center.
Payton said there are “a couple of factors” the Broncos are considering. One is deciding whether to eat $39 million they owe Wilson for 2024 by releasing him after they benched him last season in a dispute over injury guarantees in his contract. Another is the fact the NFL just set each team’s salary cap at $255 million. That’s about $10-12 million higher than original estimates for 2024. So Denver has more ability to swallow Wilson’s $39 million than it did last week.
If Wilson is still on Denver’s roster March 13, the Broncos would also, per his contract, fully guarantee Wilson a $37 million injury guarantee for the 2025 season.
“So I would anticipate it being within the next two weeks,” Denver’s coach said of the decision.
Then Payton talked at length about how he evaluates quarterbacks at the top of draft classes.
Payton said the Broncos are “further down the road” evaluating the quarterbacks in this class. That process is accelerating in Indianapolis this week.
Denver general manager George Paton said the Broncos met with a top quarterback in this draft on Tuesday night. Paton said his team will continue to meet in the coming days with highly regarded QBs Denver might want to draft with their 12th pick in round one.
Paton created the parameters of the stunning Wilson deal by writing them on the back of napkins and passing them to Schneider in their secret meetings at the 2022 combine here.
Quarterbacks work out on the field at this combine Saturday. While some other top passers such as Caleb Williams from USC and Heisman Trophy winner Jayden Daniels are not throwing this week, former Washington Huskies QB Michael Penix Jr. is. Penix is doing the full week of workouts in Indianapolis.
Paton talked about the possibility and willingness of the Broncos trading up to get a new quarterback. Post-Wilson, that is.
“We’re open for anything,” Denver’s GM said, sounding like he’s about to invest in a quarterback not named Russell Wilson.
“Yeah, it’s the most important position in sports,” Paton said.
“There’s more mistakes, it seems, at quarterback — especially in the first round.”
The Seahawks have had Geno Smith go to two Pro Bowls in the two seasons he’s replaced Wilson. This past season Smith dipped from a record-setting 2022 and was an injury replacement in the Pro Bowl games.
Seattle this month guaranteed the 33-year-old Smith all of his $12.7 million base salary for 2024. Last week, Schneider and the Seahawks converted $4.8 million of a $9.6 million roster bonus that had been due to the Smith, saving the team $4.8 million against this year’s salary cap.
This story was originally published February 27, 2024 at 9:25 AM.
