Accepting a $124 Million-Sized Hole in the Pocket for the ‘Russell Wilson Mistake’ Seems to be the Way Ahead for Denver

The Broncos have called it, Russell Wilson has been benched. Coach Sean Payton recently revealed that there are non financial reasons behind this call. They want to activate backup QB Jarrett Stidham to provide the offense with the much needed spark. But pragmatism says that with a 1.4% chance to make the playoffs from here, the move is to save up on $37 million by benching Wilson. This move has also set in motion the rumors about Wilson getting cut by the Broncos.

However, the ‘cutting off’ move translates to essentially spending $124 million and a whole lot of picks for 2 years of Russell. A $73 million raise for Wilson, when he was already going to get $51 million over the course of two years even if Denver didn’t sign a contract with him; needless to say, this still seems like a deal that turned out horribly.

So presuming Russell Wilson is cut, his deal will have cost the Broncos $124 million for two years, when he was already under contract for those years at the time of the trade for $51 million (a $73 million raise).

Add that to all the picks that went to Seattle and … Yikes.

— Albert Breer (@AlbertBreer) December 27, 2023

Reports reveal Wilson had a choice. Right after the Kansas City win, the former Super Bowl winning QB got “threatened” by the Denver Broncos. Denver gave him the choice to defer the $37 million injury trigger. But it came at a bad time, in a seemingly worse manner. According to Bleacher Report, the “threat” did not bode well with Wilson, who just beat Patrick Mahomes’ Chiefs, and threw 3 TD passes while doing that. So, he got “shocked” at the exchange and chose not to defer the injury trigger for 2025.

God’s got me.
Looking forward to what’s next.

— Russell Wilson (@DangeRussWilson) December 28, 2023

That was around October 30. Since then, things have worsened for the Broncos. They stand at 7-8 with the recent loss to the top draft pick seeking New England squad. And the Broncos have decided that it’s time to call it a day on what could be termed the ‘Russell Wilson mistake’.

To be fair, the QB has had a statistically sound season. He had over 3000 yards thrown for 26 TDs and 8 interceptions. Yet, the price tag was unjustifiable for the Broncos front office. Hence, moving on from Russell and making peace with the $124 million-sized hole in the pocket doesn’t seem that bad an idea.

Broncos Giving a Massive Extension to Russell Wilson Has Turned Out to be a Disaster

In 2019, Seattle Seahawks signed a 4 year/$140 million deal with Russell Wilson. It was at the time, one of the highest deals in the sport. But both parties decided to move on from each other in 2021. The Broncos had a choice, they did not need to sign Wilson to an extension. He had a great contract signed from before that ran through 2023. According to reports, they would have had to pay him $51 million for the two years he was already under contract.

So basically, they paid $73 million extra just to bench him with two games to go in the second year. If Wilson was still getting an amount close to his earlier contract, the Broncos maybe wouldn’t have “threatened” their star QB, shocking him and eventually setting in motion what one can easily term as an unfortunate set of events.