by Agent 86 » Fri Feb 24, 2023 1:05 pm
Here is the full article per The Athletic:
Russell Wilson’s first year with Broncos: ‘Too much influence,’ too few wins in disorganized disaster
The Athletic NFL Staff
Feb 24, 2023
By Kalyn Kahler, Mike Sando and Jayson Jenks
Hours before his first regular-season game with the Denver Broncos last September, Russell Wilson made an unfamiliar walk down the visitor’s tunnel at Seattle’s Lumen Field.
He immediately saw familiar faces. In the end zone, Wilson hugged three members of the Seahawks’ strength-and-conditioning staff. Near midfield, he removed his headphones and put his arm around Carl Smith, his longtime position coach in Seattle. He embraced Sean Mannion, a quarterback on the practice squad, and Derin Lazuta, an assistant equipment manager.
In the pregame calm before his first start against his former team, Wilson shared moments with players, coaches and staff from his decorated 10-year Seahawks career. But Wilson and Pete Carroll — the quarterback and coach who won the only Super Bowl in franchise history, who turned the Seahawks into a decade-long winner — did not speak to each other on the field before the game. Their postgame embrace after a 17-16 Seahawks win was quick and awkward.
The reason was unknown to the millions of fans who made the game the most-watched Monday Night Football season-opener in more than a decade. Seven months earlier, in February 2022, Wilson punctuated his growing frustration with Carroll and general manager John Schneider by making the most fateful power play in the history of the franchise.
Wilson and Carroll had clashed in recent years over the quarterback’s role in the offense and the overall direction of a team that had gradually declined after back-to-back Super Bowl appearances. Convinced that Carroll and Schneider were inhibiting his quest to win additional Super Bowls and individual awards, Wilson asked Seahawks ownership to fire both of them, according to league sources who spoke to The Athletic on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the details. Wilson also had a preferred replacement in mind: Sean Payton, who had recently stepped down from the New Orleans Saints.
That request set in motion a wild 13 months kicked off by Wilson’s stunning trade to Denver and a first season with the Broncos so calamitous the team fired new head coach Nathaniel Hackett after just 15 games. A Broncos season that began with so much promise — new ownership, a coach who helped Aaron Rodgers win multiple MVPs and a quarterback who had played in multiple Super Bowls — cratered into a 5-12 disaster, arguably the most disappointing season in Broncos history.
A lawyer for Wilson wrote a letter to The Athletic characterizing the assertion that Wilson called for Carroll’s and Schneider’s firing as “entirely fabricated.” The Seahawks declined to comment for this story. Hackett and Broncos GM George Paton declined to comment through representatives.
The Athletic spoke to more than 15 Broncos players, coaches and staffers about the 2022 season. Some were granted anonymity to speak freely about sensitive topics. Many of those interviewed described a team without direction: a first-time head coach who was too accommodating, an inexperienced coaching staff around him and a star quarterback who failed to live up to expectations after getting what he wanted.
Within days of Wilson’s call to Seahawks ownership, top team officials met and decided to pursue a trade of the most successful quarterback in franchise history. On March 8, Seahawks leadership publicly backed Carroll and Schneider by sending Wilson to the Broncos for two first-round picks, two second-rounders, one fifth-rounder and three players.
Wilson, a nine-time Pro Bowler, waived his no-trade clause, then signed a $245 million contract extension before the season. He told new Broncos teammates he approved Denver as his destination because he believed the team could win championships. Wilson told reporters in Denver he hoped to win “three or four more Super Bowls.”
“That’s the plan,” Wilson said when the trade was announced in March. “That’s why I came here.”
Wilson spoke with Paton about the support staff he intended to employ, apart from official team employees, including Jake Heaps, his personal quarterback coach, as well as a nutritionist and a physical therapist. Wilson explained why it was important to have his staff nearby, including inside Denver’s facility, an area reserved for team personnel. Paton discussed the arrangement with Hackett and signed off on it.
The setup was unprecedented for both players and coaches.
“No one else I have been around has ever been able to have those people in there – which, looking back on it, not a good idea,” a member of the 2022 Broncos coaching staff said.
The Broncos gave Wilson an office at the team facility, a rare perk (Wilson did not have an office in Seattle and Heaps had only limited access to the Seahawks’ facility). Several Broncos veterans said they didn’t mind Wilson having his own office, especially because the quarterback spent so much time at the facility.
“He’s got a whiteboard, the sides of the wall, and it’s just littered with (motivational) quotes and new play concepts,” receiver Kendall Hinton said. “It was crazy to see his mind thrown out on the (wall).”
Running back Melvin Gordon said the TV in Wilson’s office was always tuned to NFL Network. “It was just strictly football,” Gordon said. “Anybody could go to his office, and he was like, ‘Hey, if you want to learn extra plays, you want to go over this, you want to go over that?'”
But from the outside, the existence of the office worked against Wilson when his on-field play failed to measure up. And the location of the office — on the facility’s second floor, where Broncos coaches and executives also worked — created an unusual team dynamic.
“The players were always on the first floor; they never really came up to the second floor,” one coach said. “If you came up to the second floor as a player, it honestly wasn’t a good thing because you were probably getting released.”
One offensive player said Wilson told teammates he had an “open-door policy” with his office, which to another coach seemed problematic. “So, are you a coach or are you a player?” the coach asked. “Your open door should be you sitting at your locker.”
Hackett was so pumped to land Wilson he had to censor himself at the team’s introductory press conference after the March trade.
“Russell Wilson,” Hackett said. “Holy sh … ”
Hackett stressed that the best teams were player-led, an idea Wilson echoed to veteran NFL reporter Peter King at training camp.
“This has to be a player-ran kind of team,” Wilson told King. “Coach Hackett gives us the keys to do that.” After his visit, King wrote about Wilson’s relationship with Hackett compared to his relationship with Carroll. King quoted one source close to Wilson, saying: “(Hackett) and Russell are not coach-player. They’re partners.”
Hackett was Green Bay’s offensive coordinator in 2019, the year first-time head coach Matt LaFleur took over after Aaron Rodgers spent 13 years in Mike McCarthy’s offense. Early in the partnership, multiple Packers players said LaFleur would sometimes present a new concept or play in an offensive meeting only to have Rodgers shoot it down.
As the season went on, that dynamic flipped. Rodgers produced at a high level under LaFleur and developed a close bond with Hackett. But one coach in Denver said those turbulent early days in Green Bay may have influenced Hackett’s approach with Wilson.
“I don’t want to do that again,” Hackett said, according to the coach. “I want this transition to be as easy and fluid and quick as possible.”
In Seattle, Wilson wanted more input and an offense suited to his wishes. In Denver, he was handed both.
Hackett signed off on plays presented to him by Wilson for inclusion in the game plan. One offensive coach said the Broncos’ no-huddle package was the one Wilson brought from Seattle, including the quick-tempo “code words” the quarterback used in the two-minute offense. Some felt that Hackett accommodated Wilson to a fault, which hurt the continuity of the offense.
“He had too much influence,” one coach said. “And it was mainly based on what Hackett allowed him to influence.”
Tuesdays are typically players’ only off days during game weeks, but Wilson asked the offense to meet with him at the team facility for “state of the union” meetings, something he also did in Seattle. Broncos guard Dalton Risner said Wilson had the offense “watch film on the next opponent and kind of come to an agreement on what they’re running … and what we can do to beat them.”
While some players grumbled about the meetings, several said they were helpful and well-attended. Risner said the meetings showed the “type of leader Russell is and what he’s willing to do for his team.”
Early in the season, without much Denver film to go on, Wilson occasionally showed clips from his time with the Seahawks. “It was kind of like he was going down memory lane with stuff he’d done in Seattle,” said one offensive player. “It was very strange some weeks.”
Heaps, Wilson’s personal quarterback coach, participated in the Tuesday meetings. Receiver Jerry Jeudy said Heaps “would do the slides and voice his opinion from time to time.”
A former quarterback at BYU, Kansas and Miami, Heaps befriended Wilson in 2016 while in training camp with the Seahawks. A year later, Wilson launched the Russell Wilson Quarterback Academy with Heaps as director of operations and head coach. Heaps also became a sports-talk radio host in Seattle. When Wilson was traded to the Broncos, Heaps quit his radio job and followed the quarterback to Denver.
“He wasn’t a distraction, I don’t think,” an offensive player said of Heaps, “but it was weird that he was in the middle.”
One coach reviewed some of the scouting reports Wilson and Heaps handed out on Tuesdays. The reports were thorough, the coach said, but there were instances when he didn’t agree with their evaluations. Another coach said Heaps’ presence during the season created “a conflict of influence.” Who did Wilson listen to? Heaps? Hackett? Quarterbacks coach Klint Kubiak?
“Too many cooks,” the coach said.
Late in a Week 2 game against the Texans, the crowd in Denver started counting down the play clock while the Broncos possessed the ball, mocking the team’s struggles in executing at the most basic level. The Broncos’ offense had two delay-of-game penalties and labored to get out of the huddle and to the line.
Faced with a decision of whether to go for it on fourth-and-2 or attempt a 54-yard field goal in the third quarter, Hackett elected to kick. But the field-goal team ran onto the field late, and the Broncos took a penalty before opting to punt. It was the second special-teams blunder in as many games for Hackett, who had decided to attempt a controversial 64-yard field goal at the end of the season-opener against the Seahawks instead of putting the game in Wilson’s hands.
After the Houston game, Hackett took responsibility for the problems. “I’d be booing myself,” he said. “I was getting very frustrated.”
Hackett also indicated he could do a better job getting plays to Wilson quicker.
“It’s all about Russ,” Hackett said at the time. “We want to be sure that he’s comfortable, he’s feeling good, and I’m getting a play as fast as I can to him. We want to do what is right for him.”
But several team sources said Hackett typically relayed the play calls to Wilson with 20-25 seconds remaining on the 40-second play clock, and that this was the case against Houston, leaving more than enough time. Those sources said Wilson sometimes struggled to repeat the calls efficiently or offered too much instruction to teammates in the huddle.
Other sources put the issue on the coaches, saying the staff asked Wilson to over-communicate to make sure everyone was aligned.
“Mostly in the beginning, (Wilson) would give us a motivational speech to get us going before that play,” Jeudy said. “I don’t think he would say anything extra or anything unnecessary. He would give us the call and some motivational words and a little something extra like, ‘Get this block,’ but I don’t think it was nothing long-winded.”
“He would always say, ‘Keep believing,'” Hinton said. “‘Believe!'”
With the game-management issues dominating headlines, the Broncos hired longtime former NFL assistant Jerry Rosburg to help Hackett in late September. Meanwhile, public criticism of Wilson gathered momentum. One Denver radio station played Hackett’s “it’s all about Russ” quote on repeat to highlight what it saw as the organization’s deferential treatment of an underperforming quarterback.
With an NFL-high 23 players on injured reserve, including offensive starters Tim Patrick, Javonte Williams and Garett Bolles, the Broncos scored the fewest points in the NFL and lacked an offensive identity.
As one offensive player put it: “Every week felt like, ‘OK, who are we going to be this week?'”
Some believed Hackett and his staff struggled to sift through ideas to put together a clear, workable plan. Others believed Wilson shouldered responsibility. Just about everyone who spoke to The Athletic painted an atmosphere of confusion and uncertainty.
Gordon, who was waived by the Broncos before signing with the Chiefs’ practice squad in late November, said Denver’s offense was a “mixture” of what Wilson ran in Seattle and what Hackett ran in Green Bay.
“It was just …,” Gordon said, pausing, “it was a bit much.”
One coach said Wilson added cadences in games that the offensive line hadn’t practiced much during the week, leading to communication issues. The Broncos had the second-most false starts in the NFL, and the coach said leaders on the line eventually pushed back on the changes.
“When Russell would be like, ‘Hey, we are going to do this,’ they would be like, ‘Hell no,'” the coach said.
Risner, who started 15 games in 2022, confirmed the uncertainty without assigning blame. “There were confusing times during this season where you may wonder why a decision was made and where that decision came from,” he said.
The frustration spilled over during games. Against the Colts in Week 5, receiver K.J. Hamler slammed his helmet to the turf after Wilson failed to see him at the goal line on the final play of a 12-9 overtime loss. When asked about the play after the game, Hamler said he could have “walked in” for a touchdown. During a Week 12 defeat at Carolina, cameras caught defensive lineman Mike Purcell yelling at Wilson on the sideline.
Two days before the Broncos played the 4-10 Rams on Christmas, Denver running back Latavius Murray texted Sean Payton, his former coach in New Orleans, Payton recalled during a Super Bowl-week appearance on “The Pat McAfee Show.”
According to Payton’s account, Murray said, “Hey, my backfield teammate and I hope you come to Denver.” Payton said he was confused and thought about the other running backs on the Broncos’ roster before finally asking Murray who he was talking about.
Murray responded, “No. 3,” according to Payton: Wilson’s number.
The Broncos then lost to the Rams 51-14, their most lopsided defeat since 2010, in a game remembered for backup quarterback Brett Rypien confronting Denver’s offensive line when the group did not help Wilson up after a sack. Wilson finished the game with a season-high three interceptions and a season-low 54.2 passer rating.
The following Monday, the Broncos fired Hackett.
According to team sources, Broncos leadership initiated a conversation with Wilson to talk about changes needed to salvage the end of a lost season. Team leadership brought up Wilson’s office and support staff, and the quarterback agreed to remove his staff from the building and no longer use his office for the final two weeks of the season.
“I didn’t feel any type of change other than he had been in the locker room a lot,” Jeudy said. “He was in there a lot more now that he wasn’t in the office.”
Wilson hired a new publicist as his image suffered through the difficult season. The Broncos headed into this offseason without a head coach or the draft haul they shipped to Seattle.
After a prolonged search that included two flirtations with Michigan’s Jim Harbaugh, an initial interview with Payton that seemed to lead nowhere and an awkward back-and-forth with 49ers defensive coordinator DeMeco Ryans, the Broncos circled back to Payton and hired the coach Wilson urged Seattle to install not quite one calendar year earlier.
“(Payton) is going to set a standard, and you’re going to have to meet it,” said Risner. “That’s what Denver needs. They need him to come in and set a standard, hold guys … accountable and say, ‘Hey, this is what we are going to have to be.'”
For years, Wilson idolized Drew Brees, Payton’s quarterback in New Orleans, and in early 2021, Mark Rodgers, Wilson’s agent, released the names of four teams that Wilson would approve a trade to if the Seahawks dealt him. One team on the list: the Payton-led Saints.
A veteran coach with a Super Bowl ring and a proven offensive pedigree, Payton dined and posed for pictures with Wilson and Joe Montana during Super Bowl week. But Payton also made it clear there would be limits when it came to his quarterback.
In his first appearance as Denver’s head coach, Payton told reporters that Heaps and other Wilson staffers would no longer be working from inside the facility.
“We’re not going to do that here,” he said.
Russ was killing it for the first 5 weeks, then he sucked big time after that. Want to know why? Real teams with real defenses figured him out. Two safeties to stop the deep ball. And he was not good enough to offset their strategy.
