The Denver Broncos squeezed out a narrow 16-9 victory Sunday over the Los Angeles Chargers to keep their faint playoff hopes alive. But that outcome, as well as the game itself, took a back seat to a simmering controversy involving QB Russell Wilson and head coach Sean Payton.
Payton announced last week that Wilson would be benched for the final two games of the season, despite the fact that under Wilson this season Denver had rebounded from a slow start to get into playoff contention.
Payton said the move was made strictly for football reasons. But Wilson claimed it was because he refused to accept a change in his contract.
The Wilson contract situation is both messy and complicated. It contains a provision guaranteeing not only his 2024 contract but an injury protection clause that guarantees him not only $39 million for 2024, but 37 million for 2025 should he be hurt and not available to play by the first week of the new NFL year in March.
Wilson claims that Payton and the team pressured him to eliminate that clause as early as the eighth week of the season. He repeated that charge last Friday and added he would not under any circumstance delete that provision from his contract.
“This game is such a physical game,” he told the Denver Post. “I played for 12 years and that matters to me.”
A Washington Post story over the weekend claimed that the union warned the Broncos months ago that threatening to bench Wilson over a contract provision could be viewed as a breach of the collective bargaining agreement.
Payton continues to maintain the move was made strictly for football reasons, and adds that he is not involved in contractual issues.
A big part of the problem is Wilson signed a seven-year deal with the Broncos in a situation with both a different head coach and ownership.
That he had a bad season last year and the team is only 11-19 during his tenure as starting QB is cited by those who agree with Payton and feel there is ample justification for the change.
Some national commentators like Ryan Clark and Dan Orlovsky of ESPN have been highly critical of Payton’s treatment of Wilson.
There are others in the print media who feel Wilson caused his own problems by forcing his way out of Seattle and going to Denver because he wanted to have more control of a team’s offense. They point to Wilson and Seattle head coach Pete Carroll clashing late in Wilson’s time there, and view this latest episode as just another example of a QB with an outsized ego unable to acknowledge fading skills.
The truth of this no doubt lies somewhere between these viewpoints, but one thing is crystal clear. Russell Wilson’s time in Denver is over. Even facing a $90 million dollar cap hit, the Broncos are parting ways with him after the season ends.
Where he goes next, as well as how the controversy over the contract clause plays out, will be closely watched.
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