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The other day, I was doing some spring cleaning and unearthed, from the bottom of a stack of rarely worn t-shirts, a shirt that I had bought before last season started. Raise your hand if you bought some Russell Wilson gear about this time last year? Oh the promise and excitement over having a legit Pro Bowl quarterback under center again! I think I wore it once before the reality of the 2022 season set in.
Like many of you, I was surprised by how poorly Russell Wilson played. There’s plenty of blame to go around as to why the 2022 debacle happened: Poor offensive line play, injuries, Nathaniel Hackett’s historic ineptitude as a head coach (remember the crowd counting down the playclock? That’s going to stick with me for some time).
Folks love to paint Wilson as a diva or as a charlatan that was propped up by the genius of Pete Carrol (look what he did with Geno Smith!). All that is just noise that served to pile on an ineffective and woefully underperforming giant of the game. He can’t be this bad, can he?
In 2023, things look vastly different than it did in 2022. The gilded comforts of Wilson’s personal training staff and office at the facility have been taken from him. Nathaniel Hackett and his goofy blubbering are now New York’s problem. The Broncos were exceptionally active in free agency having already spent over $235 million on 13 free agents, 6 of them on offense. Then there’s Coach Sean Payton who seems to finally be the John Fox-style “adult in the room” that could spark future seasons of success... or at least something better than the disaster of 2022.
Do I think Wilson can do better this year? I do. I think help on the offensive line and the run-first approach that Sean Payton is taking will benefit Wilson a great deal. Hackett’s mistakes were in thinking that Wilson could be John Elway and in putting him in situations where not even John Elway could be successful. Quarterback ego be damned, Sean Payton is already changing the focus of this team so that it won’t all be on Wilson.
How much better will Wilson be over last year? While my hopes are that the real Russell Wilson the Broncos traded for will emerge from the carcass of suckitude we saw last year, my expectations are that any improvement will a success. We as fans need it to be. At this point in Wilson’s massive contract, we have to be behind him to make this work. The Broncos are shackled to him through at least next season and so we really need to make this work. Please. Make it work.
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