The 61-page ruling in the collusion grievance contains plenty of fascinaring details. Several of them relate to the contract signed by Broncos quarterback Russell Wilson in 2022, after the trade that brought him to Denver from Seattle.
A deeper dive on the Watson negotiations and eventual deal is coming. For now, it’s important to applaud the instincts of then new-owner Greg Penner.
In contemporaneous notes created by Penner at the time, he wrote this: “2 years left on contract, why not wait?”
It would have been the smart move. Wilson always received new contracts with one year left on his existing deal. The Broncos could have given Wilson a year to prove that he can still cook, before burning millions on his next contract.
But the Broncos didn’t wait, committing $124 million to Wilson in full guarantees from 2022 through 2024. And they cut him in March 2024, before his $37 million injury guarantee for 2025 became fully guaranteed.
Still, the Broncos ultimately gave Wilson $124 million (minus the league-minimum $1.21 million he earned in Pittsburgh last year) for two seasons of so-so football. While not the same degree of disaster as the Deshaun Watson contract for the Broncos, it was a very bad deal for the Broncos.
And the Broncos could have avoided it, if they’d simply acted on the instincts of their new owner and waited until after the 2022 season to fashion a new contract (if any) with Wilson.
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