Through the eyes of Sean Payton, Broncos Country will fall in love again with quarterback Russell Wilson.
There has been much talk and more than a little consternation about how Payton is going to fix Wilson, or if the $245 million contract extension the Broncos hastily handed their veteran quarterback already needs to be written off as a bad investment.
Fix?
That’s the wrong word, if you ask me.
Yes, Wilson stunk during his first season in Denver, when he threw only 16 touchdown passes and several head-scratching interceptions while dragging the Broncos into last place in the AFC West with him.
At age 34, maybe Wilson ain’t the quarterback he used to be, and he might never play MVP-caliber football again. But to be a quarterback capable of guiding the Broncos back to the playoffs, he doesn’t need to be fixed.
Wilson needs to be coached.
A foolish, almost inexplicable reluctance to coach up Wilson is why Nathaniel Hackett got dumped after 15 games on the Denver sideline.
Hackett allowed Wilson to do way too much of the thinking for him, the offense and the team in general. The Broncos did whatever pleased DangeRuss. It was a bad way to run a football team.
That is a mistake that most definitely will not be repeated by Payton.
While NFL owners worked on their tans down in Arizona, football journalists far smarter than me grilled Payton on all things Broncos, drawing out the new coach’s thoughts on what he likes about Wilson.
“He’s super competitive. He’s won at a high level. He’s someone that I think moves well. He’s someone that I think works extremely hard. It’s hard to find guys with all those traits,” Payton said.
All those kind words are true, and the praise was hard-earned by Wilson, who owns a Super Bowl ring. But whether it was intentional or not, what Payton didn’t say was equally revealing.
What was the most glaring and disturbing weakness in Wilson’s game during a 5-12 season in which the suffering refused to subside?
Too often, Wilson seemed stumped while reading defenses, missing open receivers and throwing blindly into coverage. It stunned me that he had so much trouble seeing the field in front of him.
Although his lack of stature is often scapegoated for his struggles, Wilson’s lack of field vision often had little or nothing to do with him being 5-foot-11. He played like a quarterback who didn’t truly trust his coach’s scheme, his receivers or his offensive line, resulting in too little patience and way too much panic.
“I watched, with every one of you, the season that took place a year ago … There’s probably a bit of dirt on a lot of people’s hands,” Payton told journalists far more important than me down in Arizona. “When you win five games, it is what it is. I don’t think I need to elaborate any more. It wasn’t good. Wasn’t good on offense, that’s for sure. It was hard film to watch.”
Follow the money that Denver spent in free agency and it seems obvious that instead of trying to fix Wilson, what Payton wants to do is pound the rock with a strong run game to put less burden on his quarterback to win games. While Payton’s track record in New Orleans doesn’t suggest a coach particularly in love with the play-action pass, I’m guessing he’s smart enough to realize that having Wilson take a higher percentage of snaps under center is an idea worth exploring.
We all know quarterback Drew Brees was essential to the success Payton enjoyed in New Orleans. But when the Saints rolled to a division title with a 13-3 record in 2018 and were denied a trip to the Super Bowl after being taken down dirty by poor officiating in the NFC championship game, it was running backs Alvin Kamara and Mark Ingram who made a team that led the league in rushing touchdowns go.
What I expect Payton to do with Wilson isn’t all that different than how Mike Shanahan helped John Elway late in the Hall of Fame quarterback’s career, with an offensive mastermind exerting physical dominance over an opponent through a commitment to pounding the rock.
Hackett expected Wilson to make a rookie coach without a clue look smart. That idea was as dumb as it was unsophisticated.
The brains of the Broncos’ operation now? It’s Payton. No doubt.
The new coach will do the big thinking around here. Patyon will coach Wilson, establishing a structure that will allow Wilson to see the field and trust his instincts.
When the Broncos win, everybody will look smarter.
_____
