March 7 will go down as one of the most consequential days in recent NFL history, with both Aaron Rodgers re-cementing his commitment to the Green Bay Packers and Russell Wilson moving to the Denver Broncos. These events will cause waves lapping up on the shores of all 32 franchises, which we will do our best to dissect here. This is far more than a Russell Wilson story or a Packers story. What happened on Tuesday was a reflection of modern clout, power and the way the business is trending.
Here is what we saw from our vantage point:
WINNERS
Brian Gutekunst
I’m not sure the Packers, even a few days ago, thought this was going to happen the way that it did. Now that it has, Brian Gutekunst ends up being the person who rescued the franchise’s wayward relationship with perhaps its all-time greatest player. The first-round quarterback he drafted to replace Rodgers served as somewhat effective leverage and they’ll now, because of the dismal draft class, be able to recoup most of the spent draft equity on Jordan Love. I’d personally be surprised if he goes for less than a second-round pick and maybe some kind of incentivized late-round pick. The argument for many would be that Love is better and more seasoned than any of the top prospects coming up this year.
Of course, this all could have blown the other way. Rodgers could have tested the waters elsewhere. He could have burned down the forest behind him. He could have made Gutekunst into the Guy Who Forced Aaron Rodgers Out. Instead, through some strategic patience, the Packers executive has now navigated two situations that, for a less composed individual, might have resulted in utter chaos.
Before this, it was the hiring of Matt LaFleur and the transitioning from a Mike McCarthy locker room full of tenured veterans. There is a reason good franchises find themselves in the playoffs almost every year regardless of massive internal changes.
Aaron Rodgers
While I personally credited Rodgers with brilliantly winning a power struggle, I’m still not entirely sure how he did it, or what ultimately would have been different if he decided to just sign a long-term extension sooner. He ends up boxing out Jordan Love and forcing the former first-round pick to play elsewhere. He probably gets another Randall Cobb-ian signing somewhere along the line. He gets the assurance that his power will go unchecked in Wisconsin for however much longer he decides to play football.
All of this is a wonderful peace of mind. Beating back the idea that a franchise can challenge you at any moment or change their stance on you in the long-term gives you the freedom to end your career the way you would like to end it. You are shielded from some kind of unceremonious dumping and you have probably scared the franchise into not squandering your remaining years like the Patriots did with Tom Brady, or the Lions did throughout the entirety of Matthew Stafford’s career.
Another aspect of this that has gone unnoticed: I don’t think Rodgers is like Tom Brady or Matthew Stafford in that, if he were to go somewhere else, the end product isn’t automatic success. We had the same doubts about Brady, who ultimately proved us wrong. But Rodgers is so incredibly particular. He grooms his coaches, his receivers. He is not as easy to plug and play. This situation avoids what could have been an unsatisfyingly rocky end to a wonderful career.
Jordan Love
At the very least, Jordan Love emerged Tuesday as the best young, unproven option for QB-needy teams heading into draft season. As we mentioned before. Gutekunst has the option to trade him now and could come close to recouping his investment (maybe he gets a mid-second rounder instead of a late first). I think this ends up being the best scenario, and something Green Bay ultimately owes a quarterback who was something of a leverage play for them for so long. If Love gets a fresh start somewhere, he is absolutely a winner here. No one wants to hold a clipboard for the entirety of their rookie deal and then get jettisoned out into the real world with no true market value. While he doesn’t have the ability to rattle the Packers’ front office the way Rodgers did, Rodgers’s flailings certainly create an opening for Love to express some competitive unhappiness about the situation and a desire to seek a trade elsewhere.
Russell Wilson
While the rest of us know better, Russell Wilson gets to leave Seattle without looking like he bolted. He gets to settle into an offense that is built a lot like the best offenses he succeeded with in Seattle and nestles in with one of the best young play-callers in the NFL. We’ll get to the flip side of this momentarily, but our immediate reaction is one of optimism. Despite the rigors of the division, Wilson escapes a Seahawks franchise that had been toying with a short-term rebuild for some time now. He gets to untangle himself from the Pete Carroll regime and reestablish himself as an entity outside of the perpetually overlooked, undersized guy who quarterbacked during the Legion of Boom. There is no doubt Wilson is elite, and now we get to find out exactly how much so. Everything about the Denver setup, from their receivers, to the offensive line, to the coaching infrastructure seems perfect for Wilson and idyllic for any experienced quarterback to walk into.
While Wilson’s new head coach will have options, and had more of a traditional West Coast flavor before joining Matt LaFleur and the outside zone school in Green Bay, the combination of those two disciplines has created a wider playing field from which to operate. Hackett will not be married to any one particular scheme, but can draw on what Wilson does best. We have long desired to see Wilson in a scheme that more effectively marries the run and the pass, which Seattle struggled to do once beastly Marshawn Lynch retired.
Nathanial Hackett
One would imagine spirits are high in Denver. Hackett gets the second-best quarterback available. Outside of a reunion with Rodgers, which was never fully in the cards, this was the ideal option for a tenured offensive coach who has the clout to work with just about anyone after his time with Rodgers. Hackett, who we profiled extensively this offseason, is adaptable, which is something Wilson had been desiring out of his Seattle coaching staff for some time now. He is going to be able to run Wilson’s strengths through a number of different options and place him in more advantageous situations that don’t always involve theatrical hero ball.
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Jerry Jeudy, Courtland Sutton, Tim Patrick
The Broncos’ receiving corps have been thirsting for competent quarterback play. This one is about as obvious as it gets. Sutton and Patrick ran a fair amount of deep balls that simply weren’t taken into consideration by the more efficient Teddy Bridgewater, whose deep ball prowess has been unfairly criticized but is nowhere near Wilson’s. Bridgewater’s average target depth in 2021 was actually better than that of Aaron Rodgers or Justin Herbert, though he tended to live in that middle range. Wilson is going to make Sutton and Patrick’s energy-spending full-speed sprints up the sideline worth their while.
Jimmy Garoppolo, John Lynch
Garoppolo now becomes the best quarterback on the market by a significant margin. It’s unclear what the 49ers want to do with him, but they are in a fairly incredible position. The dead cap number is completely harmless if they’d like to move on. The total quarterback spending, thanks to Trey Lance’s rookie deal, is in line with other NFL franchises if they’d like to keep him. At this point, it wouldn’t be ludicrous to imagine Garoppolo could recoup for the 49ers their second-round pick investment. Lynch, meanwhile, gets to field calls from a position of strength at a time when the 49ers would like to get some of their lost draft capital from the Lance trade back.
John Schneider
Schneider has come under fire of late, especially after the extension of vulnerable safety turned oft-used blitzing linebacker Jamal Adams. But he did about as well as he could on the Wilson trade given the circumstances. Schneider should get the chance to spearhead the Seahawks through a time of great instability. We don’t know what Pete Carroll’s long-term future looks like. We don’t know how ownership—which, a few short months ago claimed great unhappiness with the state of the club—feels about the viability of a long-term plan. But, Schneider can lean on his reputation and his track record. He can also, for the first time in what feels like forever, start throwing some serious draft capital around to rebuild the franchise. He has earned the right to build a new foundation.
Les Snead, Sean McVay and the Rams
A point brought up by my excellent editor and MMQB podcast co-host Gary Gramling: The Rams got a quarterback as good as Wilson—one about the same age—for significantly less than the Broncos spent on Wilson and already have a Super Bowl to show for it. Matthew Stafford was dealt to the Rams for a pair of first-round picks, a third-round pick and Jared Goff. The Broncos dealt two first-round picks, two second-round picks, a fifth-round pick and a handful of valuable veteran talent. Snead will at some point confront the difficulties of his highwire roster building strategy, but in the era of quarterback movement, he’s come out exceptionally clean and forward-thinking.
LOSERS
Daniel Snyder
Wilson chose to play in the toughest division in football, alongside Patrick Mahomes, Andy Reid, Brandon Staley, Justin Herbert, Josh McDaniels and Derek Carr, instead of going to the NFC East, where competent quarterback play can lord over that division like some kind of politically connected backwoods family. Washington was, according to our own Albert Breer, in on Wilson but never got the kind of fair shake the Broncos did. Seattle obviously did not want Wilson to stay in the NFC, though chances are he would not have signed a deal with the Commanders anyway.
You can slice this however you choose, but the stench this organization continues to give off is obviously a deterrent and it manifests itself significantly in moments like these. If the Snyder operation was one players were excited about, they would be in the conversation. Ron Rivera is a great head coach and is well liked. There are home grown weapons and a potentially great defense. But they have to overpay for free agent talent and are not even a consideration for generational quarterback talent on the market. Their only hope is to catch fire in the draft again and hope they don’t strangle or alienate whomever they choose this time around. That, or a sale.
Pete Carroll
While Schneider makes out here and is given a trove of picks and the runway to start anew, Carroll enters this year at age 71 staring down the potential of a soft rebuild at the bottom of the best division in football (maybe second-best now?). There were plenty of whispers on the coaching carousel this offseason of a potential retirement. While Carroll’s temperament may not be one that could capitalize on the booming broadcast market, the buyer’s market could have rescued him from a season that will undoubtedly be full of headaches. While I’m guessing Carroll did not want to return to college, either, his name was off the carousel at a time when Brian Kelly was getting $90 million to fake a southern accent at LSU.
I don’t think we should feel bad for Carroll, but I think we should recognize some of the irony here. If Carroll was ultimately comfortable moving on from Wilson, he waited until he had nearly aged out of coaching to explore that life. If he didn’t want to move on from Wilson and had his hand forced, it’s kind of a drag to end your career on—and ultimately disappointing given that there was so much potential for this team over the last decade.
Russell Wilson
The strange part about this Russell Wilson saga is that he won a power struggle in Seattle and, theoretically, had a franchise that was best suited for his needs. He got the coordinators he wanted, the receivers he wanted, the elite left tackle he needed. And while he certainly made the most of a few post-Legion of Boom seasons, he never materialized as the kind of lifts-all-boats kind of player we thought he might, which was the crux of most anonymous criticisms lobbed at him by former teammates. Now, Wilson is in a uniquely high-pressure situation. The offensive line is excellent in Denver. The running game is powerful. The defense is as good, on paper, as some of the better units Wilson played with in Seattle. The scheme is the most popular and potent in the NFL.
This is a legacy dependent maneuver for Wilson, and kudos to him for trying to make it happen like Tom Brady did. However, Brady has spent more time in his career hoisting undermanned rosters than Wilson has. Brady’s style of play was more sustainable and replicable.
While I would never advocate for someone to sit in their comfort zone for the entirety of their careers, Wilson had control of the narrative in Seattle. The coaching staff was dated. The personnel side was unaggressive. Wilson was the broadway star playing in the rundown theater. All of that changes now, and he’s willingly exposed himself to the idea that he is either A: the player we all hoped he was, or B: the player his teammates have been trying to tell us he actually is.
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DK Metcalf and Tyler Lockett
Being a great deep ball receiver, or a receiver who excels at broken play routes has its advantages, especially if you play with Russell Wilson. Wilson was, like a vintage Ben Roethlisberger, so good at extending plays that he created unique career paths for wideouts willing to grow alongside him. In addition, Wilson is arguably the best deep ball thrower in the NFL. All of that is gone now. While one or both could be dealt as part of this rebuilding process, sending them to a better place, for now, they seem to be prisoners of the moment. Seattle’s plodding offense remains. Drew Lock (?) is there to steer the ship, barring the first-round selection of a passer or some other stunning development. This has to feel a bit like abandonment for Metcalf and Lockett, who could turn into miniature versions of Wilson themselves; saying out loud that they desire to remain the pacific Northwest while pocket texting their agent like Matt Damon in The Departed trying to find a way out.
David Tepper
During the coaching carousel season, it seemed Tepper wasn’t happy with the way Matt Rhule’s job kept getting connected to potential collegiate openings. Tepper stuck his neck out for the former Baylor head coach and handed a first-time pro a contract commensurate with some of the league’s elite coaches at the time; a move that ruffled feathers around the league. What he got was not the program builder and facilitator of a great offense that he’d expected. Rhule was not really in on any of the major veteran quarterbacks. The trade for Sam Darnold may have been one of the worst deals of the last decade (worth noting, by the way, that Joe Douglas has now fleeced two clubs in Seattle and Carolina). Now, they are pinned against a wall. Despite their division being incredibly winnable, they possess no firepower under center and fired the coordinator who made Darnold even somewhat functional as a scapegoat maneuver.
Tepper could have found himself in the mix for Kevin Stefanski, the coach who ended the Browns playoff drought. He could have been in the mix for Nick Sirianni, who, along with a promising young staff, overcoached a rebuilding roster into a playoff contender. Instead, a billionaire who has made a living capitalizing on market inefficiencies finds himself on days like this one sitting with a depreciating asset and no sign of help on the way.
Indianapolis Colts
The seats on the quarterback express are filling up rapidly and the Colts look increasingly likely to be saddled with Carson Wentz again. Their honest, non-committal stance on the quarterback reflects their general lack of enthusiasm about what Wentz brings moving forward. In reality, Wentz served as the line of demarcation in 2021 for quarterbacks good enough to lift their teams into the playoffs and quarterbacks not quite good enough. Behind the scenes, Frank Reich blamed himself for the late-season tailspin culminating in a loss to the Jaguars that knocked them out of the playoffs, but Wentz’s final two weeks stood out. His bad throw percentage in those games, according to Pro Football Reference, was over 20%. One in every five throws was ill-advised. Both games featured completion percentages below 60% and quarterback ratings below 90. This is truly one of the major disappointments in the NFL. Indianapolis built a formidable, Super Bowl caliber roster but have since lost Andrew Luck and Matt Eberflus, two pieces who have or will prove to be irreplaceable.
Tampa Bay Buccaneers
While the Buccaneers always felt like a candidate to regress massively, another domino off the board further puts their situation into perspective. Though they are desperately trying to hold onto pieces from their 2020 Super Bowl run, they will end up overpaying and ultimately overcompensating for what they’ve lost in Tom Brady. Tampa Bay returns to a once-in-a-blue-moon football outpost while their formula for success gets perfected elsewhere and used against them.
Buffalo Bills, Tennessee Titans
It has to be frustrating for both the Bills and the Titans—a pair of teams who have done an incredible job at raising their rosters to meet the talent level of the best teams in the division—that another serious contender has been thrust into the mix out of the AFC. The West may command three playoff spots in 2022 alone. Meanwhile, both clubs are seeing their finite windows starting to close. The Bills lost star offensive coordinator Brian Daboll. Josh Allen is no longer on an affordable rookie contract. The Titans are realizing their limitations with Ryan Tannehill at quarterback and the fragility of their system sans Derrick Henry. What does Denver’s presence as a reborn contender do? It throws another wrench into the system. New England is another year better and more capable. The Ravens will finally luck out on the injury front (possibly?). One of these two teams might see itself squeezed out.
Noah Fant
Fant is coming off a career year and could have found himself poised to inherit tight end loving Russell Wilson just before a contract year. Unfortunately for Fant, he’ll be shipped off to Seattle; a place that has been a bit of a comical black hole for the position over the past few seasons. While he may end up also reuniting with Lock, creating some beneficial familiarity, he misses out on a Packers-inspired offense that generates a ton of action for tight ends in the red zone.
Josh McDaniels
The long-time Patriots offensive coordinator goes from more than a decade of divisional incompetence to one of the best divisions in football. The AFC West went from moderately competitive to impossibly competitive overnight. The Raiders went from having arguably the second best quarterback in the division to arguably the worst (and we are on record as Derek Carr fans, believing he is perpetually a top 10 passer). Las Vegas was always a curious move for McDaniels, who had opportunities in the past and let them fall by the wayside.
Vic Fangio
Fangio is the second straight Broncos head coach who ended up entirely hosed at the quarterback position. While he’s taking a year off before torturing opposing coordinators again, Fangio is watching an organization move onward and upward without him, despite the fact that he took the tatters of a wayward franchise and hoisted them into playoff contention last year with Teddy Bridgewater and Drew Lock under center.
