Russell Wilson seemingly breaks his silence on being benched by the Denver Broncos. The Super Bowl champion quarterback went to X (formerly known as Twitter) to react to the team benching him for the final two games of the season. It was also reported that the Broncos will likely cut Wilson in March after underperforming in his two years with the franchise.
“God’s got me. Looking forward to what’s next.” According to The Athletic, the Broncos reached out to Wilson on Oct. 29 to tell a Wilson representative that the quarterback would lose his role as the starter and that he would be inactive for the rest of the year if he didn’t defer an injury guarantee trigger date he has for 2025. Jarrett Stidham will be the Broncos’ starting QB for the rest of the year.
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“I understand all the speculation and everything that surrounds a move like that,” Broncos head coach Sean Payton said Wednesday, per the team’s official website. “I can tell you, look, we’re desperately trying to win. Sure, in our game today, there are economics and all those other things, but the No. 1 push behind this — and it’s a decision I’m making — is to get a spark offensively. Obviously, it’s difficult and all of us feel like, ‘Man, we didn’t do well enough.’
“One of the things that we saw when we signed Stidham in the offseason was not only film from preseason games but regular-season games. He’s a guy that I’m anxious to see play. If I didn’t feel like he gave us the chance to win, we wouldn’t be making that move.”
Wilson was traded to the Broncos from the Seattle Seahawks before the 2022 season. Before the start of the 2022 season, Wilson signed a five-year $245 million contract extension with the Broncos. He has $37 million in injury guarantees for 2025 that will become guaranteed on the fight day of the 2024 league year in March. If the Broncos cut Wilson, it would mean a $85 million dead-money hit. They could spread that money over two seasons with a post-June 1 designation, but that would mean the team would have limited money to spend at the QB position.
