The Broncos are entering training camp with their best quarterback situation in eight years. While Russell Wilson provides a massive upgrade for the long-QB-starved franchise, the subject of his contract will be a front-burner item soon.
Still on the $35MM-per-year Seahawks contract he signed in April 2019, when that deal topped the market, Wilson has since seen his deal surpassed by several passers. The new market makes Wilson’s pact barely a top-10 NFL accord, and Kyler Murray‘s extension now means there are four QBs attached to $45MM-per-year deals or north of that. Four other deals top $40MM AAV.
Wilson will almost certainly be added to that list, and second-year Broncos GM George Paton is confident a deal will be completed. It just might not happen this year. Wilson is attached to $24MM and $27MM cap numbers in 2022 and ’23, respectively.
“We all want Russell here a long time,” Paton said, via Ryan O’Halloran of the Denver Post. “Out of respect for his team and our team, we’re going to keep it in-house, any discussions we may or may not have. I have a really good relationship with [Wilson agent] Mark Rodgers. At the right time, we’ll get a deal done.”
Denver moving on this now might save the franchise some money, but Wilson’s best interests could be to wait. Circumstances may well dictate that as well. The possibility this is pushed to 2023 has been out there for a bit now, and the Broncos are transitioning to a new owner, Rob Walton, whose acquisition has not yet been approved by the league. That would figure to hold up a matter as important as Wilson’s first Broncos-negotiated contract. Walton, however, is expected to be in place as the Broncos’ next owner by the time the season starts. That would open a narrow window to a Wilson extension before this season.
The perennial Pro Bowl passer is coming off a down year, one in which he missed time due to injury for the first time in his career and saw a quick return from that setback lead to substandard play, and could use the 2022 season as a springboard to better value entering the 2023 offseason. The QB market could also include a Lamar Jackson extension by 2023, with monster re-ups for Joe Burrow and Justin Herbert in play as well. One or more of these QBs being extended by the time Wilson and the Broncos enter serious negotiations would drive up the two-time Super Bowl starter’s market.
Wilson can also use the Broncos’ lengthy run of below-average QB play to his advantage, and the team being on the verge of having the NFL’s richest owner would not hurt its trade acquisition’s cause. Walton’s approximate net worth, in the $70 billion neighborhood, would be an asset to Rodgers and Wilson negotiating a deal that includes guarantees that approach Deshaun Watson‘s. Though, Watson’s $230MM fully guaranteed remains an outlier. Murray’s $103MM guaranteed at signing sits second overall.
Wilson’s Seahawks negotiations were eventful in both the 2015 and ’19 offseasons, and prospective talks on a fourth contract helped drive the NFC West team to trade its star quarterback. Though, the Broncos seeing a noticeable production spike at the game’s premier position will likely be worth the tradeoff of having a player command a deal in the $50MM-per-year range.