Bombshell report says Broncos and Wilson feuded for months over contract

There are two main reasons why Russell Wilson is no longer the starting quarterback of the Denver Broncos—the first is because of poor performance, but the second is a more complex contract stipulation.

Simply stated, as Wilson’s current five-year $250 million deal is constructed, it behooves the Broncos to not play the quarterback in the season’s dying days. Despite still having a small hope of making the postseason, an injury to Wilson would lock in his contract for next season thanks to a condition in his yet-to-kick-in mega extension. The provision would guarantee Wilson’s contract for 2024 if he finished 2023 injured. By not playing Wilson, it guarantees his health and the organization’s flexibility to move on from the quarterback, which they will likely do.

According to a report from Jordan Schultz, the Broncos threatened to bench Wilson much earlier in the season if he did not waive his injury guarantees. The Bleacher Report insider details, “The Broncos approached Wilson two days after their Oct. 29 upset win over the Kansas City Chiefs and told him he would be made inactive for the rest of the season if he did not adjust his contract and defer the injury guarantee trigger date that he has for 2025.”

The quarterback has a $37 million injury guarantee for 2025 that will become guaranteed no matter what on the fifth day of the 2024 league year in March. The way Schultz’s report lines up means, Denver threatened to bench Wilson after his most memorable win as a Bronco. His three touchdowns led the orange and blue to kill KC’s 16-game winning streak against Denver.

“The threat, ‘shocked him,’ and the two sides got into a major dispute on how to proceed,” Schultz wrote. “The issue remained, but the Broncos stuck with Wilson as the team strung together primetime wins over the Buffalo Bills and Minnesota Vikings, followed by another win over the Cleveland Browns, one of the league’s best defenses.”

Schultz says the threat by the Broncos to bench Wilson and the dispute from the quarterback’s camp to not change his contract went all the way up to the NFLPA. Meaning, Wednesday’s big decision to bench Wilson and start Jarrett Stidham has been months in the making and comes from Sean Payton and the highest level of decision-makers that run the Broncos.

Confirmed Jordan's report. #Broncos wanted to move back injury guarantee date of fifth date of league year this offseason. They wanted to push it back with it feeling like intention was to have Wilson compete for job in training camp in 2024 without guaranteeing him the 2025… https://t.co/QI3T1iuO3V

— Troy Renck (@TroyRenck) December 27, 2023

“Yeah, absolutely,” Payton said when asked if they can win long-term with Wilson while saying they’ll deal with the long-term situation later. “But we’re not there right now.”

While Payton may shake it off for now, it’s pretty clear the Broncos were at the very least aware of the coming situation for months and the move made ahead of Week 17 is about the future—not a possible spark from a veteran backup that has a short resume.

On Wednesday afternoon while Wilson’s teammates, including Stidham, were talking to the media the quarterback liked tweets sharing Schultz’s report.

Here's Russell Wilson liking tweets about the details of his benching pic.twitter.com/AKHg0nYqJZ

— Jake Shapiro, but festive 🎁 (@Shapalicious) December 27, 2023

Wilson, of course, has every right to keep his contract as favorable to him as what he signed. Despite a better team record, one could make a case that if anything Wilson’s numbers got slightly worse after Denver’s reported threat to bench him. A throw here or there over the past few weeks have been enough to end Denver’s postseason drought. But maybe the Broncos knew all along what we know now, this team wasn’t going to be good enough to make serious noise and it’ll take rebuilding without Wilson to again peak.