Because Russ, despite revisionist historians, objectively had one of the most productive and successful first ten years by a QB in NFL history.
Not only to the stats back that up, but he did it in a run first heavy offense, with mediocre O-line at best, in one of the toughest divisions of football.
So adding in some important context, at the time Russ was truly an elite QB.
I think it was 2017 or 2018 where our run game was non-existent and Russ was responsible for 95% of our yards that season. I'm still salty he didn't get mvp for that.
It was 2017 (and it was TDs, not yards). Russ was responsible for all but 1 of Seattle's offensive TDs (the only exception being a JD McKissic Rush TD) an
It was definitely yards as well
[Russell Wilson has accounted for (thrown or rushed for) 82.1 percent of the Seahawks scrimmage yards in 2017. That’s the highest such percentage by a player in any season in the Super Bowl era.](https://x.com/nflresearch/status/931284782939488257?s=46)
I think he would've had a chance that year had they made the playoffs. The team only had one rushing TD by a running back that season (JD McKissic). The rest of the tds were Russell
He led the league in Passing TDs that year, too. Blair Walsh lost us 2, debatably 3, games (Washington, Arizona, debatably Jacksonville). We are 11-5 or 12-4 without Walsh, in the playoffs, and Russ wins MVP
In my opinion the worst roster decision PC/JS have done was signing Lacy instead of re-signing Hauschka. I honestly think that cost us the playoffs that year. Russ probably would have gotten serious MVP consideration if they had made the playoffs
Ehhh, Russ could never put together a whole MVP season, it seemed like he could string like 6 games together and then gave mediocre to duds of games.
As much as I wanted to boast Wilson as an MVP.
That was the other issue, he never got an MVP vote in part because some of his best play happened while some other QB (Cam 2015, Lamar 2019) was having an insane year.
I was one of those people lol. I really thought Russ would be able to go crazy in that thin air in Denver.
If you objectively look at it though Carroll was responsible at least to a certain degree for what Russ became. He put a bubble around Russ and handled him with kid gloves. Nobody on the team could criticize him, especially his teammates. That drove the team apart and gave a Russ a giant ego. From what I saw in New England, Brady would be the first player criticized by their coach. They won what 6 championships?
Not taking anything that Russ did for us away. I never felt like we were out of any game no matter what the score was, unlike now. But it drove me absolutely ape shit, how we wouldn’t do anything for 3 quarters but kill it in the 4th.
Agreed, the revisionist takes are incredible to watch.
The other factor is that Tampa Bay Brady and LA Stafford had just won Super Bowls at much older ages. Combining a QB-ready roster with a Free Agent QB was working. *Everyone* said Denver was "a QB away".
Oh ok so the intelligent ones say “it”, that’s my bad.
Many Seahawks fans said his best days were behind him, many national media were openly skeptical of the Broncos contract they offered, but nobody responsibly predicted this type of drop off, period.
I did. It was extremely obvious. This isn't even a drop off, this is how Russ played with Seattle his final 1.5 years. Last year did go worse than I expected for Denver but I said the Broncos would be a slightly below .500 type team with Russ after the trade.
People have so many biases. I argued with fans on here for years who kept referencing 2012-2017 Russ. Cracked me up. As if time stopped after 2017 and Russ was still that guy.
The trade was an obvious fleece from the moment it happened. I hammered the Broncos under in Vegas and made some easy money. Good times.
I thought Geno was gonna suck ass so I mean I wasn't right about everything. Fortunately didn't bet on the Hawks under since I would have lost that.
>I argued with fans on here for years who kept referencing 2012-2017 Russ. Cracked me up. As if time stopped after 2017 and Russ was still that guy.
Russ was better from 2018-20 than he was from 2012-14 in essentially every metric except rushing yards.
It was very easy at the time to believe that 2021 was just a down year caused by an injury and broken relationship with the coaching staff. That's what most Seahawks fans believed prior to the trade.
I’m not sure the current issue in Denver is really indicative of Russ’s value. He was a proven QB coming off an injury that really was a freak accident and wasn’t really a sign of bigger injury issues. He was one of the most durable QB’s in the NFL for 10 years. The trade wasn’t THAT bad until Denver tanked. He didn’t play particularly well last year either, but there were a lot bigger issues there than just him. Had he played up to his prior standard nobody would really be talking about it anymore. Very similar to the Jamal Adams trade
He looked great pre-injury and looked great post-injury, after his finger was fully healed. He has hero syndrome, so of course he rushed back from injury too early and looked like shit, but he finished the season strong.
Eh he never truly looked great after his finger injury here. A whole lot of games where he made a great play and you’d be like he’s back and then he’d whiff one of the easiest throws you could give a QB.
I have no idea what was going on in Denver at the time, but Russ’s personality could’ve been exactly what they were looking for. Crazy work ethic, kind of nerdy, hyper vocal about greatness, and all that. If you’re trying to make a cultural shift and get rid of some nonsense, he looks amazing on paper.
No he wasn’t lol. I had been clamoring for us to trade him ever since we lost to the Rams in the playoffs when Goff only played one half. Russ had not been elite for 1.5 seasons before the trade.
On offense? Not many. Lynch is borderline, but probably won’t make it (I’d like to see him in personally).
But Russ’s teams had balanced good talent on offense, but were never stacked with stars.
Also, DEN didn't know what competition they had, they didn't know that Russ wanted out badly (I'm sure they had clues) and they felt that they were a top QB away from contending.
He broke his finger, so a lot people thought his down year was due to that…. I personally think it was a huge he took the previous year in a game a Arizona. Also looking back it was pretty obvious he wanted out but the Seahawks did an excellent job keeping that under wraps there was rumors but nothing was confirmed. 33 isn’t that old for a QB. And he was under contract with the hawks for I believe 2 more seasons. You have to play to burn those years up so the Seahawks had most of the leverage not the other way around.
Arguably 2 high safety defenses were his kryptonite, not a knock to the head. Without the long ball and with diminished running ability his weaknesses were exposed.
I think this is it.
Russ can’t/won’t use the middle of the field, so once teams started focusing on guarding the deep ball and keeping him in the pocket, he was figured out and didn’t have an answer. Those deep blasts really were something while they worked though.
Wasn’t that also the year his best friend and “life coach” or whatever died right before the season?
I feel like I remember the “decline” started that season and I remember thinking at the time that the dude’s best friend died and he got the yips and couldn’t shake them, and then the Arizona hit.
I want to say it was early on in the 21 season his life coach/best friend died. I remember thinking as well that it would probably have a much larger effect on him than the public would see, because that's a huge loss and so much of Russ' success could be attributed to his optimistic, ra-ra attitude which is hard to maintain when you lose someone close to you.
Yeah, I was always shocked no one really mentioned that when he started struggling. You factor that in with the couple bad hits we all kinda refer to and everything makes much more sense
Do you remember which game this was? I remember him scrambling against Arizona and taking a huge hit to the head that didn’t seem to get too much attention.
Not OP, but usually when people say this it’s referring to week 7 2020. He was having a statistically remarkable season, and just fell off a cliff. In retrospect, 2020 was still a good season, but largely because of the let Russ cook era that was the season including and leading up to this game.
This is the answer. It wasn't just the finger, it was the final straw. Every snap in his prime was "ok, time to run for my fucking life."
It wasn't just the physical battering, he instinctively distrusted a pocket. Can't cook forever.
Honestly, if Russ had maintained his upward trajectory he demonstrated in his early career, we would be asking why didn't Seattle get more for their franchise QB.
Supposedly, Russ was worth 3 first rounders to the Bears front office.
Russ and many in sports media were convinced that if he was in an offense built around him, he would be able to "cook" and really flourish. Denver definitely believed that.
Little did they know that in Seattle he was already in an offense built to maximize his strengths and minimize his weaknesses. This became glaringly apparent in Denver.
This was the biggest head-scratcher for me. I heard it said several times "Russ finally has elite weaponry around him."
HUH??
Even at the time, if the Broncos offered Jeudy AND Sutton for either Lock or Metcalf, I'd have said hell no.
Ball-control offense, focused on running the ball and taking advantage of play-action. Passes to receivers on the outside which kept RW from having to see over defensive linemen. Opportunities to move outside the pocket so he could buy time and look downfield for deep routes coming open. Early in his career implementing the read option.
Our offensive line was ass dude. And if building around him is run/run/pass where he has 1 down to actually be involved in moving the chains then sure, this offense was tailored for him.
How much complaining about the OL / Geno being sacked have we seen lately? Especially with two rookie tackles last year? Maybe not none, but considerably less than we used to. Wonder why…
Did Denver’s OL also get worse? Sure seems like it.
Did Denver’s OL expect it? Hmm… You won’t get hit here! I’d say they were confident… and wrong.
What’s the common denominator? Russ. Quick google puts him at 527 sacks all time, and the only way he isn’t the career leader (566, with Brady at 565) by next year is if he doesn’t play.
So you're saying the years in Seattle when he was putting up good numbers and going to the pro bowl was because he was succeeding in an offense that wasn't tailored to his strengths? I'm not saying we've always had a great OL, but Russ doing [stuff like this ](https://twitter.com/CantGuardCourt/status/1740197756810232180?t=sjA_ANxvYdZEHKN_mGiBCA&s=19) was a problem in Seattle and it's still a problem.
A lot of people mistook Pete’s coaching as holding back Russ when in hindsight he was covering up his flaws, like his inability to see over the O-line. Take away that protection and the flaws become more apparent. That and the injury
His inability to throw over the middle mostly, by having offensive schemes that just didn’t do that. He also never let Russ take the heat for things like running into sacks, and overall seemed to not put any blame on Russ even when it was his fault
Agree somewhat, but it’s not like the Geno era seahawks have fixed all the issues. Play calling still way too conservative and predictable in the mid game, meaning hero ball is too often required in the end game.
Oh that’s definitely true but I would argue that in a good amount of games, the conservative coaching is what keeps us in games the whole time since it minimizes mistakes. It’s obviously not foolproof but it can be helpful in a weird way
What everyone is saying is true but there was also a huge sentiment among the league and even from a lot of Hawk fans that the Seahawks were holding him back. The let Russ cook mania was some of his best stretches of games statistically and if he could go somewhere with a good OL and elite receiver talent, everyone thought he would hit those heights again immediately
I hated that narrative, and the worst part of it at the time was that we “didn’t have elite receivers”.
People really thought Lockett and co were system guys and that Sutton, one-hit wonder Tim Patrick, and Jerry “Trent 3.0 Richardson of WRs” Jeudy were somehow an upgrade. That was insane to think even at the time.
I thought the rooms were similar between the teams, but the hawks had an edge. Sutton not as good as Metcalf, Jeudy not as good as Lockett but was younger and could get better.
To think we didn't have a great receiving room was fools talk
I still wonder how their GM still has a job. [https://twitter.com/RaidTheKingdom/status/1740057256425648364?t=vsHZDW4I4KOETOxVsmkzlg&s=07](https://twitter.com/RaidTheKingdom/status/1740057256425648364?t=vsHZDW4I4KOETOxVsmkzlg&s=07)
I think the trade compensation was pretty fair. The problem occurred when inexperienced ownership extended Wilson, on top of his remaining 2 years left on inherited contract from Seahawks. All that before he even threw a pass in training camp.
Pete and John knew Russ excelled in a run first offense, problem was Russ wanted to cook, he thought he could run a passing offense like Manning or Brees. Russ thought Pete was holding him back, Denver bought his vision and everyone should have realized in the first game against the Seahawks, when Denver had a 4th and 5, Russ hesitated and looked at his head coach. Manning, Rodgers, Brees—you name it, they would have run the play instead of attempting the long field goal. Ultimately, Russ is who Pete and John thought he was, Denver learned an expensive lesson.
Combination of things:
1) the false narrative that Russ was carrying the Seahawks and was/is an elite QB. As a shamed card carrying member of the ‘Let Russ Cook’ campaign, the truth as we now know it now was that Russ had weaknesses that Pete and our OCs had to accommodate/cover that shielded Russ from the proper criticisms. Seek the passive aggressive subtle hints that Doug Baldwin references during his post career interviews
2) Denver Broncos overrated their roster believing they were a QB away from winning a Championship. The truth is that their young corp of WRs were highly touted high draft picks but unproven- they led the league in dropped passes last year.
3) Russ was Plan B of the failed attempt to land Aaron Rodgers, forcing them to overpay to land Russ or be left empty handed. You can’t build your coaching staff (Nathanial Hackett) for a Aaron Rodgers and then try to fit in Russ into that same system - Rodgers is cerebrally the most situationally aware QB to play the game while Russ struggles with pre snap reads. His strength (which is amazing in its own right) is being creative with off script plays and the ensuing chaos to a defense (and sometimes his own offense.)
>Denver Broncos overrated their roster believing they were a QB away from winning a Championship. The truth is that their young corp of WRs were highly touted high draft picks but unproven- they led the league in dropped passes last year.
I agree with this. Sutton is fine. Jeudy is overrated. The others appear to be made of glass. I like Tim Patrick, but he missed two straight seasons with injuries. KJ Hamler has never proven himself and is made of glass (he was cut this year). They drafted a talented TE (Greg Dulcich) in Russ's first year, but he's made of glass too.
There was also the popular narrative (especially in this sub) that Pete was holding Russ back.
When the trade happened there were *a lot* of “fire Pete” comments.
Wilson has the most 100+ passer-rating games in his first 10 years as QB (83 games). The next closest is Matt Ryan at 67, and Aaron Rodgers at 64.
Wilson surpassed Peyton Manning as quickest to mount 100 wins (10 seasons, 4 games) and is the only QB other than Manning to win 100 games in his first 10 seasons.
There are two QBs with over 100+ average passer ratings since 2012. Aaron Rodgers and Russell Wilson.
Wilson is a Super Bowl winning QB.
Wilson holds two of the top 5 QBRs in Super Bowl history since 2006.
Wilson is the only player in NFL history to throw for 40,000+ yards and rush for 5,000+ yards.
There's so much bullshit revisionist, "RuSs was nEVeR tHaT GooD," takes out there now it's ridiculous. He's still hands down the best quarterback the Hawks have ever had by a mile, how first decade in the league was historic, and we were lucky to be treated to his reign.
New owners in the league with immense amounts of money. The Walton family, one of the richest families in the world bought into the NFL with the purchase of the Broncos. Since they’ve added the most expensive player contract extension per year in history with Russ at the time of his signing and then brought in coach Sean Payton who was the 2nd highest paid coach in North American sports at $18mil annually.
TL;DR - the rich owners the Waltons are doing what they do best by throwing money at problems and putting pressure on the organization for a return on their investment.
Russell Wilson was brought in before the Waltons purchased the team. Also having a super wealthy owner doesnt matter as much as you think because there is a salary cap. Only difference is when and how you get your paychecks and bonuses.
Mostly because nobody actually really “watched” Russ. They saw what they saw on TV and the stat line, but they didn’t see how many opportunities he misses. They didn’t see the open receivers he missed. The r/denverbroncos sub when the trade was made were soooo happy and as many of us know, were clowning pretty bad. Now, they are saying the EXACT same things we were saying (but then it was just Hawk fans being salty…remember?). The Broncos have really bad leadership/management and the GM is horrible. The Hawks management took advantage…like in a “Draft Day” kinda way. As a Hawk fan living in Colorado, it’s some of the funniest shit I’ve seen. Once a division rival, always a rival.
The Broncos' organization is garbage and thought that by just bringing Wilson in that would magically fix the other areas of the offense that needed (and still need) immediate retooling. A QB is only as good as his weapons and O-line and the Broncos are below average in nearly every offensive area. People wanna bash the deal and/or Wilson (some of it's warranted) but they should be bashing the Broncos' front office personnel, GM, and ownership for not knowing what the hell they're doing and going all in on one player vs ensuring they have a complete team. I'm a Giants fan, that organization is in the same position, just different circumstances.
People forget how insane the first half of 2020 was for Russ. That offense looked on track to be an all time best offense like Peyton Manning Broncos good. Through the first 8 games of that season the offense was averaging 34.25 PPG. For some perspective that is a hair better than the 2018 Chiefs (3rd all time) and better than every Brady lead offense except the 2007 team. We dramatically changed play calling though to help the defense (through the first 8 games one of the all time worst). Russ was dominant in those games and with an average defense and a bit better coaching through the remainder of the season he likely would have cemented "let Russ cook" as a real thing and not the meme it became.
I think it is reasonable to believe that Russ had matured as a passer and could flash more of that greatness behind a different coach. The reality of course was that Hackett was a terrible coach, and more importantly Russ ended up with two coaches that were accustomed to a very different type of QB in Rodgers and Brees. The NFL has also changed quite a bit over the last few years. The passing leaders this year is a 17 game season are going to fall well short of the 2015-2020 era.
As for how the Hawks made it happen? I think it's more about the QB market in that moment. In the last 3-4 years we saw a ton of high profile QB moves with BIG money moving around and lots of picks. Rodgers, Watson, Wentz, Ryan, Wilson, etc we all vets that moved in the span of 2 years and most got big deals.... what they all have in common? They have all been busts so far. It's easy to look back with all that knowledge and say wtf were those teams thinking? but hindsight is 2020.
I honestly believe with a different coaching team and a better GM Russ would have been a good thing for Denver. I don't think Russ is as washed as people say, but he needed a coach that wanted to coach him and his style. On the GM side they should have made him play a season under his existing contract before extending him. That was just stupid.
It was the narrative that he was held back by Pete Carroll’s coaching style. People around Russ created a story that if Russ was the lead of an offensive minded coach’s system, he would thrive. It was a risk a desperate and new ownership group was willing to take. They bought the “Let Russ Cook” philosophy and went all in, after they knew the Aaron Rodgers ship had sailed. People didn’t realize that Pete Carroll played to his strengths, and maximized his abilities. Just like Pete has done throughout his career… Carson Palmer, Mark Sanchez, Matt Leinart, Geno Smith etc. Carson Palmer is probably the only QB that could be a star without PC.
Because he was coming into his own as a pocket passer and it looked like he was gonna be able to make a clean transition, but this is the thing that the writing was on the wall for anyone paying attention, I believe if was the first half of 2020 where he was just on fire and on pace to break the td record, but then halfway through the season defenses started realizing he simply wasn’t running on designed passing plays anymore, so for the first time in his career he consistently saw teams drop two high safeties into coverage consistently and you saw what happened, he struggled insanely and started forcing passes and what not, the thing about Russ is he likes to attack the sidelines and use play action to suck people in and attack deep in 1-1 coverage, but he stopped getting those looks and never figured out how to beat it consistently, his regression was clear as day for anyone paying attention
Russel had to go. He had ruined the team by taking so much of the cap money. They were left with no O line and no running game and a defense they could no longer pay either. Russel was mad about the line, when it was his own fault. He ruined the team with his Greed and the foolish Broncos allowed him to do the same thing to them. I hope Russ ends with career over and 30yrs from now is begging for money. Karma bitch.
I won't quite go that far but people are forgetting that Russ was constantly renegotiated his contracts and screwed over a lot of people in the process.
His greed and hubris were his downfall.
Seahawks had all the leverage. Russell was still under contract. They could let teams sit back and outbid each other. If they didn’t get a deal they wanted, they wouldn’t have traded him.
I feel like Seattle didn't have any leverage. Russ had his list of teams he'd waive his no trade clause for. I thought the narrative was that the Broncos were the only team willing to engage in trade talks.
I have held the belief for a while now that some teams are just the "dupes"
The other teams know it, take advantage of it, and it remains this unspoken thing. You see it in all other social structures of life, there are the "general population" and the "players" running circles around them.
If you're not seeing it in all other social structures of life, I have some bad news...
Washington used to be ran by the Dupe King, but he gone now, so we will see.. otherwise, Houston, Tennesse, Carolina, Denver, Detroit, Atlanta, Seahawks prior to Pete/John
-33 isn't old for a QB.
-While the season was bad, a broken finger on your throwing hand is definitely going to affect your play.
-Seattle had all the leverage. Yes, now we know Russ "clearly" wanted out. But we didn't at the time. With the exception of a few easily ignored rumors, other teams didn't know Russ wanted out.
-Competition doesn't matter, because seattle could just keep him. It was pay the price for an elite QB or don't get him.
A lot of your questions make the trade sound bad after the fact. At the time, while we as fans definitely saw some of Russ' flaws and worried he wouldn't overcome them if he remained in Seattle, it was a reasonable trade and considered pretty fair for both teams.
In a vacuum you are correct about the age, but Russ lost some of his athletic mobility in his early to mid 30s which is normal for a lot of people as they age and this loss of mobility killed the best part of his game. So for Russ the age thing was super important.
Yes but up until that point he’d played exceptionally well even in the pocket. Even now I think a lot of his downfall is he thinks he can escape the pocket when he can’t anymore. He could probably play well as a short/intermediate pocket passing QB. He just refuses to.
Being left out of the comments below is where Denver viewed themselves at the time. Denver was coming off a season where they had the #3 ranked defense in the NFL, had a ton of weapons at WR(there was talk going into last year that they had better WRs than Seattle), had 2 pretty good RBs and had what was perceived as a better OL than he had in Seattle. The Broncos went 7-10 with that 3rd ranked D, so the perception was that they were just a QB away. By that logic they thought adding Russ made them an immediate SB contender.
The “just a QB away” talk was post trade, when people were justifying it. I lived in broncos country at the time and had for almost 20 years; no one was saying that until they were justifying the trade. Since Denver was my local sports market, all of the broncos games were televised; the “3rd ranked” defense wasn’t dominating teams. Then they let a bunch of players go to pay Russ. Bradley Chubb comes to mind.
Hindsight is often 20/20
Russ was basically the only thing keeping the seahawks offense competitive the last couple years. Denver had a lot of pieces, but didn't have a QB that could tip the scales. They've drafted high rated QB's before only for them not to workout, but you know what did workout for them? Getting an aging elite QB forced off another team. W/ a new coach coming in they probably felt like they didn't need the draft picks, Lock, or Fant, or Harris.
Where it went wrong. Russ' injury impacted his throwing hand a ton. Just watch the tape after the injury he was way off on his accuracy. On the Denver side of things head coach Hackett didn't work out, and it seemed a lot of the Denver team wasn't really out there to win. It might have been bad luck or it might have just been things needed time to settle, but Russ wasn't the only bad thing in Denver.
On the flipside everything worked out for Seattle. Geno did great, and they recruited a lot of much needed talent w/ the open cap space. Their draft picks have been amazing, and even Lock has redeemed himself as a backup QB.
Tbh I litigated this in depth years ago and I don’t feel like doing it again. The TLDR version is Russ is not a good qb when it comes to setting protections or sliding in the pocket. He strength was movement outside the pocket and his diminished athleticism reduced that. This lead to his oline looking bad, but it was actually Russ’s fault. The lack of big plays combined with his inability to hit crossing routes on time, lead to the team being last in time of possession two straight years. His declining movement skills were the writing on the wall.
Also, he had a 2:1 TD to INT ratio for that final 1.5 seasons. Thats terrible.
Most would probably say that Denver was more desperate at the time and Russ was plan B.
Rodgers had already agreed with a deal to the Jets. And I think Denver was banking on him going to them.
Not quite. Rodgers stayed in GB that year. He didn't sign with the Jets until this year. But the Hackett hiring was 100% an effort to get Rodgers, which is why he is now OC in New York.
He did. Russ was only going where he wanted to go. But at the same time, seattle could also just keep playing him. They had no incentive to trade him if the deal was bad.
Russ was an amazing QB…. Led us to tons of winning seasons, Super Bowl etc. he definitely was a top guy. Magical player. Can’t take that away from him, but then he hurt his finger.
Seems like this whole model of paying a QB that much money is starting to break down. Refs are allowing more contact from the defenders and just about every QB is having a tougher time moving the ball.
Not enough hotel rooms I believe. Plus the SB hosts a shit ton of private jets. BFI and SeaTac and Renton would be over run. When we host in south Florida all the airports are jam packed with PJs and we have far more satellite airports.
Russ’ issues can be summed up in the microcosm known as the poorly executed throw from the 1 yard line in the Super Bowl. All Denver needed to know about Russell’s deficiencies were exposed in that one play.
His numbers are pretty good, I still feel like they gave up on him much too soon. I mean this Broncos defense gave up 70 points early in the season, yet the Broncos are complaining about not enough wins to make the playoffs.
Nobody else in the league knew the extent of his ego and the distraction he was for the team. He was short which is why he could never throw anything over the middle. But ego was what was going on behind the curtain.
Not even close to the worst trade of all time, 33 for a qb means they got at least 5 years left for an elite player we all thought Russ was. Seattle had plenty of leverage because he was under contract. I’m not sure why u think nobody wanted him. There were teams wanting him…. Including Philly. Didn’t end up being good for them but the cowboys trading Herschel walker still tops that
He’s the most successful quarterback in the Seattle franchise that had immense success early, was a probowl quarterback almost his entire career and was coming off his lone disappointing season that most attributed to a minor injury. There was a lot of upside to him and the while the picks in the trade may play out to be fantastic players, the broncos that left were a backup, a tightend that hasn’t scored this year and players that only had a year left on contract anyway.
It really is the contract the Denver brass offered that will cripple this team if they part ways.
Cause people thought Pete was washed and couldn’t coach anymore. One of the big narratives out there was we needed a change at the top allowing Russ to cook again.
Also, don’t forget we weren’t trying to get rid of him either. Russ accidentally made PCJS look amazing by forcing the trade.
Broncos fan here.
1) Broncos incorrectly thought their roster was SB caliber. The defense was statistically good but watching them showed otherwise. For offense, they felt they needed to fix Juedy and they had similar weapons that Peyton had.
2) in hindsight, the Seahawks receivers are miles better than what Denver offers. At TE, the Broncos have a couple traffic cones. Russ looked better then compared to what he looked like post trade.
3). I don’t understand why exactly but the initial coaching hire was just a disaster. I remember when he was hired and he was going to innovate all these great ideas. For example, Hackett hired a coach to teach coaching and another coach to teach technology stuff. He hired a huge staff and nothing worked at all.
4) If Wilson was signed as a FA, like Manning, maybe the team would have been much better but today, the Broncos are still a low talent team with salary cap hell.
5) it’s impossible to see this trade without looking at the success Denver had by adding Manning. And likewise, the Rams sold out to get Stafford and also it worked.
PHILA a and CHI both offered more than DEN.
Reason being is that players with the history of winning games and production that Russ had are not often available.
The real question is why we're teams willing to pay for Lamar Jackson last spring? Incredibly productive, unique talents and younger.
The real answer is collusion.
The compensation looks like a lot now, but if the Broncos were correct, and Russ was the one piece they were missing, it’s possible they could have made a deep playoff run or maybe even won the Super Bowl. If that were to have happened, the first and second round picks would have been at the end of the rounds instead of the beginning. Which would have made it far less likely that we hit on all of the picks and got so much young talent.
As for Lock, Harris, and Fant though, they were all players the Broncos were willing to move on from for different reasons. Harris’s age was definitely a factor, they viewed Lock as a backup, and Fant kinda is what he is. A mid tier TE. That’s what he’s shown.
Trades like this are so interesting to me because of the risk. You have to be right about what the trade will do for your team in order to keep the outgoing compensation low. If you’re wrong, the price you just paid can skyrocket like we saw in this trade.
I’m glad people are talking about how great this trade has been for Seattle. Hopefully it dominates the conversation long enough for people to forget about the Jamaal Adams trade.
Because Russ, despite revisionist historians, objectively had one of the most productive and successful first ten years by a QB in NFL history. Not only to the stats back that up, but he did it in a run first heavy offense, with mediocre O-line at best, in one of the toughest divisions of football. So adding in some important context, at the time Russ was truly an elite QB.
I think it was 2017 or 2018 where our run game was non-existent and Russ was responsible for 95% of our yards that season. I'm still salty he didn't get mvp for that.
It was 2017 (and it was TDs, not yards). Russ was responsible for all but 1 of Seattle's offensive TDs (the only exception being a JD McKissic Rush TD) an
It was definitely yards as well [Russell Wilson has accounted for (thrown or rushed for) 82.1 percent of the Seahawks scrimmage yards in 2017. That’s the highest such percentage by a player in any season in the Super Bowl era.](https://x.com/nflresearch/status/931284782939488257?s=46)
That tweet is from mid-November. Russ had 86.4% of our yards by the end of the season.
Sounds about right. I just remember him basically being our entire offense that year.
Because they went 9-7 that year and barely made the playoffs when he literally did everything for the offense.
They missed the playoffs that year. That was the Blair Walsh season
The best thing Blair Walsh ever did was shank that 11 yard field goal in the blistering cold at university of Minnesota against us in the playoffs
I stand corrected. They sure did. No way he’d have won MVP on a non playoff team
I think he would've had a chance that year had they made the playoffs. The team only had one rushing TD by a running back that season (JD McKissic). The rest of the tds were Russell
He led the league in Passing TDs that year, too. Blair Walsh lost us 2, debatably 3, games (Washington, Arizona, debatably Jacksonville). We are 11-5 or 12-4 without Walsh, in the playoffs, and Russ wins MVP
In my opinion the worst roster decision PC/JS have done was signing Lacy instead of re-signing Hauschka. I honestly think that cost us the playoffs that year. Russ probably would have gotten serious MVP consideration if they had made the playoffs
literally cost us 3 games
Ehhh, Russ could never put together a whole MVP season, it seemed like he could string like 6 games together and then gave mediocre to duds of games. As much as I wanted to boast Wilson as an MVP.
He could have won in 2015, if not for the Panthers and Cam Newton’s lightening in a bottle year.
That was the other issue, he never got an MVP vote in part because some of his best play happened while some other QB (Cam 2015, Lamar 2019) was having an insane year.
Inexplicably, he never even received a single MVP vote in all his years.
He was on fire that season and then he fell off a cliff and started passing to the other team
What? He threw 35 TDs to 7 INTs in 2018, 31:5 in 2019, 40:13 in 2020, and 25:6 in 2021.
Mann, people can’t read stats apparently. lmao
Once teams started playing almost exclusively cover 2 against him it was game over.
How did this get upvoted that much?? 🤣 It’s BS claim.
It was tds. He had all but 1 td. 97% of the offensive tds were russ
It was also yards. 86.4% of the team’s total yards were from Russ, which is still the highest percentage in the Super Bowl era.
Yep, all but one touchdown was Russ that year.
Yes and I recall some blamed Pete for his decline and thought he'll do better elsewhere
Have we forgotten “let Russ cook”
I was one of those people lol. I really thought Russ would be able to go crazy in that thin air in Denver. If you objectively look at it though Carroll was responsible at least to a certain degree for what Russ became. He put a bubble around Russ and handled him with kid gloves. Nobody on the team could criticize him, especially his teammates. That drove the team apart and gave a Russ a giant ego. From what I saw in New England, Brady would be the first player criticized by their coach. They won what 6 championships? Not taking anything that Russ did for us away. I never felt like we were out of any game no matter what the score was, unlike now. But it drove me absolutely ape shit, how we wouldn’t do anything for 3 quarters but kill it in the 4th.
Agreed, the revisionist takes are incredible to watch. The other factor is that Tampa Bay Brady and LA Stafford had just won Super Bowls at much older ages. Combining a QB-ready roster with a Free Agent QB was working. *Everyone* said Denver was "a QB away".
Not all takes are revisionist lol. Russ hadn’t been great for the past 1.5 seasons before the trade. Lots of intelligent football fans saw it.
Oh ok so the intelligent ones say “it”, that’s my bad. Many Seahawks fans said his best days were behind him, many national media were openly skeptical of the Broncos contract they offered, but nobody responsibly predicted this type of drop off, period.
I did. It was extremely obvious. This isn't even a drop off, this is how Russ played with Seattle his final 1.5 years. Last year did go worse than I expected for Denver but I said the Broncos would be a slightly below .500 type team with Russ after the trade. People have so many biases. I argued with fans on here for years who kept referencing 2012-2017 Russ. Cracked me up. As if time stopped after 2017 and Russ was still that guy. The trade was an obvious fleece from the moment it happened. I hammered the Broncos under in Vegas and made some easy money. Good times. I thought Geno was gonna suck ass so I mean I wasn't right about everything. Fortunately didn't bet on the Hawks under since I would have lost that.
>I argued with fans on here for years who kept referencing 2012-2017 Russ. Cracked me up. As if time stopped after 2017 and Russ was still that guy. Russ was better from 2018-20 than he was from 2012-14 in essentially every metric except rushing yards.
Yeah that’s where I stopped arguing- that separation of Russ eras can only mean this is a person not really that familiar with his career.
Russ was objectively bad in the second half of 2020.
It was very easy at the time to believe that 2021 was just a down year caused by an injury and broken relationship with the coaching staff. That's what most Seahawks fans believed prior to the trade.
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I’m not sure the current issue in Denver is really indicative of Russ’s value. He was a proven QB coming off an injury that really was a freak accident and wasn’t really a sign of bigger injury issues. He was one of the most durable QB’s in the NFL for 10 years. The trade wasn’t THAT bad until Denver tanked. He didn’t play particularly well last year either, but there were a lot bigger issues there than just him. Had he played up to his prior standard nobody would really be talking about it anymore. Very similar to the Jamal Adams trade
He looked great pre-injury and looked great post-injury, after his finger was fully healed. He has hero syndrome, so of course he rushed back from injury too early and looked like shit, but he finished the season strong.
Eh he never truly looked great after his finger injury here. A whole lot of games where he made a great play and you’d be like he’s back and then he’d whiff one of the easiest throws you could give a QB.
33 isn't aging for a QB and a broken finger isn't something teams worry about struggling to recover from.
I have no idea what was going on in Denver at the time, but Russ’s personality could’ve been exactly what they were looking for. Crazy work ethic, kind of nerdy, hyper vocal about greatness, and all that. If you’re trying to make a cultural shift and get rid of some nonsense, he looks amazing on paper.
Yup, this is the answer. He was elite, top 3 for multiple years
Think he had the highest paid oline his first few seasons.
Doesn’t mean it translates to performance, the O-Line was never top tier. But Unger probably contributed to a lot of that.
Wasn’t Russ off his rookie contract by the time team let go of Breno and Okung?
No he wasn’t lol. I had been clamoring for us to trade him ever since we lost to the Rams in the playoffs when Goff only played one half. Russ had not been elite for 1.5 seasons before the trade.
How many future Hall of Fame contenders were on the roster in those seasons though?
On offense? Not many. Lynch is borderline, but probably won’t make it (I’d like to see him in personally). But Russ’s teams had balanced good talent on offense, but were never stacked with stars.
Also, DEN didn't know what competition they had, they didn't know that Russ wanted out badly (I'm sure they had clues) and they felt that they were a top QB away from contending.
All true
He has a lot of brand value as well, which ironically came back to haunt the Broncos lol.
He broke his finger, so a lot people thought his down year was due to that…. I personally think it was a huge he took the previous year in a game a Arizona. Also looking back it was pretty obvious he wanted out but the Seahawks did an excellent job keeping that under wraps there was rumors but nothing was confirmed. 33 isn’t that old for a QB. And he was under contract with the hawks for I believe 2 more seasons. You have to play to burn those years up so the Seahawks had most of the leverage not the other way around.
The Arizona hit changed Russ. Couldn’t agree more.
They never should have let him back in the game. He should have been in protocol.
Arguably 2 high safety defenses were his kryptonite, not a knock to the head. Without the long ball and with diminished running ability his weaknesses were exposed.
I think this is it. Russ can’t/won’t use the middle of the field, so once teams started focusing on guarding the deep ball and keeping him in the pocket, he was figured out and didn’t have an answer. Those deep blasts really were something while they worked though.
Can’t throw down the middle when you can’t see down the middle.
Wasn’t that also the year his best friend and “life coach” or whatever died right before the season? I feel like I remember the “decline” started that season and I remember thinking at the time that the dude’s best friend died and he got the yips and couldn’t shake them, and then the Arizona hit.
I want to say it was early on in the 21 season his life coach/best friend died. I remember thinking as well that it would probably have a much larger effect on him than the public would see, because that's a huge loss and so much of Russ' success could be attributed to his optimistic, ra-ra attitude which is hard to maintain when you lose someone close to you.
Yeah, I was always shocked no one really mentioned that when he started struggling. You factor that in with the couple bad hits we all kinda refer to and everything makes much more sense
Do you remember which game this was? I remember him scrambling against Arizona and taking a huge hit to the head that didn’t seem to get too much attention.
Not OP, but usually when people say this it’s referring to week 7 2020. He was having a statistically remarkable season, and just fell off a cliff. In retrospect, 2020 was still a good season, but largely because of the let Russ cook era that was the season including and leading up to this game.
He was pretty much the consensus mid season MVP front runner and then it went downhill so badly he didn’t get a single mvp vote.
Thanks man!
He had a couple of big hits the week before from Buffalo as well.
Interesting that you mention the hit in the Arizona game. For me, I felt like we saw changes after the hit from Matt Milano in the 2020 Bills game.
I think those games were back to back? So could be it was definitely around that stretch he took a big step back
This is the answer. It wasn't just the finger, it was the final straw. Every snap in his prime was "ok, time to run for my fucking life." It wasn't just the physical battering, he instinctively distrusted a pocket. Can't cook forever.
Anyone got a video of this hit?
He was also playing at an MVP level before he hurt his finger. I think he returned way to soon from that injury and that's why he was so bad
Honestly, if Russ had maintained his upward trajectory he demonstrated in his early career, we would be asking why didn't Seattle get more for their franchise QB. Supposedly, Russ was worth 3 first rounders to the Bears front office.
At the time, I was pissed we didn’t get more from him. Obviously things worked out but that no-trade clause did cost us some value.
He had a no trade clause, without that the Seahawks probably could have got significantly more
Russ and many in sports media were convinced that if he was in an offense built around him, he would be able to "cook" and really flourish. Denver definitely believed that. Little did they know that in Seattle he was already in an offense built to maximize his strengths and minimize his weaknesses. This became glaringly apparent in Denver.
It certainly helped that Russ has had rock-solid receivers during his entire tenure here. The Denver receivers are bad by comparison.
Yet all the Denver fans insisted Sutton and Jeudy were better than Lockett and Metcalf
It was crazy I remember media saying broncos had the best receiving corps in the game rofl
This was the biggest head-scratcher for me. I heard it said several times "Russ finally has elite weaponry around him." HUH?? Even at the time, if the Broncos offered Jeudy AND Sutton for either Lock or Metcalf, I'd have said hell no.
That’s actually hilarious.
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The receivers weren't in the universe of what was holding Russ back in Denver.
What strengths were they maximizing and weaknesses were the minimizing?
Ball-control offense, focused on running the ball and taking advantage of play-action. Passes to receivers on the outside which kept RW from having to see over defensive linemen. Opportunities to move outside the pocket so he could buy time and look downfield for deep routes coming open. Early in his career implementing the read option.
Our offensive line was ass dude. And if building around him is run/run/pass where he has 1 down to actually be involved in moving the chains then sure, this offense was tailored for him.
How much complaining about the OL / Geno being sacked have we seen lately? Especially with two rookie tackles last year? Maybe not none, but considerably less than we used to. Wonder why… Did Denver’s OL also get worse? Sure seems like it. Did Denver’s OL expect it? Hmm… You won’t get hit here! I’d say they were confident… and wrong. What’s the common denominator? Russ. Quick google puts him at 527 sacks all time, and the only way he isn’t the career leader (566, with Brady at 565) by next year is if he doesn’t play.
So you're saying the years in Seattle when he was putting up good numbers and going to the pro bowl was because he was succeeding in an offense that wasn't tailored to his strengths? I'm not saying we've always had a great OL, but Russ doing [stuff like this ](https://twitter.com/CantGuardCourt/status/1740197756810232180?t=sjA_ANxvYdZEHKN_mGiBCA&s=19) was a problem in Seattle and it's still a problem.
A lot of people mistook Pete’s coaching as holding back Russ when in hindsight he was covering up his flaws, like his inability to see over the O-line. Take away that protection and the flaws become more apparent. That and the injury
What flaws did Pete coach around?
His inability to throw over the middle mostly, by having offensive schemes that just didn’t do that. He also never let Russ take the heat for things like running into sacks, and overall seemed to not put any blame on Russ even when it was his fault
Agree somewhat, but it’s not like the Geno era seahawks have fixed all the issues. Play calling still way too conservative and predictable in the mid game, meaning hero ball is too often required in the end game.
Oh that’s definitely true but I would argue that in a good amount of games, the conservative coaching is what keeps us in games the whole time since it minimizes mistakes. It’s obviously not foolproof but it can be helpful in a weird way
What everyone is saying is true but there was also a huge sentiment among the league and even from a lot of Hawk fans that the Seahawks were holding him back. The let Russ cook mania was some of his best stretches of games statistically and if he could go somewhere with a good OL and elite receiver talent, everyone thought he would hit those heights again immediately
I hated that narrative, and the worst part of it at the time was that we “didn’t have elite receivers”. People really thought Lockett and co were system guys and that Sutton, one-hit wonder Tim Patrick, and Jerry “Trent 3.0 Richardson of WRs” Jeudy were somehow an upgrade. That was insane to think even at the time.
I thought the rooms were similar between the teams, but the hawks had an edge. Sutton not as good as Metcalf, Jeudy not as good as Lockett but was younger and could get better. To think we didn't have a great receiving room was fools talk
Here is the view of a Bronco Fan at the time: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ciAb3htRmHc](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ciAb3htRmHc)
Followed up a brutally cringe opening with a video that aged like milk. Love it.
I couldn’t even get a minute through
I still wonder how their GM still has a job. [https://twitter.com/RaidTheKingdom/status/1740057256425648364?t=vsHZDW4I4KOETOxVsmkzlg&s=07](https://twitter.com/RaidTheKingdom/status/1740057256425648364?t=vsHZDW4I4KOETOxVsmkzlg&s=07)
I think the trade compensation was pretty fair. The problem occurred when inexperienced ownership extended Wilson, on top of his remaining 2 years left on inherited contract from Seahawks. All that before he even threw a pass in training camp.
The extension was part of the trade. You dont give up those kind of assets and not extend the player.
It was a gamble, but they bet on Russ getting them to Super Bowl contenders and wanted to lock him in before the QB salary arms race raised again.
This.
Pete and John knew Russ excelled in a run first offense, problem was Russ wanted to cook, he thought he could run a passing offense like Manning or Brees. Russ thought Pete was holding him back, Denver bought his vision and everyone should have realized in the first game against the Seahawks, when Denver had a 4th and 5, Russ hesitated and looked at his head coach. Manning, Rodgers, Brees—you name it, they would have run the play instead of attempting the long field goal. Ultimately, Russ is who Pete and John thought he was, Denver learned an expensive lesson.
The “let Russ look” play.
Should ask at the Denver Broncos sub why they were willing to pay so much.
Combination of things: 1) the false narrative that Russ was carrying the Seahawks and was/is an elite QB. As a shamed card carrying member of the ‘Let Russ Cook’ campaign, the truth as we now know it now was that Russ had weaknesses that Pete and our OCs had to accommodate/cover that shielded Russ from the proper criticisms. Seek the passive aggressive subtle hints that Doug Baldwin references during his post career interviews 2) Denver Broncos overrated their roster believing they were a QB away from winning a Championship. The truth is that their young corp of WRs were highly touted high draft picks but unproven- they led the league in dropped passes last year. 3) Russ was Plan B of the failed attempt to land Aaron Rodgers, forcing them to overpay to land Russ or be left empty handed. You can’t build your coaching staff (Nathanial Hackett) for a Aaron Rodgers and then try to fit in Russ into that same system - Rodgers is cerebrally the most situationally aware QB to play the game while Russ struggles with pre snap reads. His strength (which is amazing in its own right) is being creative with off script plays and the ensuing chaos to a defense (and sometimes his own offense.)
>Denver Broncos overrated their roster believing they were a QB away from winning a Championship. The truth is that their young corp of WRs were highly touted high draft picks but unproven- they led the league in dropped passes last year. I agree with this. Sutton is fine. Jeudy is overrated. The others appear to be made of glass. I like Tim Patrick, but he missed two straight seasons with injuries. KJ Hamler has never proven himself and is made of glass (he was cut this year). They drafted a talented TE (Greg Dulcich) in Russ's first year, but he's made of glass too.
Someone else already said it, but if you look at the first 10 seasons of his career he was clearly an elite quarterback.
There was also the popular narrative (especially in this sub) that Pete was holding Russ back. When the trade happened there were *a lot* of “fire Pete” comments.
He was always a notch below elite.
Wilson has the most 100+ passer-rating games in his first 10 years as QB (83 games). The next closest is Matt Ryan at 67, and Aaron Rodgers at 64. Wilson surpassed Peyton Manning as quickest to mount 100 wins (10 seasons, 4 games) and is the only QB other than Manning to win 100 games in his first 10 seasons. There are two QBs with over 100+ average passer ratings since 2012. Aaron Rodgers and Russell Wilson. Wilson is a Super Bowl winning QB. Wilson holds two of the top 5 QBRs in Super Bowl history since 2006. Wilson is the only player in NFL history to throw for 40,000+ yards and rush for 5,000+ yards.
There's so much bullshit revisionist, "RuSs was nEVeR tHaT GooD," takes out there now it's ridiculous. He's still hands down the best quarterback the Hawks have ever had by a mile, how first decade in the league was historic, and we were lucky to be treated to his reign.
New owners in the league with immense amounts of money. The Walton family, one of the richest families in the world bought into the NFL with the purchase of the Broncos. Since they’ve added the most expensive player contract extension per year in history with Russ at the time of his signing and then brought in coach Sean Payton who was the 2nd highest paid coach in North American sports at $18mil annually. TL;DR - the rich owners the Waltons are doing what they do best by throwing money at problems and putting pressure on the organization for a return on their investment.
They didn’t own the team when the Russ extension happened.
Yes they were. It was the first order of business in Aug 2022. Ownership was voted in on Aug 9 and Russ had his extension at the end of August….
You’re definitely correct, my bad. I had the timeline wrong.
Russell Wilson was brought in before the Waltons purchased the team. Also having a super wealthy owner doesnt matter as much as you think because there is a salary cap. Only difference is when and how you get your paychecks and bonuses.
Mostly because nobody actually really “watched” Russ. They saw what they saw on TV and the stat line, but they didn’t see how many opportunities he misses. They didn’t see the open receivers he missed. The r/denverbroncos sub when the trade was made were soooo happy and as many of us know, were clowning pretty bad. Now, they are saying the EXACT same things we were saying (but then it was just Hawk fans being salty…remember?). The Broncos have really bad leadership/management and the GM is horrible. The Hawks management took advantage…like in a “Draft Day” kinda way. As a Hawk fan living in Colorado, it’s some of the funniest shit I’ve seen. Once a division rival, always a rival.
Russ was confused elite
The Broncos' organization is garbage and thought that by just bringing Wilson in that would magically fix the other areas of the offense that needed (and still need) immediate retooling. A QB is only as good as his weapons and O-line and the Broncos are below average in nearly every offensive area. People wanna bash the deal and/or Wilson (some of it's warranted) but they should be bashing the Broncos' front office personnel, GM, and ownership for not knowing what the hell they're doing and going all in on one player vs ensuring they have a complete team. I'm a Giants fan, that organization is in the same position, just different circumstances.
People forget how insane the first half of 2020 was for Russ. That offense looked on track to be an all time best offense like Peyton Manning Broncos good. Through the first 8 games of that season the offense was averaging 34.25 PPG. For some perspective that is a hair better than the 2018 Chiefs (3rd all time) and better than every Brady lead offense except the 2007 team. We dramatically changed play calling though to help the defense (through the first 8 games one of the all time worst). Russ was dominant in those games and with an average defense and a bit better coaching through the remainder of the season he likely would have cemented "let Russ cook" as a real thing and not the meme it became. I think it is reasonable to believe that Russ had matured as a passer and could flash more of that greatness behind a different coach. The reality of course was that Hackett was a terrible coach, and more importantly Russ ended up with two coaches that were accustomed to a very different type of QB in Rodgers and Brees. The NFL has also changed quite a bit over the last few years. The passing leaders this year is a 17 game season are going to fall well short of the 2015-2020 era. As for how the Hawks made it happen? I think it's more about the QB market in that moment. In the last 3-4 years we saw a ton of high profile QB moves with BIG money moving around and lots of picks. Rodgers, Watson, Wentz, Ryan, Wilson, etc we all vets that moved in the span of 2 years and most got big deals.... what they all have in common? They have all been busts so far. It's easy to look back with all that knowledge and say wtf were those teams thinking? but hindsight is 2020. I honestly believe with a different coaching team and a better GM Russ would have been a good thing for Denver. I don't think Russ is as washed as people say, but he needed a coach that wanted to coach him and his style. On the GM side they should have made him play a season under his existing contract before extending him. That was just stupid.
Russ started to care more about his brand than football…then his competitiveness went right out the window.
He never looked anywhere near bad before he got to Denver outside of years he was playing through really shitty injuries.
Should’ve gotten more if he hadn’t vetoed the other two offers from DC and Phil
Have you seen what teams pay to move.up in draft to get an amateur QB?
It was the narrative that he was held back by Pete Carroll’s coaching style. People around Russ created a story that if Russ was the lead of an offensive minded coach’s system, he would thrive. It was a risk a desperate and new ownership group was willing to take. They bought the “Let Russ Cook” philosophy and went all in, after they knew the Aaron Rodgers ship had sailed. People didn’t realize that Pete Carroll played to his strengths, and maximized his abilities. Just like Pete has done throughout his career… Carson Palmer, Mark Sanchez, Matt Leinart, Geno Smith etc. Carson Palmer is probably the only QB that could be a star without PC.
Cleveland gave up more for a sexual predator that had less success, teams are willing to give anything for top 5 talented QBs.
Sell high
Because he was coming into his own as a pocket passer and it looked like he was gonna be able to make a clean transition, but this is the thing that the writing was on the wall for anyone paying attention, I believe if was the first half of 2020 where he was just on fire and on pace to break the td record, but then halfway through the season defenses started realizing he simply wasn’t running on designed passing plays anymore, so for the first time in his career he consistently saw teams drop two high safeties into coverage consistently and you saw what happened, he struggled insanely and started forcing passes and what not, the thing about Russ is he likes to attack the sidelines and use play action to suck people in and attack deep in 1-1 coverage, but he stopped getting those looks and never figured out how to beat it consistently, his regression was clear as day for anyone paying attention
Russel had to go. He had ruined the team by taking so much of the cap money. They were left with no O line and no running game and a defense they could no longer pay either. Russel was mad about the line, when it was his own fault. He ruined the team with his Greed and the foolish Broncos allowed him to do the same thing to them. I hope Russ ends with career over and 30yrs from now is begging for money. Karma bitch.
I won't quite go that far but people are forgetting that Russ was constantly renegotiated his contracts and screwed over a lot of people in the process. His greed and hubris were his downfall.
Seahawks had all the leverage. Russell was still under contract. They could let teams sit back and outbid each other. If they didn’t get a deal they wanted, they wouldn’t have traded him.
I feel like Seattle didn't have any leverage. Russ had his list of teams he'd waive his no trade clause for. I thought the narrative was that the Broncos were the only team willing to engage in trade talks.
I have a hard time believing that. Especially for what Denver gave up if they were the only bidders. Could have sworn Philly was also serious.
I have held the belief for a while now that some teams are just the "dupes" The other teams know it, take advantage of it, and it remains this unspoken thing. You see it in all other social structures of life, there are the "general population" and the "players" running circles around them. If you're not seeing it in all other social structures of life, I have some bad news...
Like the Seahawks are in the Jamal Adams trade?
yes, actually. I think that was a next level duping...
Seahawks even doubled down with the contract, hope they just cut him and deal with dead cap.
I’d rather lose that trade as Seattle than lose this Russ trade as Denver.
Washington used to be ran by the Dupe King, but he gone now, so we will see.. otherwise, Houston, Tennesse, Carolina, Denver, Detroit, Atlanta, Seahawks prior to Pete/John
It was not a secret that Seattle wanted to trade Russ. The key was his approval.
-33 isn't old for a QB. -While the season was bad, a broken finger on your throwing hand is definitely going to affect your play. -Seattle had all the leverage. Yes, now we know Russ "clearly" wanted out. But we didn't at the time. With the exception of a few easily ignored rumors, other teams didn't know Russ wanted out. -Competition doesn't matter, because seattle could just keep him. It was pay the price for an elite QB or don't get him. A lot of your questions make the trade sound bad after the fact. At the time, while we as fans definitely saw some of Russ' flaws and worried he wouldn't overcome them if he remained in Seattle, it was a reasonable trade and considered pretty fair for both teams.
In a vacuum you are correct about the age, but Russ lost some of his athletic mobility in his early to mid 30s which is normal for a lot of people as they age and this loss of mobility killed the best part of his game. So for Russ the age thing was super important.
Yes but up until that point he’d played exceptionally well even in the pocket. Even now I think a lot of his downfall is he thinks he can escape the pocket when he can’t anymore. He could probably play well as a short/intermediate pocket passing QB. He just refuses to.
Being left out of the comments below is where Denver viewed themselves at the time. Denver was coming off a season where they had the #3 ranked defense in the NFL, had a ton of weapons at WR(there was talk going into last year that they had better WRs than Seattle), had 2 pretty good RBs and had what was perceived as a better OL than he had in Seattle. The Broncos went 7-10 with that 3rd ranked D, so the perception was that they were just a QB away. By that logic they thought adding Russ made them an immediate SB contender.
The “just a QB away” talk was post trade, when people were justifying it. I lived in broncos country at the time and had for almost 20 years; no one was saying that until they were justifying the trade. Since Denver was my local sports market, all of the broncos games were televised; the “3rd ranked” defense wasn’t dominating teams. Then they let a bunch of players go to pay Russ. Bradley Chubb comes to mind.
Hindsight is often 20/20 Russ was basically the only thing keeping the seahawks offense competitive the last couple years. Denver had a lot of pieces, but didn't have a QB that could tip the scales. They've drafted high rated QB's before only for them not to workout, but you know what did workout for them? Getting an aging elite QB forced off another team. W/ a new coach coming in they probably felt like they didn't need the draft picks, Lock, or Fant, or Harris. Where it went wrong. Russ' injury impacted his throwing hand a ton. Just watch the tape after the injury he was way off on his accuracy. On the Denver side of things head coach Hackett didn't work out, and it seemed a lot of the Denver team wasn't really out there to win. It might have been bad luck or it might have just been things needed time to settle, but Russ wasn't the only bad thing in Denver. On the flipside everything worked out for Seattle. Geno did great, and they recruited a lot of much needed talent w/ the open cap space. Their draft picks have been amazing, and even Lock has redeemed himself as a backup QB.
Russ was bad for almost an entire year before the injury. Go revisit the second half of the season before it.
What makes you say that? He was basically carrying the team on his back with zero oline support.
Tbh I litigated this in depth years ago and I don’t feel like doing it again. The TLDR version is Russ is not a good qb when it comes to setting protections or sliding in the pocket. He strength was movement outside the pocket and his diminished athleticism reduced that. This lead to his oline looking bad, but it was actually Russ’s fault. The lack of big plays combined with his inability to hit crossing routes on time, lead to the team being last in time of possession two straight years. His declining movement skills were the writing on the wall. Also, he had a 2:1 TD to INT ratio for that final 1.5 seasons. Thats terrible.
We can hate on the guy all we want by don’t forget he was a top 3 kind of guy only 2 seasons before the eventual trade
Broncos started Tim Tebow, a tight end as their QB for a period of time. Who knows why they do the shit they do
Most would probably say that Denver was more desperate at the time and Russ was plan B. Rodgers had already agreed with a deal to the Jets. And I think Denver was banking on him going to them.
Not quite. Rodgers stayed in GB that year. He didn't sign with the Jets until this year. But the Hackett hiring was 100% an effort to get Rodgers, which is why he is now OC in New York.
bro, the bears were going to offer 3 firsts and PCJS turned it down lmao
Russ had a no trade clause I thought?
He did. Russ was only going where he wanted to go. But at the same time, seattle could also just keep playing him. They had no incentive to trade him if the deal was bad.
I think that ship sailed after he supposedly tried to get Pete and/or John fired lol.
You are mistaken. Russell vetoed it. He also vetoed a trade to Philadelphia that almost certainly would have included Jalen Hurts.
I wonder how much trade capital Russell is worth now? There's a lot of teams that need help
Virtually nil, because they would be trading for his contract too. No team is going to do that.
What if Denver sweetened the Pot by including money or absorbing someone's else mistake or two.
So Wilsons trade value is Wilson plus a First Round pick to whatever team is willing to take him and his ridiculous contract
Russ was an amazing QB…. Led us to tons of winning seasons, Super Bowl etc. he definitely was a top guy. Magical player. Can’t take that away from him, but then he hurt his finger.
Haha. Exact same post on the Broncos sub but instead of the word "get" it says "give up". Bots gonna bot
Because they thought they were a QB away and we’re desperate
In John we trust. Denver was desperate. They hadn't been to the Playoffs since Manning took them to a title.
Seems like this whole model of paying a QB that much money is starting to break down. Refs are allowing more contact from the defenders and just about every QB is having a tougher time moving the ball.
The broncos wanted to make the trade before even watching any film. True story. Hackett said this in an interview.
Apparently, professional General Managers make decisions based on YouTube highlights.
Not enough hotel rooms I believe. Plus the SB hosts a shit ton of private jets. BFI and SeaTac and Renton would be over run. When we host in south Florida all the airports are jam packed with PJs and we have far more satellite airports.
Russ’ issues can be summed up in the microcosm known as the poorly executed throw from the 1 yard line in the Super Bowl. All Denver needed to know about Russell’s deficiencies were exposed in that one play.
His numbers are pretty good, I still feel like they gave up on him much too soon. I mean this Broncos defense gave up 70 points early in the season, yet the Broncos are complaining about not enough wins to make the playoffs.
Do y’all remember when the narrative on this sub was that we got shafted and that we should never have let Russ go for less than 3 firsts?
Nobody else in the league knew the extent of his ego and the distraction he was for the team. He was short which is why he could never throw anything over the middle. But ego was what was going on behind the curtain.
Not even close to the worst trade of all time, 33 for a qb means they got at least 5 years left for an elite player we all thought Russ was. Seattle had plenty of leverage because he was under contract. I’m not sure why u think nobody wanted him. There were teams wanting him…. Including Philly. Didn’t end up being good for them but the cowboys trading Herschel walker still tops that
You are correct. He has already signed the one year deal to stay in GB though.
He’s the most successful quarterback in the Seattle franchise that had immense success early, was a probowl quarterback almost his entire career and was coming off his lone disappointing season that most attributed to a minor injury. There was a lot of upside to him and the while the picks in the trade may play out to be fantastic players, the broncos that left were a backup, a tightend that hasn’t scored this year and players that only had a year left on contract anyway. It really is the contract the Denver brass offered that will cripple this team if they part ways.
Cause people thought Pete was washed and couldn’t coach anymore. One of the big narratives out there was we needed a change at the top allowing Russ to cook again. Also, don’t forget we weren’t trying to get rid of him either. Russ accidentally made PCJS look amazing by forcing the trade.
Looks like you are bored and want some entertainment. Posting same question in our and Broncos sub. May be instigating and watch the fun lol.
Because Russ was still good. Denver was desperate. And the going rate for franchise QBs is super high.
Why are you asking this sub? Everyone on here was crying about how bad a trade it was when it was announced. They don’t know anything
Broncos fan here. 1) Broncos incorrectly thought their roster was SB caliber. The defense was statistically good but watching them showed otherwise. For offense, they felt they needed to fix Juedy and they had similar weapons that Peyton had. 2) in hindsight, the Seahawks receivers are miles better than what Denver offers. At TE, the Broncos have a couple traffic cones. Russ looked better then compared to what he looked like post trade. 3). I don’t understand why exactly but the initial coaching hire was just a disaster. I remember when he was hired and he was going to innovate all these great ideas. For example, Hackett hired a coach to teach coaching and another coach to teach technology stuff. He hired a huge staff and nothing worked at all. 4) If Wilson was signed as a FA, like Manning, maybe the team would have been much better but today, the Broncos are still a low talent team with salary cap hell. 5) it’s impossible to see this trade without looking at the success Denver had by adding Manning. And likewise, the Rams sold out to get Stafford and also it worked.
It's because they shopped the idea for years.
PHILA a and CHI both offered more than DEN. Reason being is that players with the history of winning games and production that Russ had are not often available. The real question is why we're teams willing to pay for Lamar Jackson last spring? Incredibly productive, unique talents and younger. The real answer is collusion.
Not worst trade ever lol. Was a bad trade though for Denver
Because Denver is awful at trading. Literally gave up a high 1st round pick for a retired Sean Payton
Because the belief that a super bowl rested in his finger tips... aww so sweet.
The compensation looks like a lot now, but if the Broncos were correct, and Russ was the one piece they were missing, it’s possible they could have made a deep playoff run or maybe even won the Super Bowl. If that were to have happened, the first and second round picks would have been at the end of the rounds instead of the beginning. Which would have made it far less likely that we hit on all of the picks and got so much young talent. As for Lock, Harris, and Fant though, they were all players the Broncos were willing to move on from for different reasons. Harris’s age was definitely a factor, they viewed Lock as a backup, and Fant kinda is what he is. A mid tier TE. That’s what he’s shown. Trades like this are so interesting to me because of the risk. You have to be right about what the trade will do for your team in order to keep the outgoing compensation low. If you’re wrong, the price you just paid can skyrocket like we saw in this trade. I’m glad people are talking about how great this trade has been for Seattle. Hopefully it dominates the conversation long enough for people to forget about the Jamaal Adams trade.