What doomed Russell Wilson-Sean Payton partnership with Broncos

Russell Wilson avoided a twisting Texans rusher and bolted up the field.

He could have thrown in rhythm to tight end Lucas Krull for a first down and a stroll out of bounds, too, but why? Wilson’s legs served just fine.

He dove forward to the Houston 8-yard line on a fourth-and-2, popped up and took a timeout with 23 seconds left in the game, generating a first down and four snaps worth of hope that the Broncos were about to find a way to pull off their sixth straight win.

The early-December CBS broadcast replayed the reaction from Denver’s sideline and head coach. Commentator Charles Davis intoned confidently, “Look at Sean Payton saying, ‘Yeah, that’s my quarterback.’”

At a glance, it appears Payton flashed a grin.

Watch it enough times, and you might be convinced that instead he grimaced.

Nobody on the visiting sideline was smiling three plays later when Wilson and the Broncos, having botched their first two cracks at winning the game with a late play-clock issue and missed shift, shot themselves in the foot a final time.

Another miscommunication. Another missed shift. Quick pressure forcing Wilson out of the pocket. A game-ending interception.

“I don’t know what the last play is. I wish I could give it a name,” Payton smoldered the next day. “Let’s call it ‘Chaos.’”

The moment carries a different sense of importance on the back side of Payton’s biggest decision yet in his Broncos tenure: Wednesday’s announcement that he’s benching Wilson for Jarrett Stidham.

Several others sequences look different in retrospect, too, and there’s a common theme among them: The closer the Broncos offense got to the end zone, the wider the gulf between coach and quarterback.

It’s part of the reason Wilson and the Broncos are headed for splitsville. It’s nearly a foregone conclusion that Denver will release him before March 17, when his $37 million salary for 2025 would become guaranteed.

Wilson made magic outside the pocket but wasted downs, too. He threw unlikely touchdowns to Courtland Sutton but missed open receivers. He checked into good plays but also doomed ones.

As the season progressed and a coach-quarterback mind-meld should have been developing, the issues instead only worsened.

Payton’s reactions only escalated.

Finally it boiled over.

Different approaches

Payton and Wilson are opposites in personality and preferred play style.

Payton runs hot, believes in the efficacy of confrontation and the power of exacting play design. Wilson is Mr. Neutral, hardly ever utters a controversial word and has made himself one of the most decorated players of the past decade in the NFL by coloring outside the lines.

Payton is free-wheeling and unafraid of putting his foot in his mouth, then loses his mind about the width of wide receiver splits, sure six inches make the difference between getting jammed and a 60-yard touchdown.

Wilson is polished and rehearsed to an eye-glazing degree 164.5 hours per week and a purveyor of improvisation the other 3.5.

The off-field differences might have been bridgeable.

Payton showed signs almost immediately that the on-field gap was not.

He rarely called out Wilson by name, but blasted the offensive communication early in the season. He suggested maybe a wristband would help with the vocabulary, even though Wilson already wore one. He promised to trim down the amount of stuff in the game plan each week to make sure his offense, full of veterans and orchestrated by a 12th-year quarterback, didn’t get overloaded.

“We have to be better. I have to be better. Russ has to be sharper with getting the play out,” Payton said following a Week 2 loss to Washington in a particularly blunt moment.

The sore spot

That frustration showed through most acutely in the most important situations.

The NFL is a game about third downs and red zone. The Broncos spend two of their three work days each week almost solely dedicated to those areas. It’s easy, relatively speaking, to move the ball between the 20s.

You earn your Ph.D. in scoring territory, but Wilson and Payton clearly majored in different subjects.

“It’s more about what we weren’t doing effectively enough offensively,” Payton said in justifying the move to bench Wilson on Wednesday. “When we were getting two or three turnovers, that’s one thing. Ultimately, our job is to get the ball in the end zone, and we have to be more efficient doing that. All of us.”

It showed itself over and over again this year in the red zone, starting in Week 1.

Here are four examples that illustrated the rift:

Week 1

Score: Broncos 10, Raiders 7

Time: 9:04, 4Q

Situation: Third-and-goal at the 5

After a short gain on first down and a second-down incompletion that got batted down, the Broncos hustled to the line of scrimmage and snuck Marvin Mims Jr. in the backfield as the running back. He ran to the flat wide open as Las Vegas defenders got stuck in traffic. Wilson, though, saw Maxx Crosby rushing from way off the edge and hesitated, then scrambled and threw the ball away. Mims had a walk-in touchdown to put Denver up two scores. Instead, a field goal to go up 16-10 and an immediate Raiders touchdown drive to lose the lead for good.

On the sideline after the play, Payton turned, walked toward Wilson and quarterbacks coach Davis Webb clearly displeased and threw his hands down in frustration.

The next week, Wilson got sacked on first-and-goal from the 1-yard line while trailing Washington 35-24 and Denver eventually settled for a field goal.

Week 13

Score: Texans 22, Broncos 17

Time: 0:23, 4Q

Situation: Third-and-goal at the 8

The play Payton described as “chaos.” On first down, the Broncos looked out of sorts. On second down, Jerry Jeudy brought himself in motion after signaling toward Wilson in confusion. Then on third down, nobody in the trips bunch to Wilson’s left knew what to do. He might still have made something of the play without immediate pressure from Texans edge rusher Jonathan Greenard, but Payton’s made it clear repeatedly that game-deciding situations are no time for backyard football.

JIMMIE WARD. GAME OVER. pic.twitter.com/t4wkBvspZ2

— NFL (@NFL) December 3, 2023

“I don’t blame you for looking at that play and kind of wondering where people are and where the ball is going,” Payton said then. “I was doing the same thing.”

Part of what so aggrieved the head coach: The Broncos go over this stuff on Fridays, rep after rep after rep, during their walk-through. Take it from Wilson himself.

“Coach Payton’s walking through every little detail and every single route and every single concept,” he said earlier in the season. “We spend, I don’t know, 45 minutes just on walk-through, speed-through reps in the red zone and then practice starts. We spend a lot of time on it.”

Thus, in Payton’s mind, a breakdown in communication in that setting is on the quarterback.

Week 15

Score: Lions 28, Broncos 7

Time: 2:18, 3Q

Situation: Fourth-and-goal at the 1

The most obvious of the bunch. Payton could have challenged a second-down play or third-down play that were borderline touchdowns. Then Mike Burton’s fourth-down touchdown got waived off due to a ticky-tack offside penalty on Quinn Meinerz.

Down 21 with 17 minutes to go, Payton had absolutely no business settling for a field goal, even on a fourth-and-6 that merely turned a three-touchdown Detroit lead into … a three-touchdown Detroit lead. But by that time he was seeing red. He let loose on Wilson on the sideline after yet another failure on the doorstep.

Maybe he was mad the Broncos burned a timeout earlier in the drive at the end of the play clock after Wilson didn’t snap the ball while Detroit had 12 men on the field. Likely the previous failures at the goal line weighed on him, too.

Perhaps a run to the right on third-and-goal was better numbers-wise than pitching to Javonte Williams going left. Whatever the case or combination of factors, Payton let loose, then said after the game, “What I talk with Russell about is none of your business.”

Why is Sean Payton yelling at Russell Wilson here? Russ was great on that drive. Payton is the one who didn’t throw challenge flag on what looked like a TD. pic.twitter.com/CN6nxb9xPR

— Andrew Perloff (@andrewperloff) December 17, 2023

It became everyone’s business two weeks later.

Week 16

Score: Broncos 0, Patriots 0

Time: 14:53, 1Q

Situation: Third-and-goal at the 2

A chance for redemption, right? The Broncos came off the loss against the Lions still in fine position, needing three wins to likely make the playoffs. As we know now, Wilson needed the wins to keep his job.

The defense set Denver up first-and-goal at the 6-yard line with a first-play turnover against the 3-11 Patriots. After two Williams runs to churn out four yards, a third-down play-action pass had no chance. Tight ends Adam Trautman and Chris Manhertz were covered, as was fullback Michael Burton. Wilson forced the ball into coverage and was lucky to not be intercepted. On fourth-and-goal, he handed to Williams again but might have been better off keeping the ball and following Lil’Jordan Humphrey around the right end.

Regardless, Denver came away with no points, squandering the first of two golden scoring chances before finally getting on the board. It was costly later when Payton went hyper aggressive with his timeouts, allowing the Patriots extra time on their game-winning drive.

The Broncos scored 16 straight points in the fourth quarter to even get to that point, but Payton shot down any notion that playing up-tempo and free-wheeling the way Wilson excelled in the fourth quarter might be sustainable.

“It was more spontaneous,” Payton said. “… It’s hard to say you’re going to make a living that way as your base offense.”

What’s next?

These possessions alone aren’t why the Broncos lost all four games, even though all but Detroit were within reach. Nor are they the only reasons Wilson will be playing elsewhere in 2024.

Payton gave away a possession with a surprise onside against the Raiders to open the season. He got greedy and one-dimensional while bleeding away a 21-3 lead against Washington. He took two dead-ball timeouts on the closing drive against Houston. He didn’t have the team ready to play at Detroit and handed Bill Belichick extra chances in the waning moments last week.

What they do show, though, is the ways in which Payton is willing to fail and the ways in which he’s not: Mistakes within his system are correctable. Mistakes out of system corrupt everything.

Watching Wilson bail out of progressions was barely tolerable when it worked and infuriating when it didn’t. The frustration got muted during a five-game winning streak and then boiled over in losing three of the past four.

What doomed Wilson and Payton’s partnership, then, is also instructive to what the coach will look for in his next signal-caller.

He complimented Stidham this spring as being “smart at the line of scrimmage.”

He wants to see the offense run the way he designs it.

Mobility shouldn’t be a negative, but Payton clearly wants somebody who processes first, second and third, then uses his legs only if necessary.

Drew Brees did it all the way to the Hall of Fame in New Orleans and Payton himself played that way at Eastern Illinois.

How willing is the coach to tailor to his quarterback’s strengths? He says it’s always part of the equation.

“There was an offense for a long time with Drew,” Payton said this week. “He got injured, and we had Teddy (Bridgewater) for five games. It was different, and yet, it was still about winning. We had Taysom (Hill) for a period of time, and Jameis (Winston) for a period of time. Our jobs certainly aren’t to be locked into, ‘This is it.’ We’re going to be flexible and try to suit it to the strengths of our players. I think that’s the first thing any good coach tries to do.”

That never appeared to fully be the case with Wilson.

Will Payton be more patient if he’s playing Stidham in 2024? Or an inexpensive journeyman? What if he’s got a rookie on the field at some point in 2024? He’s never coached one in a starting role. Heck, he only drafted four quarterbacks in New Orleans: Sean Canfield (seventh round, 2010), Garrett Grayson (third round, 2015), Tommy Stevens (seventh round, 2020) and Ian Book (fourth round, 2021).

Only Book ever started a game.