n Tuesday, the Denver Broncos leadership triumvirate held court at team headquarters for its end-of-season press conference. Broncos fans got to hear from CEO Greg Penner, GM George Paton, and head coach Sean Payton.
All three hosted their respective pressers alone, unlike some of the past front-office iterations that would see the GM and head coach, at least, answering questions together. Although all three shot-callers are expert communicators and very savvy in what information they choose to reveal, we did learn quite a lot about the current state of the Broncos and what the future may hold.
In multiple occasions, Paton was asked point blank to address the veracity of Russell Wilson’s allegation that the Broncos threatened to bench him if he didn’t remove the injury guarantees from his contract. In each case, Paton responded by spinning, and adamantly claiming the Broncos handled the contractual request ethically, while emphasizing that Payton was never part of those negotiations.
“During the bye week, I did reach out to Russ’ agent in good faith and in a creative attempt to adjust his contract,” Paton said. “We couldn’t get a deal done, and we moved on with our season. It didn’t come up again. Fast forward to Week 17, and Sean makes a change at the quarterback position. This was a football decision made by Sean in what he thought was in the best interest of team. This was completely independent of any conversations I had with the agent. Again, it was a football decision made by Sean. [Regarding] negotiations, I’ll keep the specifics private out of respect for everyone involved. Negotiations are hard. You have difficult conversations and tough conversations. You can characterize a negotiation anyway you want. We always try to handle ourselv
When asked why Wilson got the impression that Paton was serving him up an ultimatum, the GM replied, “That’s a good question,” implying that he’s curious as to how the QB’s camp could come to that conclusion, too.
“We made a good faith attempt to adjust his contract,” Paton said. “We handled ourselves professionally, and I’ll leave it at that.”
There is evidence to support Wilson’s claim of being threatened, including the NFLPA’s letter to the Broncos which alleged Paton did present an ultimatum, and requested that the team get all of its ducks in a row from a record-keeping perspective for an expected mediation/litigation. However, all the letter proves is that the NFLPA believes Wilson’s side of the story, not necessarily that it’s the truth.
The players’ union is always going to take the player’s side and advocate on his behalf. Meanwhile, there’s circumstantial evidence to support the Broncos’ denial of the threat, which comes in the form of seven games transpiring between the alleged threat and Wilson’s benching, well after the negotiations had died off, and the team had been eliminated from playoff contention.
Perhaps we’ll learn more about each side’s claim if/when this does get litigated. After all, the Broncos are poised to eat an NFL record in dead money on the salary cap if Wilson is released.
The Walton-Penner ownership group will have 85 million reasons, just in 2024 alone, to battle the issue down to the bitter end. If it comes to that.
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Both Paton and Payton said that a final decision on Wilson’s future with the team hasn’t been made. The team brass will take a little time off with the season ending, and reconvene in two weeks to start hashing out the roster and its big financial decisions.
“The door remains open with ‘Russ,’ Paton said. “I’ve had good conversations with Russ, and Sean has had good conversations. The door is open. We’ll get through the process, and we’ll visit with the coaching staff and scouting staff. We’ll visit with Russ and his people, and we’ll go from there.”
Make no bones about it, though; the door is only barely cracked open and will be contingent on Wilson’s willingness to renegotiate certain aspects of his contract, as evidence by one of Penner’s remarks.
“The financial part of it is a significant component, in terms of how this works out in the future, but that’s not what will drive the decision,” Penner said. “The decision will be driven by what’s in the best interest of this football team winning games.”
If Wilson was sincere in his declaration two weeks ago after he was benched that he wants to remain in Denver, then perhaps he’ll be open to tweaking his contract. That’s assuming, however, that the indignity of being benched didn’t completely sour his relationship with the Broncos brain trust.
Odds are, from Wilson’s point of view, there’s too much water under that bridge and whether they like it or not, the Broncos are legally obligated to pay him the guaranteed portions of his contract.
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