In a week rife with quarterback deals, Tuesday’s news that the Denver Broncos acquired Pro Bowl QB Russell Wilson from the Seattle Seahawks for a package of picks and players may have changed the league the most. First, it ended Wilson’s storied ten-year tenure in Seattle, which gave the team a championship, two Super Bowl appearances, and (at the start of Wilson’s tenure) one of the strongest multi-year victories in NFL history. He also sent an elite passer to a Denver team that finished third in defensive scoring last season, providing the ingredients for a potential Super Bowl recipe next season.
What’s more, the addition of Wilson gives Denver another name to add to its current quarterback carousel – it hopes to be the last one for a while.
Much has been said about how this deal provides the Broncos with a long-awaited replacement for Peyton Manning, who retired after the 2015 season. But everything goes even further. In the 23 seasons since the retirement of John Elway, now team president of football operations, the Broncos have gone through 11 different major starting QBs since winning Super Bowl XXXIII:
- Brian Gries (1999-02)
- Jake Plummer (2003-06)
- Jay Cutler (2007-08)
- Kyle Orton (2009-10)
- Tim Tebow (2011)
- Peyton Manning (2012-15)
- Trevor Simian (2016-17)
- Case Keenum (2018)
- Joe Flacco (2019)
- Drew Lock (2020)
- Teddy Bridgewater (2021)
While not the highest in the league during this period, it is close. Only Cleveland (16), Miami (13), Washington (13), Arizona (12), and Tampa Bay (12) had more starters than Denver in the same period, while Buffalo, Chicago, Minnesota and New York Jets. tied with the Broncos, 11 points apiece. Denver is also one of five clubs that joined Cleveland, Washington, Arizona and Buffalo that did not have a single player in the main team that played at least five seasons at that time.
We generally expect teams that change quarterbacks frequently to be bad, since QB play is so heavily tied to team success – or lack of it – and when a team doesn’t perform, it’s usually the QB that gets most of the blame. This theory is mostly correct here: with the exception of the Broncos, the average winning percentage since 1999 for the above group is .449, and only the Vikings have this figure above .500. But Denver stands out by winning a lot more than we expected compared to other players shuffling QB. After losing a Hall of Famer in Elway, the Broncos then turned around and compiled a .542 winning percentage over the next two-plus decades – 10th in the league and 24 points higher than any other team that used so many different major QBs. .
It helps that Denver quarterbacks since Elway have generally been decent, at least until recently. From Grease’s starting debut to Manning’s penultimate season, the Broncos’ primary QB had an Elo QB per start higher than the league average 13 times in 16 seasons, except for Grease in 2001, Plummer in 2006 and yes. , from Sure Tebow in 2011. In turn, this has allowed the Broncos to be at least respectable most of the years, finishing .500 or better 13 times in those 16 seasons, with eight playoff games. Finding Jake Plummer and Kyle Orton from all over the world doesn’t sound like much fun, but it guarantees your team a high level (albeit a low ceiling).
But things began to change in Manning’s final season, the first of seven consecutive seasons with a below-average primary starter for the franchise, dealt by six different QBs. (Denver actually won the Super Bowl in the first season of that stretch, but it was Manning’s utterly odd season in which he was historically poor, but his teammates led him to the championship.) Over the past five seasons, the Broncos have accelerated their development. QB switching trend with a new primary starter every year; they are the only team in the league that can claim it since 2017.
This unsuccessful search for QB stability was not due to a lack of effort. In search of Manning’s successor, Denver has approached its QB churn from every possible angle: since 2012 alone, it has drafted Brock Osweiler, Zach Dysert, Simian, Paxton Lynch (26th overall), Chad Kelly and Loca. He signed Keenum, Brandon Allen, Brett Raipin and Jeff Driskel. It was sold to Flacco and Bridgewater. Many QBs were high; few were good. Neither was a solution for a team that consistently seems like a good passer away from Super Bowl contention.
After years of speculation that disgruntled Packers QB Aaron Rodgers would fall into Denver’s lap after splitting with Green Bay — in a near-replay of Manning’s exit from Indianapolis a decade earlier — that scenario died when Rodgers agreed to return Packers this week. But Wilson could have been the Broncos’ first choice anyway, and Denver could have fared far worse despite the high price of the deal. Wilson finished the 2021 season ranked eighth in adjusted net yards per try, 10th overall in ESPN quarterbacks, 12th in our Elo QB rolling rankings, and 15th in above-expected completion percentage.
Wilson is one of the best quarterbacks of his generation and should be inducted into the Hall of Fame someday. After posting an above-average Elo QB per start in nine of his last 10 seasons, he should break Denver’s losing streak. A potential contract extension should also help Wilson slow down the Broncos’ QB carousel for the foreseeable future – although at age 34 next season, he’s somehow only two years younger than Manning was when he first changed into the Broncos.
Of course, questions remain as to whether Denver will still be a championship-level team even after the long-awaited upgrade to QB. Teams that rely heavily on defense as a key component of their plans for the future are often disappointed, though the Broncos’ investment in offense, chief among them but not limited to Wilson’s pickup, could offset any potential regression on the other side. ball. Denver’s divisional rivals could also create problems as the AFC West now includes 2nd (Patrick Mahomes of Kansas City), 5th (Justin Herbert of Los Angeles) quarterbacks. , 12th (Wilson) and 17th (Las Derek Carr of Vegas) in our final 2021 QB Elo rankings.
This contest won’t be a picnic for the revamped Broncos, but overall Denver should be thrilled to just get off the quarterback track for a while after Elway. For more than two decades, the franchise has used a collection of refurbished, burnt-out, temporary and cast-offs to play the most important role in the sport. The fact that they still managed to win, even once reaching the top of the league, for a long time made the Broncos an impressive exception. Now, with Wilson on board, it’s time to see what Denver has in store for the next era – presumably with more stability at the center.