Oh boy.
Things are not going too well over in the Mile High City for Russell Wilson and the Denver Broncos. He and first-year head coach Nathaniel Hackett are off to a 3-6 start and not on the same page. Their first-round pick is currently slated to be 7th overall and will be conveyed to the Seattle Seahawks.
According to Tyler Polumbus, a former Seahawks tackle who played with Wilson and who is a Colorado native, things are looking bleak in Denver.
Polumbus reported Wednesday that Wilson is “losing his mind out there” and confounding his teammates by using phrases from his Seattle days.
He agreed that Wilson is audibling out of too many play calls because he and Hackett disagree on the calls, with neither giving ground. But it’s those audibles that bely and even deeper issue.
“Russell is losing his mind out there. He’s losing his mind,” Polumbus said. “He’s at the line of scrimmage using audibles from the Seahawks. The guys don’t know what the audibles are. I mean, he’s using code words that guys don’t know what the code words are.
They’re coming back to the huddle and they’re like, ‘Dude, what are you what are you saying up there? We don’t know what the play — we don’t know what that is. He’s losing his mind right now.”
The full clip is below.
This is a particularly difficult problem to solve given that Wilson, in addition to being signed to an outrageous, five-year, $242 million deal with $161 million in guarantees, entered into that agreement with the knowledge that he’d have say over the offense.
It was reported after his trade to Denver that Wilson and Hackett would have a different dynamic. Per a Peter King report during training camp:
“Coach and Russell are not coach-player. They’re partners.”
It’s hard to see how this will pan out well in Denver.