ON A CRISP Dec. 27 morning at the Broncos' suburban Denver complex, players filed into what they thought was a standard Wednesday team meeting. Instead, coach Sean Payton had a stunning announcement for the group: Russell Wilson was no longer the starting quarterback.
"It was a surprise to everybody in the locker room. He just told us out of nowhere," wide receiver Jerry Jeudy said.
This wasn't a depth chart shuffle 10 plays into a game. This was a foundational decision that will carry enormous financial weight, have draft implications and may upend the Broncos' short-term ability to compete.
The construction of Wilson's contract, a contract that team owner/CEO Greg Penner once heralded in the same room in which Payton announced Wilson's benching, will test every part of the Broncos' ability to move forward. Especially if, as expected, the Broncos release Wilson before the new league year begins in March.
But Payton has said those discussions have yet to happen.
"[In terms of] the future, we haven't had a sit-down,'' Payton said in the days following the announcement. "I'm sure we will. Greg and I and [general manager George Paton] speak frequently, but this is about now.''
The short-term future is certain: Denver missed the playoffs for the eighth straight year. If Wilson is released, the Broncos will take on the biggest dead-money hit in the history of the NFL's salary cap and head into April's draft with six picks and, once again, a question about who will be their next quarterback.
"Look, they're in a little bit of a box," a rival general manager told ESPN. "We've all been there or are going to be there if you do a deal that big that you put an end to before the more comfortable exit point. It looks like to me they took a hammer to this. You try to avoid dead money, kicking that can, because dead money is really players you can't have because of players you let go and are still paying for -- the bigger the number, the more players you can't have.
"And you add what it costs to replace the player that's gone, the new salary doesn't replace the old one, it's added on, so in some ways you're paying double for the new guy.''
Their ability to find a better option to Wilson at quarterback -- he was tied for sixth in the league with 26 touchdown passes when he was benched -- is limited by the mechanics of the decision to move on before his contract provides any real exit.
Players were also left frustrated. When asked about the reaction to the benching decision, one player said, "Pissed for Russ. Just pissed for Russ, a lot of us.''
Another player added, "We just won five in a row. We're all going to support [backup Jarrett Stidham], but Russ was giving everything he had.''
How it all got here and what it means:
The beginning of the end
Wilson said in the days following the Broncos' Week 8 victory -- a win that snapped a 16-game losing streak to the Kansas City Chiefs -- team officials asked him to waive or adjust a $37 million salary guarantee in his contract or he would be "benched for the rest of the year.''
The guarantee is part of the five-year, $242.6 million contract he signed in 2022 and was announced by the same team officials with great fanfare. It gives Wilson, who is already guaranteed $39 million in 2024, that additional $37 million (his 2025 salary) if he could not pass a physical on the fifth day of the new league year -- March 18.
Essentially, in a season when the Broncos were 3-5 after the win over the Chiefs, a serious injury to Wilson could have added $37 million to what he was owed.
"They definitely told me I was going to be benched and all that,'' Wilson said. "That whole bye week I didn't know what was going to be the case I was going to be ready to play, I wanted to go to Buffalo and beat Buffalo ... I wasn't going to remove injury guarantee.
"I want be able to play, I want to be able to help this team win. ... I know every time I step on the field it's a physical game, I never play timid, I never play scared.''
After Payton announced the change, team sources said the Broncos had hoped to talk to Wilson and his representatives earlier in the season with the goal being to adjust the date of the guarantee as well as some other things that may give the team some financial relief.
Publicly, however, Payton has maintained Wilson was benched strictly as a football decision, one made to find a "spark" on offense.
And Payton, who has overseen everything from the playbook to the design of the warm-up gear players wear on road trips, said multiple times he was not privy to any dialogue about Wilson's salary guarantee.
Neither Penner nor Paton have commented publicly since Wilson was benched and the Broncos have told those who have inquired that Payton's statements represent the organization's perspective. Penner and Paton are expected to speak to media this week.
Record-breaking dead money
It's one thing for the Broncos to see if Stidham, who signed a two-year, $10 million deal last March, is a potential solution for their quarterback quandary. Especially now that he's the 12th quarterback to start a game for the Broncos since Peyton Manning called it a career after their Super Bowl 50 win.
But if Stidham is not the solution, the Broncos have already severely limited their ability to find a marquee quarterback.
Dead money is an accounting portion of the salary cap that counts players no longer with the team -- those who had years that remaining on their contracts when they were released, waived or traded. When signing bonuses are pro-rated over the life of a contract to help short-term accounting, those pro-rated amounts, even though the player already has the cash, are the receipts left behind.
Should the Broncos release Wilson, the $85 million in dead money left behind on their salary cap will be the biggest such charge for a single player any team has taken on since the salary cap began in 1994. Even with a post-June 1 designation (Wilson's release can come any time and be one of two designated post-June 1), the dead money would be spread out over two years and put the Broncos in uncharted salary cap territory.
The biggest dead money charge to date for a single player in a single year was $40.525 million in 2022 when the Atlanta Falcons traded quarterback Matt Ryan. The Green Bay Packers took a $40.31 million dead money charge this season after they traded Aaron Rodgers to the New York Jets.
According to several league executives who manage the salary cap, the dead money charges would be $35.4 million in 2024 and $49.6 million in 2025. That's on top of the dead money the Broncos already have on the books for 2024 -- just over $10 million. They took a $6 million dead money hit after trading Randy Gregory and $3.2 million after releasing Frank Clark.
Four teams entered this season with dead money charges of over $60 million -- the Packers, the Tampa Bay Buccaneers (after Tom Brady's retirement), the Los Angeles Rams and the Arizona Cardinals. The Rams (10-7) clinched a wild card spot, but have Matthew Stafford at quarterback and started the season with the second-youngest roster in the league.
The Packers (9-8) also clinched a wild card and have a first-round pick in Jordan Love on a rookie deal at quarterback and started the season with the youngest roster in the league, one aided by a 13-player draft class last April. The Buccaneers (9-8) won the NFC South title and started the season with the eighth-youngest roster in the league.
The Cardinals (4-13), who missed the playoffs and finished last in the NFC West, started the season at 20th in age, down near where the Broncos started the year -- at 24th.
As the rival general manager put it: "You can deal with dead money, but you better be ready to be young, real young, and it's easier if you're young around a quarterback you want to have for a long time.''
So, despite having Wilson's actual salary off the books, he still costs the Broncos $85 million in cap space. The Broncos' quarterback room will already cost $35.4 million in 2024 and $49.6 million before they sign any other players.
Dabble in free agency to sign another Wilson-level quarterback and the prospect of a $60 million salary cap charge for one position on a team that already projects to be roughly $20 million over the projected cap next year and the dilemma begins to get clearer. The Broncos, unlike how the Packers stacked picks in the April draft, also have six picks in the 2024 draft at the moment, with two picks on the draft's first two days.
Despite the signs pointing to Wilson's exit -- including Wilson's social media post on the day he was formally benched of "looking forward to what's next'' -- Payton contends no final decision has been discussed.
"What we will do when the season ends ... we do this whole process of the whole roster," Payton said. "We have a series of numbers and grades that I've learned early in my career. We go through every player, starting with the trainers, the strength [coaches], the position coaches, the coordinators, pro personnel, general manager and head coach. We'll do that, but we haven't begun at all to decide. Not just Russ, but any other player.''
Safety Justin Simmons, the only Broncos player to see all 12 quarterbacks start those games since 2016, said, "Russ has been great for us. It's just unfortunate things don't work out, sometimes they don't, it's not a shot at him as a player, not a shot at him as a person, I just think sometimes thing just don't work out, that's how it is.''
The 'box'
The Broncos are indeed in "a bit of box" the moment they release Wilson, as the rival GM said.
They are not a young team -- they started the season the 24th-youngest team in the league. Any big-move trade would require trading future draft capital.
And that's a tough call because the Broncos have traded so much draft capital already, including three first-round picks and two second-round picks combined to acquire Wilson and to hire Payton. Their current roster has three of their own first-round picks on it, including cornerback Pat Surtain II.
The feeling among many NFL executives is even as the richest ownership group in the league, the Broncos will have a difficult time overcoming those issues. Especially if Stidham, or somebody else, isn't actually an upgrade over how Wilson played this season.
"I hope that it's here, I hope that it's here for a long time,'' Wilson said two days before Stidham started against the Chargers. "I hope we win some more silverware in the front hall and we get some more championships and if it's not here, I'll be prepared to do that somewhere else, but I hope that it's here, I genuinely mean that, I brought my family here and everything else.''