ENGLEWOOD, Colo. — The Denver Broncos, with an NFL high 11 starting quarterbacks since the start of 2016, have wandered in the quarterback desert for so long and tried so many different solutions that they now hope the 12th time is the charm.
Welcome Russell Wilson to perhaps the biggest pile of expectations you’ve had in your professional football career: a franchise with three Super Bowl trophies in its lobby that seems to live by late owner Pat Bowlen’s annual season prediction of, “I think we’re going to win the Super Bowl every year.”
The billboards to welcome Wilson are already up and the league-shaking trade that brought him to the Broncos from the Seattle Seahawks won’t even be official until free agency opens Wednesday. Wilson will be the 12th different person to start behind center for Denver since Peyton Manning retired.
They don’t waste time putting up billboards in Denver…. pic.twitter.com/U9NNBzHlme
— Adam Schefter (@AdamSchefter) March 9, 2022
Since Manning’s tearful farewell, the Broncos have missed the playoffs in six consecutive seasons, had three coaching changes and five different offensive coordinators, with newly hired Justin Outten now the sixth.
“We just want the best guy,” general manager George Paton said at the NFL combine last week. “We don’t care if it’s free agency; we don’t care if it’s the draft; we don’t care if it’s a trade. We’re going to exhaust all options to try to get the best guy for the Broncos.”
Paton has already tried to fix the Broncos’ quarterback woes, trading for Teddy Bridgewater last April. The acquisition of Wilson, in exchange for five draft picks (two first-rounders, two second-rounders and a fifth-rounder) to go with three players (quarterback Drew Lock, defensive end Shelby Harris and tight end Noah Fant) is a testament to how crippling the turnstile at quarterback has become.
From Trevor Siemian to Paxton Lynch to Brock Osweiler to Case Keenum to Joe Flacco to Brandon Allen to Lock to Jeff Driskel to Brent…
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