What’s the deal with Russell Wilson? To answer that question, we might have to look back at his past. Winning the Super Bowl for the Seattle Seahawks made him a hero in the public eye. However, his teammates Richard Sherman and Marshawn Lynch disliked Wilson for playing hero ball.

When Seattle stopped performing, Wilson demanded a change in the locker room. How did he do that? By asking Seattle management to fire head coach Pete Carroll and their GM because they were not helping him win games. So, if he had that competitive spirit back then, what happened to it when he came to the Denver Broncos with a $245 million contract in hand? Perhaps his relationship with Sean Payton might answer that question.

Why Russell Wilson was not a good fit for the Broncos

Wilson picked up slowly after joining the Broncos. The first season was an eyesore. He improved in the second season. However, the cost was too heavy. Constant sacks, fumbles, and his receivers shouting at him from the sidelines were a few key things that paved the way for his ejection from the team.

Apparently, he asked for Sean Payton to be his head coach in Seattle. Wilson got his wish but with a different team. But Russ playing hero ball didn’t fit well with Sean Payton. The head coach’s former underling and Saints LB revealed it all on The Herd with Colin Cowherd. This is what Demario Davis thinks of Sean Payton’s “intense” persona.

“If you’re not a competitor, If you’re not trying to win, it’s not going to be for you,” said Davis. “If you’re just a ‘me guy’ or you just only want to turn it on on game day like, no, everything is a competition. Everything is a competition with Sean and that what’s he likes. He likes guys who compete to win.”

Wilson put up a run-of-the-mill 3,070 yards with a TD-Int ratio of 26 to 8 last season. He took a whopping 45 sacks in doing so. The head coach was fuming at Russell Wilson on the sidelines after a play call went wrong, or at least that’s how he put it. But one thing that he didn’t shy away from was berating the Broncos abysmal offense. The Broncos country was riding straight home after that season.

“So many times, when we look at some of that stuff, it’s self-inflicted problems,” Payton said. “That has to get cleaned up. That’s communication. That might be having to reduce — is there too much in? Right now, we’re average to below average in a lot of things offensively, and it’s not good enough.”

Wilson taking so many sacks and throwing so many picks doesn’t really scream “competitiveness.” With the Broncos, “Mr. Unlimited” was just another pedestrian QB. Also, the Denver team started their last season with 3 losses in a row and also ended it on a losing note. He killed drives and bailed out of pockets even when there was no pressure, despite having a top-10 O-line. So yes, Wilson was lacking “competitiveness.”

Until Sean Payton showed up in the picture, Wilson was treated like some sort of royalty. From his tenure with the Seahawks to his disheartening breakup with the Denver Broncos, there has been an implication of “selfish” behavior throughout.

Wilson’s ‘professional’ relationship with his teammates

Wherever Wilson went, he was always favored by his head coaches. It started when he took the starting position at Denver and eventually ended with a practice beef with former NFL corner Richard Sherman and running back Marshawn Lynch. They had lost the Super Bowl against the Patriots because of Wilson’s infamous interception.

He should have handed the ball to Marshawn Lynch but chose to throw it, leading to an interception. Both Lynch and Sherman were fuming at Wilson. Pete Carroll took it upon himself and admitted that the play was his fault. This bias for Wilson got Marshawn Lynch and Richard Sherman to harbor negativity against him. The QB was Seattle’s golden boy, and no one would say anything against him.

The whole Seahawks defense and the Legion of Boom thought Wilson was treated differently. “After a while, it had to get to a point where [Carroll] chose Russ or the defense. And after the Super Bowl loss, he kinda made it pretty clear who he was choosing,” said Sherman in the past. There was an incident during practice when the whole defense was picking on Russell Wilson, and he left the practice. Later, Pete Carroll told the defensive players not to speak to Russ, and if they had to say anything to him, Carroll would relay the message.

Coming back to the recent future, Wilson found Nathaniel Hackett as his head coach in Denver in 2022. Hackett was labeled a “walking doormat of a coach” because he let Wilson do anything in Seattle. Wilson had his own coaching staff, his own office, ran his own play calls and had other facilities that the other 51 men did not.

Wilson wanted to learn to play as a pocket passer like Tom Brady or Peyton Manning, but failed. He’s had problems with that in the past, considering how he’s labeled to be an “athletic quarterback.” 2022 season was no different. Nathaniel Hackett “Let Russ Cook” and the result of that was an abysmal 5-12 season. The Broncos fired Hackett after that.

Wilson’s experiments tanked the Broncos’ 2022 season miserably. He was then united with the coach of his liking, and as it turned out, Sean Payton wasn’t really a Russell Wilson fan. Another instance of his “selfish” behavior came when he didn’t renegotiate his injury guarantees with the Broncos and was benched toward the end of the season. He left the Broncos with a historic $85 million in dead money.

Fast forward to 2024, he’s with Mike Tomlin, another steadfast, blunt coach, who won’t “Let Russ Cook” for no reason. Tomlin wants results, and he’s all about the brotherhood. Wilson’s “selfish” antics won’t fly under the radar at Steel City. Will Russ show improvement this year? What do you think?