DENVER — A slew of Broncos players spent part of their Wednesday answering questions about whether Russell Wilson was losing the Broncos’ locker room.
Those questions existed because of what NFL Network’s Tom Pelissero said on NFL Media’s daily “The Insiders” show Tuesday, asserting that Wilson had lost “some people” inside the locker room.
“You go to Denver, you don’t play well out of the gate, that’s when the questions start,” Pelissero said Tuesday. “Everybody knows how much money you make, and they see the posts that you’re putting up win or lose, and they’re seeing the memes of ‘Broncos Country, let’s ride.’
“One of the things that I’ve consistently heard about it is, Nathaniel Hackett, for everything that’s gone wrong, and everything that people are saying about his job right now, he hasn’t lost that locker room. Russ has lost some people around that team. He has lost some people in that locker room. Can he right the ship here?”
Wednesday night, Pelissero attempted to walk some of the sentiments back.
“Utimately I’m responsible — as we all are — for everything that we say on every platform. In this particular case, I wish that some of the other words that I had said on the subject would have gotten equal attention to things about Russell Wilson and the way that some players may feel about the situation right now,” Pelissero said.
He concluded, “In no way was I intending to pin that on any one person. And I’m gonna leave it there. We will allow other people to address birthday parties and whatever else they want to bring up when in regard to Russell Wilson.”
Of course, the birthday-party detour began with a Wednesday morning tweet from KUSA Ch. 9’s Mike Klis, a 104.3 The Fan contributor. That tweet existed, in part, as a rebuttal to the sentiment Pelissero shared Tuesday.
It’s tough to put the genie back in the bottle when you let it out in the first place.
Read on for a transcript of what was said and judge for yourself.
***
THE EXCHANGE THAT SET IT UP:
From the Tuesday, Nov. 29 edition of “The Insiders”:
Pelissero: “Mike, I think it’s fair to say the Russell Wilson trade has not worked out quite as the Denver Broncos would have imagined it back when they gave up two 1s, two 2s, three players to get a guy who thought he was going to Denver to make a Hall of Fame case. Instead, he has become a punchline. He has played poorly — albeit with a lot of injuries and a lot of issues around him. It’s hard to say how the Broncos get out of this, because they can’t get out of the contract extension that they gave to Russell Wilson. Obviously, there’s going to be questions about Nathaniel Hackett’s job, but as you assess this situation, Mike, what in the world do the Broncos do from here?”
GARAFOLO: “Um, that’s a great question. I do not know. I would — I mean — I’m shocked he’s played this poorly. When the trade was made, my thing was, I think we’ve seen the best football from him. Now, I didn’t expect it would be this kind of fall-off. I think it would kind of be like that (motions his arm near his head), and you’d still get some years of really good quarterback play. Stunned that it’s been this bad. And not only that, now you’ve got defensive linemen yelling at him, Melvin Gordon early in the season giving him the eyes on the sideline. I know he’s gone, but still, that was the first indication that these teammates, at least publicly — and I say ‘publicly,’ because privately, we were being told early on, these guys were looking at him side-eyed when he was doing all his kind-of goofy stuff all offseason and into training camp. It’s one thing to be that guy where you come up in a place, you started to really play well, you came out of nowhere, you won the job as a rookie, and you’re a fantastic quarterback, and you’re winning games , you can put up with all that stuff, as long as you’re playing really good football and you’re winning games. When it’s not happening, now it falls off the table. So, it’s not like you can just surround him with a bunch of guys that are his guys. I don’t know who his guys are?”
(Garafolo delivers a mock play-by-play of Mike Purcell yelling at Wilson on the sideline.)
Pelissero: “You talk about all those — just the social-media posts, and all the things kind of around him, showing up wearing his own jersey for the first day of training camp — not John Elway’s jersey, his own throwback Broncos jersey. But here’s the thing: A lot of that stuff went on in Seattle and it kind of bubbled below the surface for a long time. The Broncos were aware of it. They did their homework in the process. What they’re thinking is, ‘This is a guy who’s going to go into a new environment. He’s going to be hyper-motivated. We think that we can capture what he was as recently as the first half of the 2020 season, get him with the right coach, also a super-positive guy, Nathaniel Hackett. This thing is gonna click, and we’re going to roll from there.’ When things then went sideways that quickly, this was not an organization where — remember, in the early days in Seattle, it was very much Richard Sherman’s locker room. It was Marshawn Lynch’s locker room. It’s not Russ’ locker room. So, he got to not have to be that No. 1 leader. It was only in his later years in Seattle that he kind of assumed that role, and at that point, the young players coming in were just looking up to him, ‘Oh, this is Russell Wilson, there’s photos of him on the wall hoisting the Lombardi [Trophy]; this is the guy.’ You go to Denver, you don’t play well out of the gate, that’s when the questions begin. Everybody knows how much money you make, and they see the posts that you’re putting up win or lose, and they’re seeing the memes of ‘Broncos Country, let’s ride.’ One of the things that I’ve consistently heard about it is, Nathaniel Hackett, for everything that’s gone wrong, and everything that people are saying about his job right now, he hasn’t lost that locker room. Russ has lost some people around that team. He has lost some people in that locker room. Can he right the ship here? He’s making $57 million this year. The earliest real out the Broncos would have in his contract would be to move on from him after next season — 2023 — at which point they would still have to pay him for 2024, pay him $124 million for two years. They’re gonna have to figure it out with Russell Wilson here. Does it click with a new coach? Are there other things environmentally? Can you get healthy and it’s just better — because remember, Russ was dealing with injuries, too. I do not know. But it’s an unenviable position right now for George Paton and — at least for the next six weeks here — Nathaniel Hackett to be in, trying to find answers, whether it’s the play caller, whether it’s personnel stuff. They’ve tried different things, Mike. Nothing has resolved it.”
GARAFOLO: “But going back to Seattle, he had a chance to have input in the new offensive coordinator, and that didn’t really help matters, either. Then he had a chance to choose his destination, choose his head coach. That didn’t work. I do not know. Like, I wish I had a great answer for you. I don’t know what they’re gonna do. Ride it out and just get to that point where they can cut bait and say, ‘Well, that’s a sunk cost.’ New ownership, by the way. I don’t know.”
Pelissero: “Did you say, ‘Ride it out,’ Mike? Let’s ride it out?”
GARAFOLO: “I did. That was unintentional. I can’t believe I said that. That’s good. Let’s ride — it out!”
Pelissero: “That’s the new slogan in the offseason. Broncos Country, let’s ride it out. We’ll see where things go from here.”
***
AND WHAT PELISSERO SAID WEDNESDAY:
Pelissero: “I wanted to start off this show by addressing something that Mike [Garafalo] and I discussed yesterday that took on a bit of a life of its own overnight — which is our conversation that we had about the Broncos and Russell Wilson. Ultimately I’m responsible — as we all are — for everything that we say on every platform. In this particular case, I wish that some of the other words that I had said on the subject would have gotten equal attention to things about Russell Wilson and the way that some players may feel about the situation right now. I also want to go back to the first thing that I said in that segment, which was, ‘This is not all Russell Wilson’s fault.’ He has been hurt throughout the course of this season. He has dealt with the lat strain. He has dealt with a partially-torn hamstring, among other things. He’s been down five running backs, three of his top four receivers. He didn’t have his tight end, Greg Dulcich, for four games there. He’s down three offensive tackles; Garett Bolles is out for the season. On defense, they’ve been beat up, too. And all the while, he’s getting used to a new coaching staff in a new place, and virtually every game, it felt like, was on national TV for the first two months of the season. None of which is an excuse for Russell Wilson. But the broader point here was, when you are a highly-paid player on a team — especially when it is a new team — your best players need to play their best for you to be good. Russell Wilson will be the first person to say [that] he has not played his best to this point this season. Nathaniel Hackett — who also has certainly found himself having to answer a lot of questions throughout the season about his own performance — is in an unenviable position. Everybody’s trying to fix this. Russell Wilson is under contract. They obviously gave up a lot to get him. He is signed for the long haul here, fully guaranteed for the first three years on that contract. Everybody’s gotta figure out a path forward here. It’s not an easy thing to do. In no way was I intending to pin that on any one person. And I’m gonna leave it there. We will allow other people to address birthday parties and whatever else they want to bring up when in regard to Russell Wilson.”
.