The Denver Broncos will be heading into their second season with Russell Wilson and are hoping their acquisition of Sean Payton will turn things around following what was a horrendous 2022 campaign.
We can’t be sure that Payton’s arrival will help the team’s fortunes, we’ll just have to wait and see. But, according to a former NFL executive, the enter fiasco could have been avoided as the Broncos were heading towards a trade with the Green Bay Packers for Aaron Rodgers before switching their attention to Wilson.
“The Broncos almost had a trade completed with the Packers for Aaron Rodgers before it fell through last-minute,” said exec was quoted as saying to the NFL Analysis Network. “Green Bay opted to run it back for one more season with Rodgers. The deal would have included three first-round picks, Drew Lock, and Jerry Jeudy. Denver pivoted to acquire Russell Wilson with a slightly lesser trade package.”
This doesn’t seem all that far off when you consider that the Broncos hired Nathaniel Hackett as coach. Hacket was coming off two seasons as the Packers’ offensive coordinator in which Rodgers had won two consecutive MVPs, so the move could have come about as a means of making the change easier to handle for the veteran QB. It’s understood that Davante Adams joining Rodgers in Denver was also a possibility.
The price for Rodgers would have been a big one, though. While the Broncos ended up trading five draft picks and three players, only two of the picks were first-rounders. They also weren’t required to make Jeudy part of the deal.
Who knows? Things just might work out in 2023. Wilson is said to have lost a whole lot of weight this offseason; that’s something.
