Advertisement

Russell Wilson is primed for a huge bounce back season in Denver | You Pod to Win the Game

Yahoo Sports' Jori Epstein and Charles McDonald discuss Denver Broncos quarterback Russell Wilson and the pressure on him to bounce back from an underwhelming first season in Denver in 2022. Jori believes new head coach Sean Payton is the perfect fit to revive Wilson's career and take advantage of a talented roster, and Charles thinks Wilson still has a few good years left in the tank. Subscribe to You Pod to Win the Game wherever you get your podcasts.

Video Transcript

JORI EPSTEIN: So on that Russell Wilson note, though, because he is one of our major quarterback storylines, can Sean Payton fix him? Can Davis Webb fix him? Is he going to be a steady quarterback this year? And on a scale from let Russ cook, Seattle hype days of not that many years ago to what we saw last year, what do you expect Russ to do this year?

CHARLES MCDONALD: I honestly think this is going to be a bounce back year for Russell. I don't know if it's going to be-- looking at Russell Wilson, for me, like, the dropoff from year to year from his last year in Seattle to his first year in Denver was so stark that I feel like there's some middle ground in-between where he can kind of get back to being a competent player.

Sean Payton is as good as they come as offensive coaches that we've seen in-- in this era of football. I mean, obviously, playing with Drew Brees helps. But I mean, he's been able to get through games and have productive offenses with Taysom Hill starting at quarterback for, like, a month at a time. He's not just relying on someone like Drew Brees, which is-- trust me, as a Falcons fan, it was very annoying. It was really annoying. Like, those Taysom games sucked. They used to beat the Falcons with Taysom all the time when Sean Payton was the coach.

So you know, I think that this will be good for Russ. I think it needs to be good for Russ because if not, like, they don't really have a chance in the division. Mahomes is still there.

They're-- the Chiefs are going to be the favorite, I would imagine, just about every year until Mahomes retires. So you kind of need to get this moving right now. But I do think that Sean Payton is a good spot for him.

JORI EPSTEIN: Yeah, I agree. I think he'll be better. I mean, you and I were talking with someone in the Jets organization about this yesterday as we watched Nathaniel Hackett kind of coordinate the office at practice-- or the offense at practice.

And the way I put it was, it's kind of like when I have friends who I like, and they're like, hey, should we go out? And I'm like, look, you guys are both great. You decide if you're compatible.

And I think it's one of those things where Russell Wilson has had a lot of success in this league. Nathaniel Hackett has had a lot of success in this league. For whatever reason-- and maybe it was reasons outside both of them, maybe it wasn't-- it did not work last year.

But I don't think that the overall body of their career suggests that both of them can't rebound. And so I think, like you said, Sean Payton is the guy to get it out of them. I think they still have a really good defense.

I mean, there's definitely a lot of potential in Denver that makes me think that-- I'm not saying they're going to be, like, running the AFC. The AFC is stacked. But I think they should be a competitive team this year.

CHARLES MCDONALD: Yep, I fully agree with you. The defense is-- they're going to be loaded again. They should be really good. They added some pieces to it.

They added some pieces to the offense, the offensive line. I mean, it's just-- Russ, like, this is kind of all on you, man. You're the one getting paid the big bucks. You're the highest-paid member of the organization, I would assume. So come on, let's ride.

[MUSIC PLAYING]