Russell Wilson debuts in Sean Payton’s offense but how did he do?

It would be safe to say that Russell Wilson’s first season in Denver did not go according to plan. Since then the franchise has made some moves in the market, not the least of which was the appointment of a new head coach. With that in mind, the question is now about whether Wilson can find his form once again.

How did Russell Wilson play against the Arizona Cardinals?

There are likely two schools of thought when looking at Russell Wilson’s first game under newly appointed Denver Broncos head coach, Sean Payton. On the one hand, Wilson completed a 21-yard touchdown pass to Jerry Jeudy on his final throw of Denver’s preseason opener against the Arizona Cardinals. On the other, that pass came on the Broncos’ fourth possession against what can be considered Arizona’s second team. To be clear, Wilson started 4 out of 9, however, he only managed to register 93 yards on 7 of 13 passing. Where the touchdown was concerned, it was fourth down, and the Cardinals tried to blitz which Wilson seemed to recognize at which point, he was able to dish the ball to Jeudy who moments earlier was guilty of dropping it. On the night, Wilson suffered one sack, but it’s got to be said that he was hit on numerous occasions by a defense that failed to do so with any other QB for the large majority of last season.

So, Russell Wilson wasn’t good?

It’s an answer with layers one could say. For context, Denver went three-and-out on its opening drive with Wilson unable to find the mark on his first two pass attempts. He then followed that up with a 19-yard completion to Jeudy. Unfortunately, any hope that he was about to start taking control of the game, was quickly extinguished by a sack and an incomplete pass which in turn resulted in a missed field goal attempt from 47 yards by Brett Maher. Yet, it would be unfair to say that Wilson didn’t improve. On the Broncos’ third possession, he completed two passes of 13 and 14 yards to Courtland Sutton and Adam Trautman respectively, after clever work by Samaje Perine. Sadly the drive stalled when Wilson failed to connect with Sutton on a deep pass on the third down. The resulting field goal attempt from Elliott Fry was missed from 50 yards out.

This is where the clear-cut positives came. With 9:38 left in the first half, Payton once again turned to his starting offense and with that Wilson and Co. responded by amassing 57 yards across six plays in less than three minutes. Indeed, it was Wilson’s 19-yard pass to Sutton that put the Broncos back within field goal range, and just four plays later was the architect of that aforementioned TD pass to Jeudy. This is all to say that while the bag is mixed, Broncos fans do have reasons to be optimistic. Wilson and the Broncos are still ironing out kinks, that’s for sure, but it looks like that process is going smoothly.