Getty Denver Broncos QB Russell Wilson sitting on the sideline.
After an embarrassing 3-8 start to the 2022 season, most people would think that Denver Broncos head coach Nathaniel Hackett would be the one losing the locker room, but that may not the case.
According to Tom Pelissero of the NFL Network, on “The Insiders”, quarterback Russell Wilson is losing some within the locker room. “Russ has lost some people around that team. He has lost some people in that locker room.”
I was told a month ago from a source connected into the Broncos facility that Wilson has lost players in the locker room. Players are looking at Wilson wondering why he’s acting so much different than the rest of his teammates.
During the same episode, Mike Garafolo said, “Privately, we were being told early on these guys [teammates] were looking at him side eye when he was doing all kinds of his goofy stuff all offseason into training camp.”
This comes after Wilson was consistently trying to force the team slogan to be “Let’s Ride” and showing up to the team facility wearing his own Broncos retro jersey.
In the ten games that Wilson has played in this season, he’s thrown for just 2,369 yards with eight touchdowns and five interceptions. Wilson is also completing a career-low 58.9 percent of his passes.
Nathaniel Hackett Fires Back at the ‘Gossip’ Report
When speaking to the Denver media today, Hackett was asked what he thought of Pelissero’s report, “To me it’s all gossip. We have a fantastic locker room.”
Hackett continued by praising his franchise quarterback, “When you look at a guy like Russ, I mean, he’s unbelievable. I’ve never seen somebody work that hard, I’ve never seen somebody try to embrace a team like he has while he’s here.”
There’s no doubt that Wilson might be the hardest worker in the building, but the results are not showing up on the field.
This season, the Broncos are averaging an NFL-worst 14.3 points per game which ranks as the worst in team history dating back to 1966. Throwing just eight touchdown passes is also the worst in franchise history since 1990.
The offense continues to struggle and Wilson has to lead the way like the historically great ones have done. Denver’s 14 total touchdowns scored on offense this season is the worst in team history dating back to 1971.
“If you lose, you’re going to get criticism, it’s that simple. The idea is that you got to keep your head down, you got to keep working, you got to do everything you can to put the team in the best position and they got to feel that and know that. That’s something Russ does, he doesn’t get effected, he keeps coming out here and working. I mean heck, he might work harder and I didn’t think you could,” Hackett said.
Birthday Drama With Russell Wilson?
It feels like the Broncos are living in the movie, “Draft Day.”
In the movie, there’s a scene when the Cleveland Browns found out that nobody attended the potential star quarterback’s birthday party. There might be a similar situation with the Broncos.
Wilson’s birthday is on November 29th and he was joined by his wife, Ciara, as the couple spent time at a local hospital visiting patients as he does every Tuesday during the season.
Later on that night, Ciara decided to throw him a party, but apparently there was a good chunk of the team missing from the party.
There’s been some gossip about Russell Wilson’s standing in locker room. Here’s some context. Per source Wilson’s wife Ciara thru him a birthday party last night and “it looked like about half the team was there.” On player’s day off. Why do people have to be so hurtful? #9sports
When asked about the party today, Wilson said, “We had a blast and just chopped it up, had a great time.”
According to Wilson’s Instagram story on his birthday, Wilson shared posts in his from many friends and former teammates from the Seattle Seahawks. In the shared posts, he thanked each person, but the interesting thing is that Wilson never shared a post from one of his Denver teammates.
Once again, Wilson has been put in the headlines for reasons that make a lot of fans in Broncos Country uncomfortable with after general manager George Paton signed him to a five-year contract extension before seeing Wilson take a regular season snap.