ENGLEWOOD, Colo. — Try as Russell Wilson might to shorten and ease the transition, he’s still a new kid trying to fit in.
After 10 mostly highly successful seasons in Seattle, Wilson as the new Broncos’ quarterback brought his offensive teammates out to his San Diego-area training center in the spring and summer for extra work. He showed up early, and stayed late, during the team’s organized offseason workouts, a habit he carried intro training camp and through the young part of the season.
But the cohesion needed to execute a new, fairly complex offense at game speed -- primetime, crowd-screaming, regular-season game speed -- takes time.
Peyton Manning was 2-3 and trailing 24-0 at halftime of game 6 after he first arrived with the Broncos in 2012. He finished the season 13-3.
Tom Brady was 7-5 with 11 interceptions through 12 games of his first season in Tampa Bay in 2020. He finished the season by tossing the Lombardi Trophy from one parade boat to another.
So it shouldn’t be overly alarming that Wilson -- a top-10-ranked passer in 9 of his first 10 seasons with the Seahawks -- now has the No. 23 rating and is coming off an 11-10 win against the San Francisco 49ers in which the Broncos’ offense struggled through 9 three and outs. Concerning, yes. But time to panic, no way.
"When you look at it, you look at Russell's been in one place for his whole career," Broncos head coach Nathaniel Hackett said Tuesday afternoon in his day-after-game press conference. "Then he comes here, he’s got new coaching staff, new city, new fans, new press, new system, new people that he's going out there and playing with.
"It's not as easy as just going out there with anybody and playing ball. We're all working through all kinds of things. I'm working through things with him on making sure I'm calling the proper plays for him, that the players are running the right routes and it’s that whole thing. Everybody is working together. There's been some good and there's been some bad and we just have to make sure we have more good than bad as we continue to move forward."
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