Russell Wilson deserves so much better than being benched by the Denver Broncos

This is For The Win’s daily newsletter, The Morning Win. Did a friend recommend or forward this to you? If so, subscribe here. Have feedback? Leave your questions, comments and concerns through this brief reader survey! Now, here’s Mike Sykes.

Goooood morning, family! Welcome back to the Morning Win. Thanks so much for reading us today. We appreciate you taking a bit of your time.

I know I’ve had quite a love-hate relationship with Sean Payton’s Denver Broncos. I chastised him for discrediting Nathaniel Hackett while doing a terrible job of coaching himself. I also gave Payton credit for eventually turning things around.

So, now, it’s only right that we have to talk about this Russell Wilson situation and, quite frankly, how ugly it is.

For those of you out of the know, Russell Wilson has been benched by the Broncos for the final two games of the team’s season. Jarrett Stidham will take over the reins at QB for Denver.

The benching is just a small part of the bigger picture. The Broncos are planning on moving on from Wilson in the offseason. This move is the first part of that.

The Broncos are trying to keep Wilson’s cost as low as possible. He’s guaranteed $39 million on his deal for 2024, but he also has an injury clause in his deal that triggers another $37 million if he can’t pass a scheduled physical in March. Denver doesn’t want to pay that so the team is sitting him to make sure he won’t get hurt.

RELATED: Five potential Russell Wilson landing spots 

This is all pretty messed up. Russell Wilson isn’t great anymore. Sean Payton has also complained about the Broncos’ offense over the last few weeks, saying it’s “average to below average” in a lot of things. Wilson is not the sort of quarterback he’s used to working with. He’s also not the quarterback he chose for the job, so for Payton to want to move on makes sense.

But let’s not act like he’s not eighth in the league in passer rating (98.0). He’s thrown for 26 touchdowns so far this season and only eight interceptions. That’s more than solid.

That’s not the worst part, though. What makes this terrible is that the Broncos reportedly gave Wilson an ultimatum two months ago: Either waive his injury clause or get deactivated for the final two games of the season. Wilson chose the latter. The Athletic’s Dianna Russini reports that he’s expecting to be cut in March.

Russell Wilson is expecting to be cut by the Denver Broncos in March, per league sources. For almost two months, the quarterback has been starting knowing the organization was most likely going to move on him from after this season.

— Dianna Russini (@DMRussini) December 28, 2023

That’s where this benching becomes malpractice. This isn’t the Broncos giving themselves the best shot to win. It’s the Broncos saving the Walton family a potential shortfall of $37 million on a contract that they agreed upon.

At best, that’s just bad sportsmanship. At worst? This is tanking. And a potential labor issue. The NFLPA should be tackling cases like this every single season. This happens every year. Nothing will come from it, though. Everyone will just move on and act as if this is normal. Mostly because, well, it is. At least in the NFL.

That’s gross. Especially considering that folks are paying their hard-earned money to see the best product possible out on the field every Sunday. Broncos fans certainly won’t be getting that these next two weeks.

If the team wants to move on from Wilson this offseason then it’s certainly free to do that. But completely throwing games to make sure it happens is wrong. Not only does Wilson deserve better, but the fans do, too.

If you’re going to lose, at least give the people a decent football product to watch. It’s the least you could do, Broncos.

The obligatory NBA ratings talk

Over the last day or so I’ve seen so many tweets about how the NFL now “owns” Christmas Day on the sports calendar because of its television ratings.

Tweets like this one, for example, show us that Raiders-Chiefs had double the viewers of all five NBA games combined on Christmas Day this year.

The numbers: 

— 5 NBA Games: 14.4 million viewers

— Chiefs-Raiders: 29.2 million viewers

Certainly, that’s impressive. But do we have to keep going through this rigamarole every single year? Every time the NFL does anything? This conversation is old.

Yes, the NFL completely dominates the NBA with ratings. That’s not a shock. It dominates every sport when it comes to viewership. It’s been that way for years now and it’s probably not changing anytime soon.

The reason this is happening is simple. As Ethan Strauss writes here, this is inventory sports vs. event-based sports. There are only 17 NFL games every season. If there were 82 or 116 or whatever other massive number you want to throw out there, people would care a lot less (and players would be a lot more broken).

That’s the problem the NBA, MLB, NHL and other leagues have. There are simply too many games for people to care about on a night-to-night basis. Especially with so many other things calling for their attention in this digital world we live in.

No matter what day they both play, the NFL is always going to outshine the NBA. That’s just the nature of the beast. It doesn’t mean the league can’t play on Christmas anymore or that it can’t continue to be a tentpole day for the league. The NBA’s fans aren’t going anywhere. It’d be dope if people stopped acting like it.

The only thing to glean from this is that the “too many games” problem is real. And it’s probably time to tweak the product accordingly.

Connor Bedard is that guy

We’ve seen Connor Bedard do a lot of special things so far this year. Preposterous goals look ordinary for the kid. He even has Wayne Gretzky impressed with some of the stuff he does.

He pulled off another incredible feat on Wednesday night when he skated through the Jets’ entire roster to score a game-winning goal in overtime.

Words can’t describe it. Just watch.

BOX OFFICE BEDSY pic.twitter.com/sEq9JGq4fK

— Chicago Blackhawks (@NHLBlackhawks) December 28, 2023

Then he hit them with the Vince Carter celly, too? Nah, man. This kid has got it.

Bedard is now the third youngest rookie(18 years, 163 days) to ever hit a game-winning goal in overtime. The other two are Sidney Crosby (18 years, 101 days) and Jordan Staal (18 years, 153 days). That’s some great company to keep.

Looking forward to watching this dude for the next 20 years, man.

Quick hits: Look at all the mayonnaise! … Everything the Broncos got from Russell Wilson … and more

— Here are 8 wonderfully gross photos of Neal Brown getting covered in mayonnaise at the Duke’s Mayo Bowl. This is horrible. Michelle Martinelli has more.

— Our Christian D’Andrea has more on Russell Wilson’s contributions to the Broncos season. Hasn’t been the greatest.

— Charles Curtis has the five most watchable NFL games for Week 17 here for you.

— Jim Harbaugh compared Jalen Milroe to Michigan’s backup QB so now, of course, he’ll throw for 5,000 yards. Here’s Cory Woodruff with more.

— The Detroit Pistons show the risk of the rebuild with this historic losing streak. Here’s Prince Grimes with more.

— Here’s Blake Schuster and the gang with picks against the spread for Week 17 in the NFL.

That’s all, folks! Happy Thursday. Let’s chat again tomorrow. Until then, peace.

-Sykes