Since 2022, Russell Wilson has helped two teams rebuild into championship-caliber squads.
By being traded away from them.
When the Seattle Seahawks hoisted the Lombardi Trophy last Sunday, they were not just celebrating a huge win after an impressive season dominating the NFC.
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They were celebrating a bold decision four years ago that can be directly linked to their Super Bowl victory on Sunday — trading Russell Wilson to the Denver Broncos.
At the time, the Broncos believed they clearly got the better end of that deal, acquiring a Super Bowl-winning quarterback to lead them out of the wilderness and back on the road to a world championship.
But it would be Denver’s two first-round picks, two second-round picks, a fifth-round pick, QB Drew Lock, DE Shelby Harris, and TE Noah Fant traded to Seattle that would prove to be the better deal as the Seahawks used it to build a Super Bowl-winning roster in four short years.
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The trade was so bad for Denver that when Sean Payton couldn’t fit Wilson into his long-term vision for a Super Bowl-caliber team, owner Greg Penner was fine walking away from Wilson and suffering the extreme dead cap limitations in the short term so long-term success had a chance.
“You prefer not to have that kind of dead money … but I love the approach we took, which was none of us were ever going to make any excuses for that.”
GREG Penner
And as Penner noted in his end-0f-season remarks following the AFC Championship loss, the Broncos navigated these past two years remarkably well.
“You prefer not to have that kind of dead money on your books because it can be a limiter, but I love the approach we took, which was none of us were ever going to make any excuses for that,” Penner said.
So now the Broncos hope they can do exactly what the Seahawks did after moving on from Wilson – build a championship roster. The main difference is the Broncos had to do it with no first-round picks and a huge dead cap hit.
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The first step in the equation was a talented rookie QB.
Payton nailed that one.
“For any NFL team to be successful, there are some critical pieces,” Penner said, highlighting the key people being head coach, GM and quarterback. “That gives you a chance every year to be successful.”
The next step was drafting enough young talent in mid-rounds while buying a few key veterans in free agency to get through dead cap hell.
Payton and Penner nailed that one too. The lack of experienced talent on the offense showed up a little too often, but the experience and dominance of the defense made the mistakes tolerable.
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“[I’m] proud of the way everyone else handled it, and looked at developing young players and didn’t use it as a built-in excuse,” the head coach said. “We can find those all the time. I think it’s significant, and it’s still important. We evaluate wisely. We draft wisely. We make these decisions regarding free agency with well thought out plans, and we go from there.”
“We go back to the start of the race. [All] 32 teams have to go back and meet their parents, eat their oranges and get ready to start again.”
Sean Payton
So now the Broncos face the offseason in their best position in over a decade — a young team on the rise and no longer hamstrung by their dead cap.
“We just looked at it as, ‘We’re going to have some constraints. We’re going to have to be scrappy, and we’re going to figure it out and put a great product on the field.’ I think that we’ve done that,” Penner said about the outlook the previous two years. “We’re in a good position now in terms of cap space, as well as our draft picks. That’s exciting as we go into this offseason.”
Payton is too experienced, however, to know that a team just carries over its success from one year to the next.
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The 2026 season will be its own new fight to the top.
“Yes, I love the question, but man, I will not use that word, ‘take the next step,’” Payton said. “We go back to the start of the race. Every 32 teams have to go back and meet their parents, eat their oranges and get ready to start again.”
But now the Broncos get to do that “with a foundation” in place.
“That’s really important,” Payton added. “We do that with optimism and confidence from the journey we’ve been on. I think that’s important.”
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