Outlet owned and operated by the NFL. That Russell Wilson
has lost some of the locker room and are we really
surprised by it? Is it implausible, it's not like
someone
reporting Patrick Mahomes, has lost some of the locker room.
I think it's the next logical step in this big picture
analysis of where the Broncos are. They give up multiple
first-round draft picks? Plus more
to get Russell Wilson.
They make him the king.
King of Colorado. They give him a gigantic contract before he's
ever played in any game preseason, a regular season for
the Broncos because you didn't play at all in the preseason.
They gave me a contract right before
the Labor Day weekend.
And
he's not earning it and we're seeing it's one thing after
another. It's one issue after another. It's one drama after
another Mike Purcell in his face on Sunday.
I I don't look at this and say yeah man that's just all that's
all fun.
Tony Baloney clickbait. I mean of any of the teams in the NFL
that would have an issue like that. Of course, it's going to
be the Denver Broncos, when the defense is busting its ass
every week and getting it done every week and keeping
opponents in the teens or lower every week at some point. Chris,
somebody is going to get pissed off
about the chosen. One,
who hasn't chosen to do anything to help the team win.
Yeah, I think you're saying it right. I mean they're
pissed off and I'm mad angry, whatever. It is
you're mad as a competitor and you're mad that your team is
not playing up to the level that you thought you were
capable of playing. And especially,
you know, you're the expectations you set forth for
yourself because, oh, wait, we got Russell Wilson coming to
the football team. Look at what we're going to be and they're
paying them all this money. So you're expecting big results.
If you're on the football team,
you know, lost the locker room. I think is a little strong in
that language. Image II. Don't I? When people say that all of
it, not all of us. Some of it,
not all of it. Yeah. So well for up the dirt. All
right, I'm sure there's some looking at him side eye or
whatever else and a little bit going like, man are we gonna
are you going to start making some plays and Ballin Out for
us a little bit? Here is your,
you know, without a doubt. The highest-paid guy on
the football team times to, right? So, yeah, you're going to get
some of that pressure and some guys talking behind your back
when you're that.
I and then you're playing really bottom half of
the league
quarterback play. I mean that's did we're going to be honest,
that's where Russell Wilson's played this year, it's bottom
half of the league consistent quarterback, play out of him.
So yeah, that's going to lead to rubbing some guys the wrong
way. But that's not to say that you can't win the locker
room back, right? That's where people, I think sometimes look
at it or at least like you know, just the average fan they
think always lost the locker room, there's issues
the he'll get guys right back in his corner of He throws for
350 and they start winning some games and doing some things
that way they might not be as best friends. But they're
they're going to believe in his abilities of what he can do.
That's
at least what I'll say for that part there,
but that's the only way to do it. We have seen. Yeah,
remember the Monday night game against the Chargers when they
go to break at halftime and they have him out in
the hallway? Personally, greeting.
I mean, I guess when your,
when your own by the Walmart people,
The function of greeter
just is kind of natural and goes with the territory, but
he's, you know, at there's the stuff he does that seems
contrived that seems phony. That seems inauthentic, that's
not going to win the guys in the locker room who are giving
him the side-eye
at this point. The only way is going to win. Anyone over is by
winning period, playing well and winning games. And
the problem is
11 games into this experiment,
he can't something's missing something gone. That's
the fundamental problem. So when you take a player
whose abilities aren't what they used to be,
but he's still treated as
the second coming.
That's the issue. And another thing I've noticed Chris
because there are some very good PR people who work for
the teams of the National Football League
and Patrick Smith is one of the best. If not the very best, his
fingerprints are all over how they're dealing with this
because the word gossip keeps coming up
Nathaniel Hackett referred to.
This is just gossip
and Mike class of nine news in Denver, It's an NBC affiliate.
And I feel bad saying this, but he basically acts like external
PR for the Broncos at times. And I understand you've got
a relationship. You've got to maintain with the only team you
cover, but
there's a line, you don't want to cross. And he was on
the wrong side of it yesterday, trying to pump this situation
up, dismissing it all as gossip and he went down a path that
dragged me along with it. To
point out the other side
that Sierra had a surprise birthday party for Russ on
Tuesday night and about half the team was there and he
presented it. Like it was a A positive, wait a minute,
if about half the team is there?
Do the math here,
carry the 1
half the team, isn't there
on a Tuesday night when they're off
at a party being thrown by a couple that has the money to
throw
the best party you're ever going. To go to write mean,
you ain't having pigs in a blanket
at the Russell Wilson. Surprise birthday party thrown by Sierra.
So,
you know that and that that's just another wrinkle. And and
on one Hand. It's extremely trivial and superficial, but on
the other hand, Chris, if they all beloved, or if Russell
Wilson was beloved by all of them, let me get that right
before I get too far
down the wrong path.
If he was beloved by all of them, they all would have been
there. Wouldn't they wouldn't put yourself on an NFL team,
Chris,
and anyone listening or watching
if you're on an NFL team and there's a guy
who is making 50 million a year and his wife is doing pretty
well too and she's having a surprise birthday party for him
and everyone's invited and presumably
The whole team was invited, that's the event of the Year,
isn't it?
Well, it is but I don't think we can read so deep into it
here. There's a few things that I would throw out there. Like
if I was a defensive tackle first off and it's on a Tuesday
night. Yes, it's a player's day off but the
next day is wake up early and go to practice,
right? So why wouldn't they have the party on a Monday
night? That's where I think you get the whole team there,
that's in my experience, that's the night. You have a party and
then we all show up because now God's going to be like, Oh,
I'm ready to drink and
have some fun and I don't have to get up early
Tuesday. Night. You know, that would be a night where you're
like, well, it's a school night. I don't know if I really
want to go
there and get loose and have fun and do that,
you know, also to,
you know, not that you invite the whole locker room. Sure.
But you don't expect the whole locker room to go, you don't,
I understand what you're saying there. As far as it is Ciara
and Russell Wilson and you expect it to be an event. But
man, I don't know if I was a great defensive end or
defensive tackle on a Tuesday night, and I went in,
you know. Okay, I'm tired, we got a big game this week, all
that. I'm not going to sit here and say I definitely would have
been there, you know me, we know you. You'd have been like
wait no, this is my routine. This is what I'm doing on
a Tuesday night. I don't know if I'm gonna go to that
party, this is going to mess up my routine. Your kind of that
way. I'm that way. There's a lot of guys in the locker room
that way. So again Russell Wilson. I know he's not
the favorite of the locker room, I get that. But I do feel like
people are now piling on and reading a little too deeply
into
some of this stuff.
Two points, first of all at age 57, that's the way I am at age.
23, free food, free booze and it's going to be nice. And who
knows who's going to show up and provide the entertainment?
I'm there,
the other side of it is this
I wouldn't have said a damn thing about it.
If this notion that half the team was there
wasn't being used in some way to prop the situation up
because the yeah, I hear you pop up anything, it's bull crap
because the flip side is the same.
Argument about half the team wasn't there, I otherwise
wouldn't have said one word about it. If I didn't feel like
somebody was trying to make us think that half attendance
was good because at best, it's a push because you can say it's
bad to
as plausibly as you can say. It's good.
That's the only reason I did anything with it and one other
point one other thing, because
all this talk obscured, what I think was the most significant
development yesterday Nathaniel Hackett during his Wednesday.
Press conference was a
If he would consider making a quarterback change. Now, if he
thought it would help, the team be in better position to win
and his response wasn't
know his response. Wasn't, what the hell are you doing asking
me? This question. Bill Belichick's Style with rolling
his eyes and grunting.
He said right now. No,
right now, know,
right now, know there's a lot in that Chris.
Would you consider making a quarterback change?
Right now know that implies get back to me
after the Ravens game,
get back to me
in a couple of weeks. Maybe at some point down the road
right now, changes
from no to yes I thought that response was far more
significant than any of the other noise that came out of
yesterday.
Yeah, I'm Mike. I hear you. It made me raise my eyebrows
a little bit when I saw it that it did. But at the same time
I think, you know, it'll
I think the first thing I thought of when I saw it was,
well, he's just trying not to like roll out, he's trying to,
you know, keep a little Edge on Russell Wilson. He doesn't want
to make him feel like it's too comfortable here. Like, hey, no
matter how crappy you play, You're Still the starter,
right? I tracked, the kind of that the contract serves as
the I know and does exactly so Wilson. I I think so, but
I think he's also got to say some of that stuff to for his team
to here to that, you
just don't get her just because you're making that money, you
get to do that, right? Are you get to play like crap and you
just automatically get to be the starter. So he saw him for
right now. He's the guy we're talking to,
you know, evaluate that for now, right? Which I don't think
they're ever going to evaluate, but I think that's the event
answer for right now. Just to kind of
appease the masses to a degree.
And then the other thing I want to say on top of it, Mike to,
you know,
With Russell Wilson, the plays not been good, I get it. And
you could corny and cheesy and sure whatever. You know,
I respect Russell Wilson because I feel like he owns it and
that's who he is. I don't even feel like as
an act anymore, it's just what he is.
So I got no problem with that
but I understand guys in the locker room do and I
but but what what do you want to say? No. I mean
you're basically saying he's a caricature. Who's become
the character?
Well, maybe yeah, I don't know, maybe I didn't want to,
I didn't want to go there but when he's talking yesterday and
he's got that fake smile on his face, the whole time, didn't it
seem fake to you? As he's,
he's probably wants a lash out at somebody. He's probably
pissed off but his default is to smile and cliche his way
through it.
Yeah, I don't like it. I'm thinking of that, I'm thinking
of the Jerry Seinfeld episode where they just wanted to see
him get mad once. I'd like to
see Russell Wilson, get mad. Once I want to know that
there's a real boy in there somewhere, you know, I've said
that about Tom Brady, I'd like to see something other than
the robot from time to time.
For some of these guys who have this very manicured image that
they're so obsessed with constantly presenting to us.
I would like to every once in a while, get a glimpse of their
Humanity. Good bad, or otherwise,
not the mask that they put
it on for all of us to see.
Nah, Mike, I don't disagree with you. And then again,
that's why you hear the things that you hear coming out of
that locker room because it's not always going to be
relatable to guys, you know,
there's always the phrase of like real recognizes real,
right? You've heard that before
and I'm sure there's a lot of guys in the locker room,
they're going up, I'm real. And I don't recognize that, I don't
know what that is but
and again I Mike you're right. I mean it is a, it's a facade
but it's it's a facade, maybe in the fact that he's
Been doing it since he's 10 years old to where I think it's
just part of him. Now I don't think it's like an act. I think
that's the way he's just truly programmed himself to be
all the time and that's okay. But you know to your point and
to what we're talking about when you're that guy, then you
better play well.
But the other thing, I just want to say on top of that to is
he does do all the other things that Nathaniel hack it was
explaining to to wear a locker room, is not real gossipy and
as long as you kind of handle, Your work and act like
a professional,
a locker room. The guys in there, they're going to respect
you. Hey, he's trying as hard as he might be playing like
s***. But damn, he's trying and he's working and I see him here
and there's going to be respecting that I got to
believe there's that there
for Russell Wilson
out of the fact that, you know, I know you don't have to have
everybody in the locker room like like the quarterback for
the team to be good. I can go through a bunch of teams in
the history of football where I'd go.
I think a lot of the guys in the locker room dude that think
that quarterback was an ass. Yes, but he was winning games,
and they believed in them. And so, what? And I mean, damn, we
just saw the thing with the
B, the Chicago Bulls,
it seems like the whole team thought Michael Jordan was an ass
didn't matter. They believed in him a new how great he was.
So you know, I'm not trying to make excuses here. I'm just
saying I don't think this is the end all be all, and this
means it's all over. He just got to start playing better to
your point and
you know, I don't think his attitude or how he acts at
a Podium is going to change. I think it's too ingrained in him
at this point.
I agree with you completely. I just
this.
I've said this a few times this week.
There there will be books written
about what the hell happened to Russell Wilson. And what
happened to the 2022
Denver Broncos, compelling Inside Story long articles,
10,000 words, plus that people will actually read. Instead of
just say, oh it'll got 10,000 word article. I'm not reading
it. But I'm impressed by
people who actually read it
to figure out exactly what happened
with the 2022. Denver Broncos, and Russell Wilson because it's
amazing that they were attracted to him in the first
place
that the Seahawks. To keep a lot of these issues under
wraps, that
they gave him that huge contract without him ever
playing in a game and then week-by-week game by game. The
whole thing falls apart, and here's where we are now.
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