Sean Payton explains why the Broncos traded for Zach Wilson

The Denver Broncos rebuilt their quarterback room this offseason, ditching the failed Russell Wilson experiment for two 24-year-old first-round NFL Draft picks but acquiring one of those youngsters was a bit more curious than the other.

The Broncos were seemingly all in on drafting a quarterback with their pick at No. 12 and yet the team still took a swing at reclamation projects in Sam Darnold and Sam Howell before settling for another in Zach Wilson. They added Wilson for movement late in the 2024 Draft, getting the former No. 3 pick for almost nothing just ahead of the event itself where the Broncos would land Bo Nix.

But why Wilson? Why take a pass at one of the worst quarterbacks in the league over the last three seasons since coming out of BYU?

“We just felt like, ‘Man, we’d love to work with this guy.’ It wasn’t too long ago we remembered grading him,” Broncos second-year head coach Sean Payton said. “[We] felt the investment was worth it relative to his skill set and his talent. So it took a while. We spent the better part of a month and a half working on that trade.”

The new Wilson like the Wilson that just left Dove Valley is sack-prone, losing the most yards in the league to that during his rookie year and being tagged for 113 in just 34 career games. Sure he led five game-winning drives and is a former AFC Player of the Week but the former Cougar has also thrown 25 interceptions to 23 touchdowns on just 57% passing in his career.

General manager George Paton also said on April 27 that the move took longer to make than the mega-trade for Russell Wilson. So Paton spent a bunch of time this offseason giving Payton a reclamation projection. And that’s something the head coach has thrived with the NFL, reclaiming a banged-up Drew Brees and making him a Hall of Famer, and molding players like Teddy Bridgewater, Jameis Winston and Tony Romo into suitable starters.

So it’s the Broncos taking a low-risk swing on somebody they believe has talent. And in a way, maybe it’s worth throwing out Wilson’s entire Jets career from that perspective. His numbers from his junior season at BYU in 2020 saw him play 12 games, throwing for 3,692 yards, 33 touchdowns to just three interceptions and doing so on 74% passing, and he added 10 touchdowns on the ground for another 254 yards. From that perspective, Bo Nix’s fourth year in college and first with Oregon looks a lot similar, starting 13 games in 2022 and throwing for 3,593 yards, 29 touchdowns and seven interceptions on a 72% hit rate while adding 510 yards and 14 touchdowns on the ground.

Nix got even better in his fifth and final year but Wilson left school to play for the Jets after his third college season.

So in a way, what if Wilson had stayed and entered the NFL at the same time as Nix? Now we all know how Wilson looked in the Big Apple, but the perspective of the college grade and how similar Nix and Wilson profiled in college can easily explain why the Broncos landed the former BYU star.

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