Absolutely not, and definitely wouldn’t have done the contract.

I honestly don’t think Payton comes to Denver without Russ.

So, yeah. Yeah I would.

I just wish we hadn’t given him that massive contract before seeing him play a down.

I think Payton is the largest piece. Whatever gets us him is the move. If he has Wilson or any other above average QB then that looks like what was needed to right this ship.

I choose Russ. We need to put a nail in the post Manning whatever we were doing. We needed a timeline for evaluating and developing skills players. For better or worse Russ did that. I’m glad I’m not the one making the choice about next steps but I’m glad he’s here.

Honestly, I’d say the inflection point would have been rolling with Lock for the 2021 season rather than Bridgewater. Easy to forget that Denver was 6-5 at one point that year, too. I don’t think Lock ends up taking us very far, but I would have just been intrigued to see whether that could have been a postseason run with him throughout.

Remember, he was likely the “Plan B” since A-Rod didn’t work out. But no Russ would’ve meant no Payton. So I’m still trading for him.

No, keep our picks, keep our players, suck last year, draft CJ Stroud, win it all every season.

But no reason to worry about counterfactuals right now.

I don’t think he’s worth $250M to be a game manager, and his production has not been worth the draft capital given up.

That said, it’s still the best option out of everything that was available. I think his potential is at least part of why Payton ended up in Denver. Outside of some incredible mental gymnastics that somehow land a guy like Stroud AND pair him with competent coaching, I feel like we are on the best possible timeline between what the team was two years ago and what it is now.

I would not since the trade is linked directly with the contract extension that he signed. The Russ contract is already bad and is only gonna get worse and worse as time goes on.

I would have kept our picks.

A lot of people in here are completely underselling Russ because of lingering disappointment from last year. Forget last year. He has the worst season of his career but he was in a new city with a new system and a new coach. Hackett was a fraud, the line was extremely porous, Javonte was out, our wide receivers were constantly hurt, Russ was also injured for most of it. No QB in the league would have been able to play to expectations on our team last year. Let that shit go when you evaluate Russ performance this year.

The dude is playing REALLY good football. Is it “eLiTe?” No. But it’s really good. Great TD/int ratio. Making plays with his legs when he has to. Extending plays. Not turning the ball over a ton. Have you seen some of his scramble TD passes this year? They’re fucking awesome. His and Sutton have had some great connections this year.

People used to criticize him for always trying to force the moon ball and not seeing utilizing checkdowns. Now he’s NOT trying to force what isn’t there and he’s hitting his check downs and he’s being criticized for missing reads. Like guys, he really only has one person he trusts to go and make a play happen and fight for the ball. And that’s Sutton. He’s protecting the rock and keeping the offense moving and productive. Juedy is proving to not be the play maker we thought he would be. He doesn’t have a receiving TE (which is a key feature of the Sean Payton offense). So yes, he’s making the plays that are there. Call it dink and dunk if you want, but he’s doing whatever he has to do for our team to put us in a position to win. And we are winning.

Who cares if he’s not putting up tons of yards? If we can win the game the stats shouldn’t really matter. That’s just some fantasy football bias creeping in.

I just don’t agree with talking about him as a “bridge” quarterback. I’m not ignorant to the fact that he’s aging, yes we will need a solution in a few years, yes he’d be a great mentor. But I hate that this sub is already talking past him like he’s a temp. We haven’t had a QB this good in almost 10 years and we are still talking past him. That just ain’t right. He’s playing well. He knows how to win. He has postseason and SB experience.

On top of all of that, he works hard as hell and he’s a great role model with all his charity work.

There is so much more to being a successful franchise QB than how many yards you throw for per game. I would love for this sub to stop looking for ways to not give him praise and to just get on the Russ Bus.

We coulda ended up with deshaun Watson, who had all that off the field shit AND he played like ass. We coulda ended up with Rodgers who got hurt immediately and is also a total fuck boy. But NAH. We got a QB who’s playing really good football and doing great things for our community.

THIS MAN IS OUR GOSH DANG QUARTERBACK!! HE DELIVERED US A WIN OVER THE CHIEFS. HE SPENDS TIME AT OUR CHILDRENS HOSPITAL WITH OUR SICK CHILDREN. Let’s start throwing some respect on his name and start cheering his ass on!

Go broncos!

I don’t think it’s as simple as you’ve laid it out because any of those choices other than Russ means Hackett likely gets a 2nd year which is detrimental to the organization. So we could go with Lock as the starter and end up with a top pick where they trade up for Stroud if they aren’t top 2. You then put a guy that looks really good so far under an inept coach.

Knowing what we know now I still think with those options I’d go Russ but not signing the extention. Unless you’re saying Hackett for sure gets fired then I say roll with Lock or one of the terrible veterans that ends with being in position to take Stroud.