Trade Grade: Seattle Seahawks Trade QB Russell Wilson to the Denver Broncos

Well now this is what I call a Blockbuster deal. There were rumors of Seattle trying to trade Wilson during last offseason but they decided not to. Now it is official that Russell Wilson is no longer a Seattle Seahawk as he is now been traded to the Denver Broncos

Seattle Seahawks Acquire: QB Drew Lock, TE Noah Fant, DL Shelby Harris, Two 1st Round Picks, Two 2nd Round Picks, and a 5th Round Pick
Denver Broncos Acquire: QB Russell Wilson and a 4th Round Pick

Seattle Seahawks Side

The Seahawks had no choice they had to blow it up as they were not winning with the current core they had. It was clear Russell Wilson was not happy for the past few years and did not want to be a part of a rebuild and wanted to win now. Can you blame him though as they failed to give him protection and last season’s injury showed it was too late. Plus Seattle did not have a 1st round pick this season due to the awful Jamal Adams trade. Even though the years of the draft picks given up haven’t been revealed yet it is still a big win to get picks to build for the future. This move also gives the Seahawks a ton of cap space and give the Seahawks players to build around.

QB Drew Lock who in my opinion stinks has an opportunity at a second chance here as he needed a change of scenery. The Denver Broncos clearly gave up on him last season as he was behind a beaten up Teddy Bridgewater. This will be his last chance at success as a starting quarterback and if it doesn’t work out Lock has 1 year left on his contract so the Seahawks can easily get out of his deal. He only has a cap hit of 1.45 million dollars in salary.

TE Noah Fant is an huge edition to the Seahawks as the team has been lacking a Tight End since Jimmy Graham. Fant gives them another target for Drew Lock (Who he has a relationship with during their Denver years) or Geno Smith. Noah Fant contract is up in 2024 and has two years left on his deal. He has a cap hit of 2.2 million dollars in salary cap for 2022 and 6.85 million dollars in salary cap for 2023.

DE/EDGE Shelby Harris is an extremely underrated part of the Denver Broncos defense last season. He was an excellent run stopper and even was an effective pass rusher as he had 6 sacks this season which is the most in a single season for Harris. This desperately gives an upgrade to a defense that has an extremely weak pass rushing core. Shelby Harris only has two years left on his contract and has a cap hit of 8 million dollars in 2022 and 9 million dollars in 2023.

Denver Broncos Side

The Broncos going all in to buy themselves a franchise quarterback to be successful and get another Superbowl championship to their franchise. Say I think I have heard of this story before when the Denver Broncos brought in Peyton Manning. But this one is different as Russell Wilson is a lot younger than Peyton was and the Broncos gave up a lot more in order to acquire a franchise QB.

Lets start with the players in the deal. Drew Lock they legit gave up on and trading him was no loss. Noah Fant is not as big of a loss to the Denver Broncos as Albert Okwuegbunam is going to replace him. he big loss in my opinion is DE/EDGE Shelby Harris who was an underrated piece to the Broncos defense as a strong run stopper and had improved a lot as a pass rusher.

With the Draft Picks given up it is not confirmed but I predict that the Denver Broncos will give up the 8th and 40th pick in this years draft class. The picks in 2023 will likely be late 1st and 2nd round draft picks unless things go bad.

The big issue with the Denver Broncos last season was that they did not have consistency at the QB position. Now with acquiring Russell Wilson the Broncos have that consistency with getting a new franchise QB on Russell Wilson. The Denver Broncos should absolutely now be Superbowl contenders as Russell Wilson will have a great running game, talented receivers, a solid offensive line and a terrific defense surrounding him. The one concern is how competitive the AFC West could be but I like this deal for Denver. Russell Wilson has 2 years left on his contract and his cap hit will be ($24 million in 2022 and $27 million in 2023).

Grades for Russell Wilson Trade
Seattle Seahawks: A
Denver Broncos: B+

I think this is a win-win deal for both teams but it is incredibly risky for the Broncos to do and they gave a lot up for Russell Wilson but this helps the Broncos as one of the big needs they had was at quarterback. The offense was missing a durable and consistent quarterback. I have to give slight leverage to the Seahawks as they got 2 good players, 1 meh player, a ton of cap space, and draft capital to help with there rebuild. But Overall great move by both Broncos GM George Paton and Seahawks GM John Schneider