ESPN analyst Samuel Acho has dampened any talk of the Denver Broncos having any sort of success this season.
The 2020 and 2021 seasons were something of a culture shock for the Denver Broncos as an organisation. Whilst they were clearly going to struggle in the years following the departure of Peyton Manning who delivered them their last Super Bowl in 2016, the impact of a lack of a good quarterback hit them square in the face as they finished bottom of the AFC West in consecutive seasons.
In order to give them a boost at the position, the Broncos splashed out big and traded away two first-round picks, two second-round picks, a fifth-round pick, quarterback Drew Lock, defensive lineman Shelby Harris and tight end Noah Fant in order to bring in Russell Wilson from the Seattle Seahawks.
Wilson’s has been one of the league’s premier quarterbacks over the past decade, with 9 Pro Bowl nominations and 1 Super Bowl victory, but as the past few years have shown, he’s got a lot of work to do if he’s to make them a competitive force.
Bigger problems elsewhere
Wilson has spoken about his desire to win a Super Bowl in the Mile High City, but if he is to take the Broncos forward, he has a lot of roadblocks to go through in order to make it happen, all of them within their own division. Something that Samuel Acho was quick to point out.
Speaking on ESPN’s Get Up, Acho didn’t seem too confident when it came to the Broncos’ chances, primarily because of the competition that they have within their own division that they’ll have to get by:
“They're closer to the bottom than they are to the top when it comes to the AFC West. I mean, that's just the fact of the matter. The Kansas City Chiefs have won it six years in a row. The LA chargers are climbing right under the Kansas City Chiefs, they beat the Chiefs last year and they lost in overtime. The Las Vegas Raiders have a coach who's won six Super Bowls and knows how to coach quarterbacks. And then you’ve got the Denver Broncos, and so just the fact of the matter is… they are closer to the bottom than they are to the top.”
Might be a slow process
Wilson has also stated that he intends to be with the Broncos for a ‘long, long time’, and it might well be that it’s going to take that long for him to turn the Broncos around.
Having given up so much draft capital in order to get him, Wilson is either going to have to work his magic straight away with the Broncos to get them to a decent level, or it is going to take some time for him to help turn things around for them.