Russell Wilson has only been the Broncos’ quarterback for a month of the offseason, but he has already established himself as the team leader.
Broncos receiver Courtland Sutton says Wilson has been hitting him up regularly on FaceTime to discuss what they’re going to do on the field together.
“His knowledge of the game is to a different level,” Sutton said, via Jeff Legwold of ESPN. “It comes to him so easy, he wants everyone around him to understand it the way he understands it. . . . [But] you all can feel it, we all can feel it, the juice is just different. I wasn’t here when Peyton Manning was here, but everyone who was here when Peyton was said the juice is similar. . . . Everyone understands we have to operate at a different level, a different standard.”
And it’s not just the offensive players who are hearing from Wilson.
“A few days [after] we found out we were going to have Russ as our quarterback, he shot me over a FaceTime,” Broncos safety Justin Simmons said. “[He] just expressed his excitement . . . I was like, ‘We’re the ones who are excited.’”
Wilson also got involved with recruiting players to Denver almost immediately after arriving himself, with defensive end Randy Gregory saying Wilson contacted him constantly when Gregory was deciding between staying with the Cowboys and signing with the Broncos.
“I don’t know if it was eight times, but he hit me up a lot,” Gregory said. “The first night I was afraid to answer back, there was a lot of uncertainty with everything going on. I woke up the next morning and the first text I saw was from him again. Then he sent me another one. I said you know what — and mind you, he’s FaceTiming me throughout this whole entire process. It’s funny — he was coming from the Children’s Hospital. There’s a certain image he has out in the public. It was funny, I was telling my parents, and I was telling my wife, I was like, ‘He’s literally what he is out in the public.’ He’s coming from a Children’s [Hospital], taking the time to call a guy that he’s trying to bring to the team.”
Wilson quickly impressed as a leader in Seattle when he became the starting quarterback as a rookie. He’s making another quick impression in Denver.
