BRONCOS

Joe Buck and Troy Aikman speak on what they expect from Russell Wilson

May 16, 2022, 4:17 PM | Updated: 4:57 pm

If the Broncos receive the opening kickoff to begin their regular season in Seattle on Sept. 12, two things will happen.

First, the anticipation for Russell Wilson’s first snap as a Bronco will come to a quick end. Second, you might not hear many words from ESPN’s new Monday Night Football broadcast team of Joe Buck and Troy Aikman.

“You know what’s funny, is if [the Broncos] end up getting the opening kickoff, Denver, our first moments on Monday Night Football probably won’t involve us talking very much because I think you need to hear that natural reaction, and I think you need to lay out, let the crowd carry it,” Buck said on a conference call with media Monday. “There’s no crowd like in Seattle, and I would imagine we won’t be talking very often at least that first series because it’s going to be deafening inside that stadium, good or bad.”

“America just rejoiced,” cracked Aikman.

What is likely to be a lovely late-summer evening in the Pacific Northwest will also be as much of an era-changing moment in the booth as it will be on the field. Buck and Aikman jumped to ESPN this offseason after 20 seasons on the No. 1 crew for Fox.

Working for Fox — which carries a majority of NFC games — means that Buck and Aikman know Wilson well. Over the past 10 seasons, they called 26 of his games with Seattle as a tandem. Aikman was also at the mic for another two games while Buck worked World Series games over the years.

To the duo, three characteristics stand out about Wilson:

1: HE’S A WINNER

The 6-8 record posted by the Seahawks in Wilson’s 14 starts last year was the first and only time that they posted a losing record in his starts. Including playoffs, Seattle went 113-60-1 in games Wilson started, good for a .652 winning percentage. Without Wilson, Seattle is a slightly-sub-.500 franchise dating back to its 1976 beginnings: 278-300, which translates to an average of 7.7 wins and 8.3 losses per 16 games.

“I think he’s going to be fantastic,” Aikman said.

“I like Denver,” he elaborated later in the conference call. “I expect them to have a good season, and a big part of that, of course, is because of Russell Wilson.

“… The guy has just won. He’s taken all but a couple teams to the postseason. I think he’s had one losing season. That was last year.

“I think the guy is a winner, and I think he’s going to win in Denver.”

The degree of the success, however, will depend on what is around him — including new head coach Nathaniel Hackett. Aikman noted that he liked Hackett, but acknowledged the potential issues of a level jump for any first-time head coach.

“We’ve all seen it. It’s not always seamless,” Aikman said. “It’s not always easy. Some people are better offensively than they are running the whole show.

“But if the right people were hired, then this could be really a great situation to where they just step in. And we’ve seen it over the years with teams that have hired new people and they go on and do really great things.”

2. HE’S DURABLE

The cliche’ “the best ability is availability” applies to Wilson. Until he missed three games last year due to a finger injury, he had never missed a start since breaking into the NFL in 2012.

“Not only being a guy that wins, he answers the bell every game,” Buck said. “This was the first year that he was hurt. We were there when he got hurt [the Seahawks’ game against the Los Angeles Rams last October] and it was weird to see them operate without Russell Wilson on the field.

“He got hit a lot, and he was looking out of the earhole of his helmet half the time after getting up after big hits and he went right back in the huddle and went right back to work.

“All these head coaches talk about availability. No one has been more available than Russell Wilson.”

3. YOU KNOW WHAT YOU’RE GETTING WITH HIM

And this dates back to his college days, Buck noted. After North Carolina State went 6-7 and 5-7 in Wilson’s first two seasons there, he guided the Wolfpack to a 9-4 finish in 2010. Then, Wilson transferred to Wisconsin and the Badgers went 11-3, winning the Big Ten and averaging an un-Badger-like 44.1 points per game.

“He’s just the model of consistency,” Buck said. “You start putting his numbers up, and you realize what he’s done the first decade of his career has been sensational, and you go back to his college days, the guy just wins.”

AS FOR THE TEAM WILSON LEAVES BEHIND …

“I think they’ve taken a step back,” Buck said, “and now they’ll have to see what they have on their roster or who they need to go get. I don’t know that that chapter has been totally written yet, either.”

But the team’s chapter will be built in a way that resembles Pete Carroll’s original vision, Aikman noted.

“I think we’re going to see a reset back to what we saw when Pete first took that job years ago,” Aikman said.

That, of course, means a team built on the rushing game and defense.

“But then as the quarterback becomes more and more experienced, they then want to throw the ball more,” Aikman said. “They want to impact the games more. That’s when it was decided to let Russ cook.

“That looked great there for a while, but then the defense suffers because of that, and we saw that it didn’t last long, and it’s just contrary, I believe, to everything that Pete Carroll wants to be about. He doesn’t want to be one of these high-flying offenses.

“I think now with Russell leaving — and how that came about, I don’t know and I don’t care — but I do think it allows now a reset in Seattle for them to get back to playing the brand of football that they’re accustomed to playing, running the ball, playing great defense.”

It was a time-tested philosophy that only in recent years has waned as the passing game became paramount. But it is fair to question whether that will prove wise in the future.

“Drew Lock, he’s a younger guy,” Aikman said. “He hasn’t yet proven himself in the league. He’s going to be obviously much more open to whatever that philosophy is going to be.”

Denver, of course, tried that path. It didn’t end well. Week 1 will provide a first glimpse as to whether Carroll or the Broncos are right.

Aikman and Buck will be watching — and if Wilson is what they expect, they’ll have plenty more of his Broncos games to call in the coming years.
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