Russell Wilson Benched: Spread Impact of Jarrett Stidham at Quarterback for the Broncos

Could this be the end of the Russell Wilson era for the Denver Broncos?

Broncos head coach Sean Payton announced that Jarrett Stidham will start at quarterback for the Denver Broncos on Sunday.

The Broncos have benched Wilson for the last two games of the season. Wilson is not dealing with any reported injuries.

The decision to bench the nine-time Pro Bowler is reportedly more of a financial decision than trying to spark the offense after a 1-3 record over the last four games.

Wilson is guaranteed $39 million in 2024. The Broncos are potentially on the hook for $37 million in 2025 if Wilson can't pass a physical in March 2024. This means that if Wilson were to get hurt in the last two games of the season, the Broncos would owe him for the next two years. If he's healthy come March, they would owe Wilson in 2024 and then could move on from the quarterback.

The Broncos are 3-point favorites against the Chargers on New Year's Eve. The line was between four and five points as of Wednesday morning. Action Network Director of Predictive Analytics, Sean Koerner sees a 2.5-3 point difference from Wilson to Stidham at QB.

Wilson's tenure in Denver has primarily been a disaster. After a 4-11 record in his first season, the Broncos are 7-8 and are on the outside looking in of a playoff spot. When they traded for Wilson, the playoffs were the lowest of expectations. The Broncos have the second-longest playoff drought in the NFL.

"The fact that the benching of Russell Wilson only moved the spread by two points might be the most telling part of Wilson's tenure in Denver," Action Network NFL expert Billy Ward said. "Denver gave up two first and two second round draft picks along with a few players to get Wilson. Now, the market is telling us Wilson is only two points better than Jarrett Stidham, a career backup with just two starts in the NFL. In case you were questioning whether that says more about Stidham than Russ, it doesn't. We have Stidham as a slightly below-average backup in terms of value to the spread."

Since playing his college ball at Auburn, Stidham has played in 13 games in the NFL. He has completed 58.8% of his passes in his career and has thrown six touchdowns to seven interceptions.

The switch in QBs already has one of our NFL experts, Anthony Dabbundo, adjusting his betting approach to Broncos vs Chargers in his weekly picks column:

Now that the run is over, we've seen Denver for the below-average team that it is over the past two weeks. The Broncos have benched Wilson in favor of Jarrett Stidham, though, and Denver could absolutely find a dead cat bounce with its offensive scheme. Stidham had that incredible game against the 49ers at the end of last season and actually makes me less likely to want to bet against the Broncos on Sunday.