ENGLEWOOD, Colo. -- When the Denver Broncos formally introduced Russell Wilson as their new starting quarterback in March 2022, there were many with the team and around the NFL who believed Wilson already had a résumé worthy of the Pro Football Hall of Fame.
In 10 seasons with the Seattle Seahawks, Wilson had won a lot. He led Seattle to eight playoff appearances and two Super Bowls, culminating with a Super Bowl XLVIII win over the Broncos to conclude the 2013 season. He also excelled individually, making the Pro Bowl nine times and having four consecutive seasons of 30-plus touchdown passes from 2017 to 2020, including a league-leading 34 in 2017 and a career-best 40 in 2020.
Then Denver sent a package including two first-round picks to Seattle to acquire Wilson. The Broncos believed he could help break a then-six-season playoff drought and return them to Super Bowl contender status, showering Wilson with a franchise-record five-year, $245 million deal. Wilson was giddy in the introductory news conference, saying his goal was to play "10 or 12 more years and hopefully win three or four more Super Bowls."
But Wilson struggled mightily in two seasons with the Broncos and two more with the Pittsburgh Steelers and New York Giants before retiring this offseason. And with the Hall's Class of 2026 -- a class that includes a first-ballot quarterback in Drew Brees -- set to be enshrined Saturday, Wilson's future Canton possibilities seem cloudy, with his late-career struggles casting doubt on whether he'll make it to the Hall.
Wilson, who signed on to be an analyst for CBS after his retirement, now faces an uphill Hall of Fame climb because of a historic plunge in performance and a narrowing process for selection that has added difficulty for players to be enshrined, especially at a competitive quarterback position. Wilson won't be eligible to be inducted until the Class of 2031, but ESPN spoke to two dozen people -- some in the league and some involved with the Hall of Fame process -- to get an idea of where his case stands.
WILSON'S PRIME WAS Hall of Fame level. His combination of passing ability, mobility and a penchant for late-game heroics was key to the Seahawks' considerable success in the 2010s. Along with eight 10-win seasons from 2012 to 2021 and nine playoff victories, Wilson also produced on the stat sheet. He threw for 4,212 yards and 40 touchdowns while rushing for 513 yards in 2020. He also ran for 849 yards in 2014, a season in which he rushed for 47 first downs.
Wilson's 292 touchdown passes from 2012-21 was the second most in league history for a quarterback in his first 10 NFL seasons, behind only Peyton Manning's 306. And Tom Brady (324) and Aaron Rodgers (317) were the only two players with more touchdown passes than Wilson during his 10-year run in Seattle. Wilson's 113 wins as a starting quarterback (regular season and postseason combined) was the most for any NFL player in his first 10 seasons, too.
But while quarterbacks typically see a drop in performance in the final years of their careers, Wilson barreled over a statistical cliff. The last four seasons of his career saw him frequently benched, and his teams went 17-27 in games he started. His production nosedived as his mobility waned. He was sacked an astounding 143 times in 47 games from 2022 to 2025, including 100 times in two seasons (30 starts) with the Broncos.
Four of Wilson's five lowest yards per attempt totals of his career came after he left Seattle. Over his last five seasons, including his final one with the Seahawks, Wilson's completion percentage over expectation was in the negative three times, with a career-low minus-4.3% in 2022 in Denver.
That rough finishing kick has made an impact on Hall of Fame voters.
"Russell Wilson was a good quarterback for two-thirds of his career, a very good quarterback,'' longtime selector Ron Borges said. "[But] the Hall of Fame is not the Hall of Very Good, it is where the best to ever play their positions go.
"Was Wilson ever considered the best of his era? If he was not, and I would argue he was not, how can he be judged one of the best of all time?"
Sure, Wilson's counting stats are certainly Hall worthy. His 46,966 career passing yards ranks 16th (right behind Hall of Famer Fran Tarkenton), and his 353 passing touchdowns ranks 12th (ahead of Tarkenton and fellow Hall of Famer John Elway). But there is little precedent for the type of statistical drop-off Wilson had at the end of his career.
"In short, can you play your way out of the Hall of Fame? His final four years are really bad, and they are made even worse by the whole move to force his way out [of Seattle] and prove himself,'' said Jason Cole, a selector for over a decade who says he believes Wilson is a Hall of Famer. "It exposed so many of the flaws that were covered up in Seattle. At the same time, his first 10 years are really pretty damn exceptional."
Wilson was never a first-team All-Pro selection -- he was a second-team selection once -- and was not selected to the 2010s All-Decade team. And there is also the perception that the Seahawks' success was more a product of Seattle's "Legion of Boom" defense than of Wilson. The Seahawks' defense allowed fewer than 300 points in the first five seasons of Wilson's tenure (2012-2016), leading the league in scoring defense in four of those years (2012-2015).
Players from that team's defense will be on the Hall ballot when Wilson becomes eligible for induction. One of them is former All-Pro cornerback Richard Sherman, who gave his thoughts on Wilson's legacy during a "Thursday Night Football" broadcast discussion with Tony Gonzalez last season.
"I think you got to judge his career off when the Legion of Boom was there," Sherman said.
Sherman is one of several high-profile Seahawks teammates who have levied public criticisms of Wilson, including him being potentially coddled by then-coach Pete Carroll. The Broncos' release of Wilson in March 2024 (and the then-record $85 million dead money hit that resulted from it) is also the type of thing that looms large in Hall of Fame discussions.
Broncos wide receiver Courtland Sutton, who had a career-best 10 touchdown receptions in 2023 while playing with Wilson, said he believes the quarterback's approach and commitment to the game should matter in these discussions despite how things played out at the end.
"He was a professional at every level, everything we did, how we met, how we practiced, how we spent post-practice, just to be able to see that from the perspective of being a receiver and being able to work with him,'' Sutton said. "People can say what they want to say about the outcome of how things went, I know what he gave to the game because I saw it day in and day out, how he prepared to go play."
SO WHERE DOES all this leave voters and Wilson's case?
Perhaps Kurt Warner (Class of 2017) might have the closest statistical profile in terms of drop in performance to Wilson's among enshrinees from the past three decades. Warner's career had peaks in the beginning and end of his 12 seasons -- with a five-year stretch from 2002 to 2006 in which he didn't exceed 10 starts in any season. But that middle was surrounded by two peaks in which Warner was a two-time league MVP and went to three Super Bowls, winning MVP of Super Bowl XXXIV after leading the St. Louis Rams to the championship.
Wilson doesn't have the hardware of Warner, but he finished with a QBR of 60 or higher in nine of his first 10 seasons, finishing third behind Manning and Brady with a 74.8 QBR as a rookie in 2012 and fifth with a 71.8 in 2019. He combined for 65 touchdown passes in his final two seasons in Seattle after the Seahawks' Legion of Boom defense started to break apart.
Those metrics have Wilson right in the middle of several recently retired quarterbacks in Cole's mind.
"I kind of lump him in a group with Eli [Manning], [Philip] Rivers, Matt Ryan," said Cole, who added later that he believed Cam Newton was the best of the recently retired quarterbacks.
Cole points out that this wouldn't be as much of a discussion if one play had just gone differently. That play, of course, is Wilson's pass at the end of Super Bowl XLIX. Wilson targeted Ricardo Lockette from the 1-yard line with 26 seconds left in the game for a would-be go-ahead TD. But the throw was intercepted by Patriots cornerback Malcolm Butler, clinching a New England victory.
"If he had hit the goal-line pass in the Super Bowl -- or just not thrown it, thrown it away, or handed the ball to [Marshawn] Lynch -- I think he walks into the Hall of Fame without much discussion," Cole said. "He did some amazing things in that game that are all forgotten because of one play.
"But there's this weird conversation about Wilson which all sort of emanates from that point. ... If he had just hit that one pass, we probably never talk about any of this."
AN ARGUMENT CAN be made that it might be more difficult than ever to be enshrined into the Hall with its current guidelines. From 2007 to 2024, a maximum of five modern-era players (those in their 25-year window of eligibility after their retirements) were enshrined in all but one class (2009 being the exception).
But the Hall's board of directors approved a change in the voting that altered the final stages of the voting process ahead of 2025. The last two Hall classes each included four modern-era finalists who were selected for enshrinement, instead of the maximum of five, as neither class included a coach or a contributor. They are the smallest back-to-back Hall of Fame classes since 2004 and 2005.
These smaller classes will create an increased backlog. For players like Wilson with any questions, the road is more tricky under the current framework. Multiple selectors said privately over the past two weeks that players with more textured discussions or career fluctuations will have a far more difficult time with a tighter voting procedure.
That's not the only logjam Wilson could face, as the quarterback field will get quite crowded. Two-time Super Bowl MVP Eli Manning has not been selected in his two years of eligibility and will be joined by Ben Roethlisberger (also a two-time Super Bowl champion) and Cam Newton (one-time NFL MVP) in 2027, Tom Brady (career passing leader, three-time NFL MVP and five-time Super Bowl MVP) in 2028 and Matt Ryan (one-time NFL MVP) in 2029. Philip Rivers (eight-time Pro Bowler) will be eligible the same year as Wilson.
The upcoming retirements of Aaron Rodgers (who has said 2026 will be his last season) and 18-year veteran Matthew Stafford will add even more quarterbacks to the pot. In short, Wilson will face a fight, not only at his position but with tighter voting restrictions in general, making his Hall of Fame case one of the most intriguing over the next decade or so.
Sutton thinks not only that Wilson is fit for the Hall of Fame discussion but that his body of work makes his case strong. And that is what the selectors should consider.
"At the end of the day, nobody can take away what he's done over the entirety of his career,'' Sutton said. "Not taking out three years, pointing out three years or four years of his career, the entirety of his career, the totality of his career, he has done amazing things, and I think he'll have a nod to be in that conversation to be a Hall of Famer."