Broncos general manager George Paton on Tuesday categorized his midseason conversations with Russell Wilson’s agent as regular, albeit intense and perhaps emotional, contract negotiations.
Paton, in his first public comments since the end of training camp, didn’t directly respond to Wilson’s contention last month that Paton and the Broncos said flatly that Wilson would be benched for the season’s final nine games if he didn’t agree to postpone a March 17 trigger date that made Wilson’s $37 million in 2025 salary fully guaranteed.
Paton did, however, say he thought he and the club handled the negotiations in “good faith” and asserted that head coach Sean Payton’s decision to bench Wilson for the season’s final two games were “completely independent of the conversations I had with the agent.