How many more good seasons does Broncos’ Russell Wilson have?
How many more years can Denver Broncos’ quarterback Russell Wilson play for? The signal caller turns 34 during the 2022 season.
If there’s been a downside to trading for Russell Wilson, it’s that his age is unfortunately a bit greater than his fellow quarterbacks in the AFC. The AFC is an absolutely loaded conference, and the biggest draw to it is the young and uber-talented quarterbacks.
All of Patrick Mahomes, Justin Herbert, Joe Burrow, Lamar Jackson, Deshaun Watson, Mac Jones, Trevor Lawrence, and others are younger than 30 years old.
Even though Russell Wilson is clearly still one of the best quarterbacks in the NFL, he’ll turn 34 this season, making him an older player.
While Denver may have a new and younger quarterback 10 years from now, we should enjoy Russell Wilson for as long as he’s in Denver.
However, just because Russell is older as it relates to the AFC, that doesn’t mean the Broncos will see a dropoff in his play anytime soon.
To try and prove this, I want to look at other quarterbacks who have played a considerable amount of football from their age-34 season and older to get a gauge for how well or poorly they performed.
How many good seasons does Russell Wilson really have left?
Active, starting quarterbacks in the NFL who have played passed 34 years old include Matt Ryan, Tom Brady, and Aaron Rodgers.
Recent retirees include Ben Roethlisberger, who was approaching 40 years old, and Peyton Manning about five years ago.
So, the idea here is to look at their output from their age-34 season on. Then, I’ll try and average all of those statistics out to get a gauge for what we could reasonably expect Russell Wilson to do in Denver, given he is here for the foreseeable future.
Let’s start with Matt Ryan.
Ryan has played three seasons since turning 34. In those seasons, he went 18-30 as a starter, had a 66% completion percentage, threw for 13,015 yards, 72 touchdown passes, 37 interceptions, and earned a passer rating of 92.0. Not bad.
According to Pro Football Reference, these numbers equate to 26 touchdowns and 13 interceptions over a 17-game season, throwing for 4,609 yards.
Moving on to Tom Brady
Brady has played 11 seasons (Lol) since turning 34. In these 11 seasons, Brady went 132-41 as a starter, had a 64.6% completion percentage, threw for 49,776 yards, 363 touchdown passes, 100 interceptions, and earned a passer rating of 99.3.
Over a 17-game season, these numbers would equate to 36 touchdown passes, 10 interceptions, and 4,891 passing yards.
Time for Aaron Rodgers
Since turning 34, Rodgers has gone 49-21 as a starter with a 65.7% completion percentage, 18,533 passing yards, 152 touchdowns, 21 interceptions, and earned a passer rating of 105.2.
Over a 17-game season, this equates to 36 touchdown passes and five interceptions, with 4,437 passing yards.
Recently retired Ben Roethlisberger
The recently retired Ben Roethlisberger went 52-25-1 as a starter since turning 34, had a 65% completion percentage, threw for 21,093 yards, 146 touchdown passes, 64 interceptions, and earned a passer rating of 92.7.
Over a 17-game season, these numbers equate to 32 touchdown passes, and 14 interceptions, all while throwing for 4,597 yards.
Lastly, Peyton Manning
Peyton Manning went 55-18 as a starter in his age-34 seasons and older, completed 66.4% of his passes, and threw for 21,812 yards, 173 touchdown passes, and 70 interceptions. This earned him a passer rating of 99.4
Over a 17-game season, these numbers equate to 40 touchdown passes, 16 interceptions, and 5,011 yards.
Russell Wilson is better than Ben Roethlisberger and Matt Ryan, but not quite as good as Tom Brady, Peyton Manning, or Aaron Rodgers, so I think using these five players is fair.
And in looking at their outputs in their age-34 seasons and older, there is a ton of evidence to suggest that Russell Wilson could easily put up stellar numbers in Denver, not only in 2022 but for years beyond that.
If we wanted to take this a step further, I could average out each quarterback’s 17-game output that Pro Football Reference provided.
So, if we take each of their 17-game season splits and average that out, we’d get 34 touchdowns, 12 interceptions, and 4,709 yards.
Russell Wilson isn’t 27 anymore, but given the recent history of 34+ aged quarterbacks, there’s a very good chance he has outstanding football left to play.