The Denver Broncos have suffered another blow ahead of their Week 7 game against the New York Jets. Russell Wilson will not play as the team has decided to allow his hamstring injury more time to heal.
Adam Schefter of ESPN broke the news on Saturday after it appeared all week as though Wilson was not in any danger of missing the game. Instead, head coach Nathaniel Hackett has made the decision to sit Wilson in order to prevent the injury from coming worse.
In a week in which Hackett has made some questionable decisions, this is probably the right one.
With Wilson missing his first start of the year, the Broncos will turn to Brett Rypien, who somewhat surprisingly beat out Josh Johnson for the backup job before the season started.
Rypien, who is in his fourth year with the Broncos, will be making just his second career start. The only other start of his career also came against the Jets and resulted in a 37-28 victory for the Broncos, though Rypien didn’t play particularly well, throwing three interceptions in the game.
The Jets have won three games in a row and have had a solid defense thus far this season.
It’s another tough blow in what is becoming a difficult season for Wilson. After not missing a single start across his first nine seasons in the league, Wilson missed two games last year and has already suffered multiple injuries this season (lat muscle, hamstring).
The Broncos would fall to 2-5 with a loss and the season could start to become dangerously close to being lost at that point if it is not already. The Broncos will have to count on Rypien to help keep their 2022 hopes alive.
This will be the fourth straight season in which the Broncos have had to use multiple starting quarterbacks. The last quarterback to start every game in a season for the team was Case Keenum in 2018.