Russell Wilson passed concussion protocol Friday, clearing him to play. He won’t.
The Broncos organization made a decision to sit their franchise quarterback this week and Brett Rypien instead will start against the Cardinals.
Wilson made it clear Friday afternoon that he wanted to play.
“Obviously, we had a little incident last week,” Wilson said, via video from Zac Stevens of DNVR_Broncos. “I thought the training staff and everybody did a great job and went through all the testing, all the protocol stuff. Did a great job through it, [passed with] flying colors. Everything went great. I got to practice this week, but they wanted to give me another week to recover and all that.
“Obviously for me, I always want to be out on the field. I believe in competing and being out there on the field no matter what the circumstances are. I’m an old school quarterback in that sense, that you have to be out there. I think at the same time it was a collective decision by the organization. They wanted to let me get some extra rest. I think Ryp’s going to be ready to rock and roll and our team. Guys had a great week at practice. . . . I just want to be out there competing with them, but I’m going to be doing everything in the game, on the sideline, in the locker room and everything else to make sure we get a win.”
Wilson was knocked out of Sunday’s loss to Kansas City after hitting his head on the ground. He appeared to briefly lose consciousness.
He returned to limited work in practice Thursday.
“I felt great all week,” Wilson said. “Obviously to go through a concussion is a very serious thing. You have to be able to deal with it and be really smart. The training staff, my performance team, everybody did a great job all week, making sure that I was good to go. Triple checking everything. Did a bunch of work early in the mornings, in the middle of the day, at night. Felt great. I got to practice [individually] Wednesday, [and limited] Thursday and today. I did really good in practice. Felt good about it. Yeah, felt good.”
Broncos coach Nathaniel Hackett said it was a team decision to sit Wilson.
“Russ is one of the ultimate competitors in our game. He’s unbelievable,” Hackett said. “We informed him of the decision, and he’s not happy with it. He wants to get out there and play. He’s competitive, as we all know, and wants to compete for this team and be out there.
“We, as an organization, after discussing and talking through this entire week, have decided it’s best for our organization, best for Russell. We talked about this from top all the way to the bottom, looked at every single thing and just want to give him another week to get ready.”
Wilson missed a Week 7 game with a hamstring injury and also has had a partially torn lat near his right shoulder that required a platelet-rich plasma (PRP) injection.