3 Broncos who won't be back after being eliminated from playoff contention

The Denver Broncos 2023-24 season featured a tale of two halves. The first six games of their season saw the team put up a 1-5 record, and the duo of Russell Wilson and Sean Payton not mesh well at all. Denver then wound up rattling off five straight wins, and victories of six of their next seven games to get their record to 7-6 on the season with a potential playoff berth within reach.

A blowout loss in Detroit and an embarrassing defeat at home to the lowly Patriots ended most of their playoff hopes. Yes, they won their Week 17 matchup against the Chargers to improve to 8-8, but victories for the Steelers and Chiefs eliminated them from the playoffs.

Big changes could be coming for this Broncos team that has not met expectations for two straight seasons. The changes won't come with the coach like they did last season, but will instead come with the roster with these three players likely not returning.

3) The Broncos sealed Russell Wilson's fate by benching him

This is an obvious one. Payton benched Russell Wilson after the loss against New England, effectively ending his Broncos career after just two seasons. The reason they sat him had nothing to do with performance, it was just to ensure Wilson did not get hurt so cutting him wouldn't get difficult.

The Broncos acquired and extended Wilson expecting him to be the reason why they competed for Super Bowls, but instead, got an 11-19 record out of him with no playoff appearances, let alone wins.

Wilson was much better this past season than he was in 2022-23, but that's not saying much. Overall, in 15 games, he completed 66.4% of his passes for a little over 3,000 yards with 26 touchdowns and eight interceptions. He was a decent game manager but looked nothing like the superstar he once was, and simply wasn't scoring enough for the Broncos to justify keeping him for the long haul.

What Denver does at the quarterback position will be one of the more fascinating storylines to follow this offseason. Jarrett Stidham is not the answer, so Denver will have to find someone else in free agency or in the NFL Draft.