Russell Wilson Wearing Wristband At Broncos Practice Raises Questions As Petty Beef With Pete Carroll Continues

Russell Wilson wore a play-sheet wristband at practice on Thursday. While that may seem insignificant, because it is, there is a larger beef at play with his former head coach, Pete Carroll, that makes it very ironic.

The Seattle Seahawks offense has been incredibly entertaining over the course of the 2022 season with Geno Smith at the helm. Not many people saw their success coming after the team moved on from Wilson during the offseason and traded him to Denver.

Carroll, during a radio appearance on Seattle Sports 710 AM, attributed a lot of the Seahawks' offensive achievements stems from Smith wearing a play-sheet wristband. He added that Wilson was not willing to wear one while on the team.

"If you notice, Geno’s going off the wristband, and that’s a big help," said Carroll. "It’s smoothed things out, sped things up, cleaned things up. And that’s part of it, too. We never did that before. There was resistance to that, so we didn’t do that before."

Now, the 71-year-old head coach did not say who the resistance came from exactly. However, it's not hard to gather that Carroll was implying that Seattle didn't call plays off of the wristband because Wilson didn't like to do so.

And his shots at the former Seahawks signal-caller did not end there.

Obviously, that led to a reporter in Mile High City asking the first-year Broncos' quarterback about what his former coach had to say. Wilson snapped back at Carroll about winning without a wristband.

The entire thing was petty to begin with. Carroll, while simply stating something that he believes has been helpful to his team, took unnecessary shots at Wilson. Whether intentional or not.

Wilson, in turn, got sassy right back. Fine. Great. Whatever.

But this is where things get interesting with the Pete Carroll and Russell Wilson wristband beef.

Carroll made his comments on Wednesday morning. His former quarterback responded on Wednesday afternoon.

And then — at practice on Thursday — Wilson was spotted wearing a play-sheet wristband at practice in Denver.

This raises questions:

Whatever it was that led Wilson to wear a wristband during practice on Thursday, pettiness or not, it only added fuel to the fire that is his back-and-forth with Carroll.