For the first time since 1983 with John Elway, the Denver Broncos will open up the regular season with a rookie starting quarterback. Bo Nix, the 2024 first-round pick, has been the story of the offseason and summer and will rightly be the focus as the Broncos travel to take on the Seattle Seahawks on Sunday.

But there’s still the unsettled issue of who Nix’s backup will be. The Broncos surprised many by keeping three quarterbacks on the 53-man roster — Nix, Jarrett Stidham, and Zach Wilson.

Stidham still seems like the obvious prediction to be Denver’s QB2 behind Nix, but even with the season-opener in Seattle being just six days away, head coach Sean Payton has yet to confirm it.

“I’ll settle it and keep you guys posted,” Payton said on Monday when asked about who Denver’s backup quarterback will be.

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It’s Game Week, albeit Day 1, and Payton wouldn’t just come out and say who his backup QB is. It’s conspicuous, but that doesn’t mean that it’ll be Wilson.

In all honesty, Wilson makes more sense to be Nix’s backup, and for multiple reasons — not the least of which is his overwhelmingly positive and supportive attitude about his rookie counterpart. Wilson gushed about Nix in his first public remarks after the rookie was named starter.

“I was excited for him. I don’t think it was a surprise too much, obviously,” Wilson said back on August 25 following the Broncos’ preseason finale. “I think he’s had a great camp. I told him I’m excited for him for this opportunity. I really believe that they’re putting him in a good situation. I think Sean [Payton] has done a phenomenal job… And then Bo just continued to keep getting better. So I’m excited to see what he can do, and I think he’s ready for it.”

Compared to Stidham’s rather dour and self-oriented comments about being vanquished by Nix, Wilson has clearly taken a more supportive posture relative to his rookie teammate.

“First of all, obviously, I was very disappointed,” Stidham said on August 25. “I know I’m a starting quarterback in this league. I have no doubts about that, and it just didn’t shake out my way. I know what kind of player I am, what kind of person I am.”

Let’s not forget that, as a former No. 2 overall pick in the NFL draft, Wilson is technically Denver’s most experienced pro quarterback, with 33 career starts. Stidham, meanwhile, has all of four NFL starts since entering the league in 2019.

So perhaps Payton’s QB2 decision is not as “obvious” as I wrote above. Stidham seemed to take losing to Nix in the open competition this past summer a lot harder than Wilson did, and that could create a little bit of an awkward vibe.

Tapping Wilson to be the backup could help insulate Nix from those Stidham vibrations. But Nix, despite being an NFL rookie, isn’t exactly the traditional green-behind-the-ears first-year quarterback.

After all, Nix is 24 years old, he’s married, and he just so happens to be the most experienced college quarterback to ever be drafted into the NFL. His 61 college starts — spanning the SEC and now-defunct PAC-12 — are an NCAA record.

That experience and maturity are part of what made him such an attractive prospect to Payton and the Broncos. If things are a little sensitive around Stidham, Payton probably doesn’t have to worry too much about Nix’s feelings or reactions to it.

The Broncos haven’t released an official depth chart yet, but they will before the Week 1 tilt at Seattle. It might just be that Payton isn’t going to offer up any depth-chart revelations to the press until he’s mandated to by the NFL. Or there could be some there there, if you know what I mean.

Payton’s primary focus, like all of Broncos Country, is getting Nix ready to rock and roll in front of a rowdy, hostile crowd at Lumen Field. Nix has some unfinished business in that stadium, having come up short last season in the PAC-12 title game as Oregon fell to Washington at Lumen Field.

“It’s going to be loud,” Payton said of the Seattle opener. “I would imagine there will be some similarities to when Oregon goes to Washington and they’re playing in front of however many thousand people. That’s another loud stadium an hour down the road. So we’ll deal with the crowd noise this week. This won’t be the first game we play where it’s loud.”

Loud stadiums aren’t exactly a pro novelty, but Seattle has traditionally been one of the NFL’s loudest stadiums, so Payton and Nix will be ready for it. And which quarterback will be holding the clipboard as the No. 2 is an answer we’ll simply have to wait a little while longer to get.

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Former Denver Police Department recruit Victor Moses spoke with USA TODAY about his lawsuit against the department and what happened the terrible day that a training drill cost him his legs.

Victor Moses knew he wanted to be a police officer in middle school.

He was introduced to the profession while he was growing up in Tallahassee, Florida in 2005, when he would see a neighbor’s friend who worked for the Tallahassee Police Department coming and going from the job.

“I just enjoyed hearing her tell her stories and seeing her,” Moses recently told USA TODAY in an interview. “I was always intrigued as a child just watching her and seeing the police car.”

But tragedy struck not long after Moses decided to pursue his dream of becoming an officer 18 years later. And it’s a dream that may never come true.

During a training exercise while he was a recruit for the Denver Police Department, Moses says that department officials and paramedics forced him to participate in “Fight Day,” a “brutal hazing ritual” that cost Moses both his legs, according to the a lawsuit filed about a month ago.

The lawsuit alleges that Moses’ mistreatment during the training was the culmination of a “culture of violence, hazing, and training that causes unnecessary injuries among recruits,” pointing to a 2014 incident where a trainer allegedly threatened to, “slap the (expletive) out of” the recruit and put the recruit in a chokehold.

“I wish I would have gone further into research,” said Moses, 29. “One shouldn’t have to apply to a police academy and say ‘Am I going to be in danger at an academy?’”

What happened during police training?

On Jan. 6, 2023, Moses was participating in a so-called dynamic action drill during Denver police academy training, according to the lawsuit, which says the drill involves four stations intended to teach future officers how to escalate and de-escalate force. It’s also known as “Fight Day” in the department, the lawsuit says.

At the second station, Moses was knocked to the ground, hit his head and passed out in a simulated attack by multiple department personnel, the lawsuit says. The personnel then forced Moses to his feet to continue the drill until he passed out again when an officer called paramedics over, the lawsuit says.

Moses told the paramedics that he was “extremely fatigued” and experiencing “extreme leg cramping,” a sign of distress in people with sickle cell trait, something Moses informed the department he had in a police application form, the lawsuit says.

Although paramedics found that Moses’ blood pressure was extremely low, they cleared him to continue training, the lawsuit says. But, it continues, Moses was so exhausted that officers had to bring him to the third station, a ground-fighting drill during which an officer put his body weight on Moses, causing the recruit to say, “I can’t breathe,” before he became unresponsive.

“I felt something I’ve never felt before,” Moses said. “It’s really hard to explain, like, how it feels like to die, and I’ve never had that, but I felt what death feels like.”

What happened to Victor Moses after the training drill?

Moses was taken to a hospital. He required multiple surgeries to save his life, had to have his legs amputated and was hospitalized for four months, according to the suit.

Moses says he didn’t really understand the extent of his injuries at first because of how heavily medicated he was.

“When they started weaning down on the drugs, I felt, ‘Why am I still here? Why am I not home, what’s going on?’” Moses said, with the traces of pain evident in his voice. “You’re just in pain, your parents are there for some reason and it was just living hell. It really became real to me when my classmates were visiting me and started explaining what happened and then you see your rotting body.”

Denver Police did not respond to a request for comment.

Lawsuit accuses paramedics of lying to doctors

Moses’ lawsuit includes multiple text exchanges from recruits who were there during the training that day Moses was hurt.

“What got me was the lack of attention from the paramedics, they should have stepped in way sooner and stopped it,” then-recruit Zachary Vasquez said in a group chat, according to the lawsuit.

The lawsuit alleges that paramedics with Denver Health lied to doctors at the hospital, denying that there was a “significant traumatic mechanism of injury,” causing Moses’ care to be compromised.

“I mean the bulk of us witnessed him fall headfirst on the tile, they don’t have much of an argument against it,” Vasquez said in the group chat, the lawsuit says.

Moses developed severe compartment syndrome, rhabdomyolysis, malignant hyperthermia, and severe hyperkalemia in the hospital, according to the lawsuit.

The paramedics helped “enable continued violence and brutality, holding the gate open for additional infliction of trauma even if the recruit has been rendered unconscious,” according to Darold Killmer, Moses’ attorney.

The lawsuit alleges the department continued to cover up their actions, telling news media at the time that Moses’ injuries were caused by undisclosed conditions.

Denver Health declined to comment but pointed to a previous statement to USA TODAY saying that “safety and well-being is a top priority for Denver Health and its paramedics.”

Moses willing to return to policing

Moses told USA TODAY that despite the traumatic incident, he would be willing to work in or around the policing profession in the future.

“I will always support the police. There’s so many good police officers out there,” Moses said. “Yes, my life was ruined, I was turned permanently disabled. But it doesn’t negate the fact that there are a lot of good cops out there. It’s just unfortunate when the actions of a bad police officer, in this case, a group of bad officers, overshadow their work.”

If returning to a police force is not possible, Moses would consider being an advocate for police recruits.

“I know what it’s like, it’s a six-month commitment. It’s not easy. And God forbid if there was ever any other hazing in the future” Moses said. “All police start as a recruit and it’s really important to have good police recruits that aren’t abused and demoralized.”

Moses underwent his most recent surgery in July and continues to recover from his injuries.

“I never feel like it will never be a 100% recovery,” Moses said. “Yes, I’m doing therapy but I’ll never be who I was when I woke up the morning of January 6. I’ll never be that person that I was.”