Sean Payton Makes it Clear Who’s Got Broncos’ QB2 Job Locked Up

The Denver Broncos will sit rookie starting quarterback Bo Nix in the preseason finale vs. the Arizona Cardinals. Jarrett Stidham will start the game, taking eight to 12 snaps, before giving way to Zach Wilson, who’ll play the rest of the game.

We’ll see if that’s how it plays out for Stidham, or if he ends up seeing more playing time. But it would seem that the Broncos are leaning heavily toward him being Nix’s primary backup.

Where does that leave Wilson? Broncos head coach Sean Payton revealed his expectations for the newcomer quarterback entering what could be his last appearance in the Orange and Blue.

“The first thing is, I’ll give him an opportunity maybe—I know it will, with the second group,” Payton said of Wilson. “So often it’s hard to evaluate that position if the other elements aren’t working. So just watching him really follow up the week he’s had in practice and take it to the game, run the huddle and just seeing him play.”

When he took to the podium on Wednesday to announce Nix as the starter, Payton described Wilson’s momentum in practice as being on a “heater,” a baseball term meant to describe pitchers in the zone. Payton wants to see it translate to the live-bullet grid-iron.

Now Broncos Country sees why Stidham is only getting a handful of snaps. If it plays out the way Payton hopes, Stidham will only get two, maybe three drives.

Payton wants to quickly turn the page to Wilson to give him the opportunity to ply his wares with the second-team offense. In Game 1, Wilson played surprisingly well as the No. 3 quarterback, with mostly the third-stringers, but with that same unit, he struggled in Game 2, facing relentless pressure.

Never say never because it’s the NFL and anything can happen, but Payton doesn’t sound like he’s necessarily expecting Wilson to go out and seize the Broncos’ QB2 job from Stidham. Rather, the Broncos head coach wants to make sure Wilson is given a solid opportunity to punctuate his summer under Payton’s tutelage with a showing that could see him catch on elsewhere.

“No, we’ve got a pretty good idea [of] the direction we’re going,” Payton said of the competition for backup quarterback. “We’re going to meet here in about five minutes. [GM] George [Paton], myself, a few others and kind of go through the depth chart as we see it and the discussion players. I think we’ve got a real good handle on that room specifically. We’re not announcing anything, but I like—I’ve said this, I’ll say it again, I like the room. I feel like we’ve gotten better and this will be a good test, [a] good opportunity for Zach getting work with the second wave. He’ll get a lot of snaps.”

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If Payton likes the room that much, perhaps the Broncos will end up keeping Wilson and carrying three quarterbacks on the 53-man roster. With a young, healthy first-round quarterback taking the starter’s snaps, I doubt Payton will ultimately want to ‘waste,’ so to speak, a roster spot on a signal-caller who’ll do nothing but hold a clipboard.

“Certainly, good question,” Payton said about carrying three quarterbacks. “I think we’ve studied 14—last year of the 32 teams, just under half the league—I know the rule recently changed. If, in fact, you do—this came after the 49ers-Eagles game, the third comes up [from the practice squad] without any count. Ultimately, I think most importantly, you’re really looking at your assets when we make that decision.”

Payton is speaking to the new NFL rule that allows teams to elevate and dress a practice squad quarterback to make him available as the “emergency QB” without him counting against the gameday roster or 53-man roster. But Wilson’s not going to make it through waivers.

In a perfect world, Payton would hope that he could waive Wilson, and re-sign him to the Broncos’ practice squad. But as the former No. 2 overall pick in the 2021 draft, if the Broncos waive Wilson, there will be some team(s) out there that’ll claim him, with a coach who loved him as a prospect coming out of BYU, intrigued by what the still-young quarterback looks like in his system after a half-year under Payton’s wing.

Even if Wilson goes out on Sunday and turns in another relatively unimpressive performance, if the Broncos waive him, it’s a virtual guarantee he’ll get claimed off waivers because of his draft pedigree and the Payton QB shine. However, there’s one last play for Payton within the realm of possibility: a trade.

Payton is going with Stidham as his QB2. But if Wilson can impress vs. the Cardinals, perhaps the Broncos could trade him to a team that doesn’t want to leave its backup quarterback fate up to chance on the NFL waiver wire. I have my doubts about that possibility.

But, again, it’s the NFL. We have to remain open to everything, even the slim chances.

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