The Broncos no longer willing to gamble heavily on a quarterback in the NFL draft and……..
Denver is unlikely to execute a big trade on draft day due to a lack of trade cash and the coach’s enormous ego.
Sean Payton, the coach of the Broncos, is a football genius, so he should know this: He cannot afford to be mistaken about the team’s next quarterback. Although Payton presents himself as the creator of victory, football quarterbacks, knuckleheads, are the centre of attention.
Denver’s only viable option—with the poorest quarterback room in the league—is to select a new quarterback in the NFL draft. If the clock strikes midnight on Thursday and the team doesn’t have a better alternative than Zach Wilson or Jarrett Stidham—both of whom have no chance of leading the team back to Super Bowl glory—Browncos Country will be ablaze with angst and wrath.
Must we select a QB in the draft? “Man, it looks like we need to choose a quarterback,” you would say.” Last week, Payton told us all. “But it needs to be the right one, the right fit.” The Broncos need to execute well this time around after a plethora of errors at the most important position in the game from 2016 to present, ranging from Paxton Lynch to Russell Wilson. Whether J.J. McCarthy, Bo Nix, or Michael Penix Jr. is the response is irrelevant.
The same pink slip will be there for Payton when the Broncos make the incorrect decision; he won’t appear much wiser on the Denver sideline than Vance Joseph, Vic Fangio, or Nathaniel Hackett did. You can imagine how surprised I would be if Denver traded whatever was left on the farm to get into the first round’s top five. I hate to break the news to you, but I don’t think that will happen. Yes, I did hear Broncos general manager George Paton say to go to whatever lengths to get a quarterback if you think he has the ability to drastically alter the organization’s situation.
How come? First, the most sensible explanation. Unless they are prepared to part with standout cornerback Pat Surtain II, the Broncos most likely lack the finances to trade up. And Paton isn’t doing anything these days but getting coffee at the team headquarters, so it ain’t happening. The one very significant move Paton has made well is selecting Surtain with the ninth overall pick in the 2021 draft. Surtain is the one untouchable player on this team.
Perhaps more importantly, the Broncos’ low-risk trade for Wilson with the Jets—a reclamation project meant to make up for the mess New York had created with the BYU quarterback chosen second overall three years prior—did, in my opinion, offer some insight into the minds of Payton and his henchmen at Broncos headquarters. Despite the clear fact that Brees is the reason Payton won the Super Bowl, Payton has enough conceit to believe he made Drew Brees in New Orleans.
Taking a quarterback who is considered a second-day talent so early in the first round would not only be criticised as a reach, but it would also greatly increase the public pressure to play a rookie early in his career, ready or not. Still, no draftnik would be surprised if the names of Nix and Penix are on the board when the Broncos go on the clock with the 12th overall pick. And I don’t know whether that would sit well with Payton, who wants us to know that no one tells him what to do—not even the Broncomaniacs in the South Stands or the franchise owner, Greg Penner.
Therefore, it fits with Payton’s goal to appear to be the smartest guy in the room, if not the entire league, if the Broncos can trade back, obtain more draft capital, and still add Penix or Nix.
You know what would, however, fit Payton’s ego even more? Holding off on selecting a quarterback, so enabling the Broncos to claim that all other teams in the NFL had underestimated the abilities of a player such as South Carolina’s Spencer Rattler. After that, Payton might bring a rookie into the quarterback room that already has Wilson and Stidham, which would give the coach an opportunity to prove to us all just how good of a quarterback whisperer he is.
When the Green Bay Packers, quarterback Brett Favre, and coach Mike Holmgren were winning championships back in the 1990s, I asked Holmgren this straightforward question: Who is more crucial to an NFL team’s success? Which quarterback, the coach? Holmgren laughed. “Is it truly expected of me to respond to that query?” he asked. “I have to file the Fifth Amendment.” In his absence from Tom Brady as quarterback, Bill Belichick has an 82-98 coaching record. Mike Shanahan only won one postseason game in the sixteen seasons he was without John Elway’s creative offensive schemes.
Anybody within earshot will be able to tell that Payton is an avid football player. He’s not Shanahan, though, or Belichick. Payton won’t be the appropriate guy to change the Broncos’ fortunes unless they acquire a suitable quarterback.
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