Organized Team Activities (OTAs) are underway for the Denver Broncos, giving us a glimpse into what the new-look Broncos are and how they’re functioning.
The first morsel of info we’ve been able to glean is the fact that head coach Sean Payton is looking to split the quarterback reps evenly between all three candidates — Bo Nix, Jarrett Stidham, and Zach Wilson.
“We try to split up all the reps,” Payton commented. “There’s going to be a time when you read into the reps, [but] I don’t think it’s early in OTAs.”
“We rotate,” Payton said of how he wanted to break up the reps. “We’re rotating all of them right now.”
To an extent, that makes sense.
The Broncos have three unproven commodities at quarterback, and although it’s clear Bo Nix is the future of the franchise, there’s no need to throw him into the fire right away. Also, one would imagine most fans and coaches would want their first-round quarterback to be able to win the job on merit, as opposed to having it gift-wrapped for them.
Nonetheless, those concerns or beliefs shouldn’t lead the Denver Broncos to hamstring the future of their franchise by giving Zach Wilson practice reps instead of Bo Nix.
It’s really not a complex issue.
Which is more beneficial to the Denver Broncos winning games in the future — Wilson taking a practice rep, or Nix taking a practice rep? The answer is obvious.
Now, of course, one single rep isn’t that important, but if Wilson is taking even just 10 snaps a day from Nix, we’re talking about missing out on a few hundred practice snaps between now and the start of the season that could aid the chances of Nix becoming the franchise guy. The upside of giving them to the hopeful franchise quarterback is clear, while the upside of giving them to Wilson is murky, at best.
Plus, with it being a three-way split, it’s likely Wilson is taking far more than 10 from Nix each day.
Maybe you believe in Wilson’s draft pedigree and think there’s a high-end quarterback somewhere in there that was just ruined by a horrible situation in New York. But, if that’s the belief, why draft a potential future franchise quarterback with the 12th overall pick? That’s pretty damn incongruent.
Plus, let’s not be silly. Bo Nix will almost certainly be the Week 1 starter, which makes any Wilson development hopes rather irrelevant.
Is the hope that Wilson develops into a backup quarterback? The New York Jets’ attempts to achieve that over the past few seasons have been an utter disaster, so that doesn’t seem like a great bet either. Plus, Wilson’s elevator pitch doesn’t exactly sound like one belonging to a backup quarterback.
‘Young, inexperienced and uncomfortable gunslinger, who regularly struggles to move the offense, makes horrific mistakes and is pretty raw mentally. But, he’s got some unreal physical traits and he’s green enough to think that maybe that can still be tapped into, although it’s a longshot.’
That’s a very far cry from ‘trusted veteran who can step in and keep the ship afloat while the starter heals.’
As a result of all this, the decision to give Zach Wilson and Jarrett Stidham so many reps is very difficult to wrap your head around.
‘Well Zach,’ I hear you retort through the screen. ‘Nix is a brand-new rookie. He might just need some time to get up to speed, and so they’re being patient by giving Wilson and Stidham reps.’
That would make sense, except everything Broncos Country is hearing about Nix, from both the organization and outside sources, is that he doesn’t need that time, and is actually ahead of schedule.
“He’s farther along than most would be,” Payton said during the same media availability. “We’re talking about a player who’s played 61 games. He’s extremely smart. He’s picked it up pretty quickly.”
That’s great, Coach Payton. But then, if he’s picked it up so quickly, why is he still getting as many reps as Wilson — someone who couldn’t pick up the Jets’ offense after three seasons of living in it?
That seems fruitless.
Now, of course there is going to be a backup quarterback on this team, and that backup will take offseason snaps. But that’s a job for Stidham, not Wilson.
Stidham has already been a viable backup quarterback, and despite how unexciting the offense was with him at the helm, it didn’t experience a drop-off from when Russell Wilson was under center. It should also be noted that, among the 72 quarterbacks that have played more than 150 snaps since Zach Wilson was drafted, Stidham ranks 36th in adjusted EPA/play and 27th in success rate. Wilson ranks 66th in both of those same metrics.
Think about that.
Ranking 36th would mean there is more than an entire league’s worth of quarterbacks outperforming Stidham in terms of down-to-down production, and yet still, the gap between him and Wilson (0.182) in adjusted EPA/play is most comparable to the gap between Stidham and Patrick Mahomes (0.193).
Wilson is quite literally one of the very last options you would want for your team.
The issue here isn’t that Bo Nix isn’t taking 100% of the snaps. That’s a ludicrous standard that would never be met.
The issue here is that the Denver Broncos are practically burning reps by giving them to Wilson instead of Nix — the quarterback who actually has a realistic chance to develop into something substantial at the position.
Now, while we’re at it, Stidham should not be getting the same amount of reps as Nix either, but at least he projects as a backup and potential Week 1 starter. Wilson is neither of those things, barring a dramatic metamorphosis unlike anything we’ve seen from the position before.
This all reeks of when the Urban Meyer Jaguars — maybe the last regime you would ever possibly want to resemble — had Trevor Lawrence compete with Gardner Minshew deep into August for the starting job, only to cut Minshew before Week 1, demonstrating he never really had a chance of winning the gig.
Ultimately, all that did was performatively tell the media a competition was happening and that the best man would win the job, while a competition was never actually held and a chunk Lawrence’s offseason was simply wasted watching Minshew.
Now, this is nowhere near that bad yet. We’re a long ways from mid-August, and Nix isn’t the caliber of prospect that Lawrence was. Nevertheless, this early report serves as a troubling omen.
