Sean Payton shared a wild description of his Denver Broncos QB room, which includes former Auburn football quarterbacks Bo Nix and Jarrett Stidham: "orphaned dogs."
Payton explained the long way to Denver all of his QBs took -- for Nix, stops in Auburn and Eugene, Oregon in college before being selected No. 12 overall in the 2024 NFL draft, for Stidham, stops at Baylor and Auburn before ending up with the New England Patriots and Las Vegas Raiders before the Broncos, and for Zach Wilson, a weird three years with the NY Jets -- to get to the Mile High City in 2024.
"It's kind of the orphan group," Payton said on May 25 (h/t NFL.com). "They're all orphaned dogs. They've come from somewhere, but they're doing good. It's a good room.
"They come from different systems. One is coming from college. One is coming from two or three NFL systems, and the other is coming from one system. They're all in a race to learn this system. I would say -- you guys watched the practice -- they're doing well."
Former Auburn football QB Jarrett Stidham may have a chance to start for Denver Broncos in 2024
Based on what Payton said about his snap allotments, it sounds like Stidham has a very real chance to be QB1 for the Broncos in 2024.
"We had it in New Orleans after Drew left with Teddy and Taysom ," Payton said. "Look, we go by what we see. We try to get them as many reps as possible. We rotate. We're rotating all of them right now. So, Tuesday, 'Stiddy' ran with the ones, and then Zach, and then Bo. We'll keep doing that right now."
Stidham, once pegged as a cut candidate, appears to have come a long way in Denver this offseason. It's not out of the realm of possibility for Payton to reward his longest-tenured starting option to start the season before pivoting if need be.