How should the Denver Broncos approach their QB situation?
The best solution for the Broncos at the quarterback position is to look to the 2018 NFL Draft.
Denver is going to be in a rare position this year of likely picking in the top 10. They have only done that once in John Elway’s tenure with the team, and it was the year he inherited Josh McDaniels’ mess of a franchise.
That year, Elway drafted the Broncos’ face of the franchise, Von Miller.
With a top 10 selection in this year’s draft, Elway can do the same on the offensive side of the football. It’s likely the Broncos will at least be faced with the option of drafting one of the aforementioned college quarterbacks, and I’ll post that list one more time as a memory refresher:
Sam Darnold?, Josh Rosen, Baker Mayfield, Ryan Finley, Lamar Jackson, Mason Rudolph, Luke Falk, Josh Allen?, Will Grier?, Riley Ferguson…
The players with question marks next to their names are players that have been rumored to this point to be returning to school for another season. The list of guys on this list that you would build a franchise around is actually bigger than you might think. Darnold, Rosen, Mafyeild, Jackson, and even to a degree Rudolph and Grier at this point have franchise QB potential to me.
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The Broncos need the guy that is going to come in and both mentally and physically adapt to the NFL as quickly as possible, which shortens the list a little bit, but it’s still long enough that Denver could very well find its franchise QB in this year’s draft.
If the Broncos’ intention this offseason is to truly rebuild, keeping some key pieces in place but start afresh at least offensively, then drafting a quarterback is the way to go. It’s going to be hard for some fans to get on board with that because of the failure (to this point) of Paxton Lynch, and the fact that this team seems to be in a closing window with its pieces defensively.
The reality is, the Broncos are set up very well defensively still, and they are set up very well in terms of the salary cap. They have the assets to surround a young, capable quarterback with a roster that is championship caliber.
In reality, the Broncos might be another season after this one away from truly contending again, but a young quarterback coming in and making a significant impact is really the only way — as I see it right now — that this team is going to get back into Super Bowl contention.