Ranking the 5 best quarterbacks ever drafted by the Broncos

It’s NFL draft season and the 2022 NFL Draft is quickly approaching. 

For the Denver Broncos, there is always a chance that they will take a quarterback in one of the later rounds of this draft, but there is no doubt that the team has found its quarterback of the future in Russell Wilson.

That is something that the team hasn’t been able to say since the days of Peyton Manning, but neither Manning nor Wilson was drafted by the Broncos. In fact, if you look at the Broncos’ all-time passing leaders, many of the top quarterbacks weren’t drafted by the team including John Elway, Jake Plummer and Craig Morton.

In total, the Broncos have drafted 39 different quarterbacks dating back to their inception in the AFL. Nearly every name on that list is quite forgettable and some may not even be recognizable by the most devout fans.

Here, I will look back on the team’s history and develop a list of the top five quarterbacks the Broncos have ever drafted. This list won’t only be about statistics, but also about team success under that quarterback and their overall impact on the team’s history.

Broncos best QB draft picks, Honorable Mention: Trevor Siemian, second round in 2015, Northwestern

The Broncos took Trevor Siemian in the seventh round of the 2015 draft to be brought in as the proverbial “camp arm”. Head coach Gary Kubiak had seen him work out and felt that he offered some promise.

The Broncos still had Peyton Manning in 2015 so Siemian did not get much work in as a rookie but in 2016, he went from a guy most felt wouldn’t be on a 53-man roster to the team’s starting quarterback.

Siemian beat out veteran Mark Sanchez and first-round pick Paxton Lynch for the starting spot, a position he would hold for the next three seasons.

He passed for 5,686 yards, good for 11th on the team’s all-time list, to go with 30 touchdown passes. The knock on Siemian was his lack of success, having never guided the Broncos to a playoff berth.