First round of Broncos' backup QB competition ends with a clear winner

If the Denver Broncos opened the door for a QB2 competition this offseason between Jarrett Stidham and Sam Ehlinger, then Stidham did his best to slam that door shut in the preseason opener against the Falcons.

Operating the starting offense, Stidham looked fantastic from the opening drive of the game. With Davis Webb making his official debut as the team's play-caller and offensive coordinator, Stidham helped make the operation run smoothly and look dynamic.

It wasn't perfect, of course, but the way Stidham played against Atlanta inspired a lot more confidence than some of what we saw in the AFC Championship Game, which involved a number of really brutal (borderline unfair) circumstances. But he did his best to rewrite the narrative in his preseason debut.

Jarrett Stidham takes a clear victory in Broncos' QB2 competition with Sam Ehlinger

Stidham completed 9-of-15 pass attempts, so he only completed 60 percent of his throws, but he was pretty dialed in on those completions, racking up 131 passing yards and distributing the ball to a wide variety of playmakers.

We saw some outstanding ball placement on his back-shoulder throw to Courtland Sutton to convert on 2nd-and-10. We saw him operating from under center as well as from the shotgun, and he showed some nice escape ability when he was under pressure.

He hit Pat Bryant early in this game on a well-executed comeback route. He hit Courtland Sutton deep downfield on a play in which he might have missed a wide-open Pat Bryant, but he gave his WR1 a chance to make a play in a one-on-one situation, and Sutton made it.

After a 5-yard penalty, already buried deep in their own territory, Stidham found Evan Engram up the seam of the field for a huge gain against zone coverage with perfect ball placement. On the same drive, he hit Troy Franklin on a deep crossing route off play-action for a huge gain.

The chunk plays and field vision were (mostly) phenomenal from Stidham in this game. The one big whiff he had still resulted in a huge play to Sutton that got the team all the way down to the 1.

Stidham led multiple touchdown drives, spread the ball around, used every level of the field, and just generally looked a lot more comfortable operating the offense than Sam Ehlinger did once he came in.

And of course, the caveat is that Stidham was playing with much better overall talent. He was running the offense with the starting unit, including the top offensive line for the Broncos. Ehlinger didn't have that luxury, but he only had 67 passing yards on 14 attempts (10 completions).

It's going to be interesting to see who is the first QB up after Bo Nix in the Broncos' second preseason game, because that might tell us exactly what the team really thinks about this backup quarterback battle. There have been reports of Ehlinger working ahead of Stidham at times during training camp, but unless he gets an opportunity to work with better talent in a preseason game, you can chalk this up as a huge win in favor of Stidham.

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