What kind of backup QB will Jarrett Stidham be?

Peter King is apparently “fascinated” by Denver’s signing of Jarrett Stidham.

Writing his “Football Morning in America” post for Pro Football Talk, King noted that the quarterback who signed a two-year, $10 million deal - intrigues him.

It might be because Stidham, who has only had two NFL starts in his four-year career, had a pretty damn good game in that first NFL start where he took Derek Carr’s spot as signal caller for the Raiders.

Stidham threw 365 yards, three TDs and led the Raiders to 34 points against the best defense in the NFL, the 49ers.

Those numbers obviously caught the attention of Sean Payton, writes King:

“So now Payton buys him to be Russell Wilson’s backup, and nothing needs to be said to Wilson about it. If Wilson by midseason 2023 is having a similarly disastrous season to his first one in Denver, Payton won’t have to punt on the season. He’ll have an intriguing backup waiting in the wings.”

But King contends that the pursuit of Stidham was not intended to make Russell Wilson nervous. Rather, Payton was just playing the odds for his best option at backup.

“He thought he could play it safe for around the same money with an Andy Dalton type, or swing for the fences on a young prospect with significant upside,” King wrote, adding, “I like the logic.”

Frankly, so do I.

And whether he did it to put pressure on Wilson is irrelevant. There’s no QB competition brewing. This isn’t a subtle hint for Wilson to get better; he already knows that.

And Payton is too matter-of-fact for that. Wilson is the starter. But if he can’t run the offense effectively by mid-season, then maybe Stidham can. Simple as that.

Payton would much prefer that Wilson get back to form and lead the offense in scoring drive after scoring drive - and the coach’s primary goal with Wilson and the Broncos’ offense is to help them do just that.

But if Wilson can’t, Payton doesn’t want to be stuck with an incapable backup to finish the season, and he’d prefer the young guy with apparent upside over the veteran QB on his way down.

Now that’s an actual Plan B.

But my favorite part of this scenario is that Stidham seems to have a similar skillset to Wilson’s - uses his legs to move the chains but can also throw the deep ball. Stidham’s highlight reel might even be just this one play...

Broncos/NFL/March Madness News

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