According to insiders, Jarrett Stidham had an impressive offseason as a quarterback for the Denver Broncos. However, betting odds favor Bo Nix as the starting quarterback for the 2024 season, with Zach Wilson and Stidham as underdogs. The Broncos have a tight salary cap, making Stidham’s performance crucial if he wants to remain as Nix’s backup. While Stidham has fewer career starts than Wilson, he may need to prove a significant advantage to justify his $7 million salary cap hit. Ultimately, the competition for backup quarterback will unfold during training camp, where Payton will select between Wilson and Stidham to support Nix, the undisputed starter.According to insiders, Jarrett Stidham had an impressive offseason as a quarterback for the Denver Broncos. However, betting odds favor Bo Nix as the starting quarterback for the 2024 season, with Zach Wilson and Stidham as underdogs. The Broncos have a tight salary cap, making Stidham’s performance crucial if he wants to remain as Nix’s backup. While Stidham has fewer career starts than Wilson, he may need to prove a significant advantage to justify his $7 million salary cap hit. Ultimately, the competition for backup quarterback will unfold during training camp, where Payton will select between Wilson and Stidham to support Nix, the undisputed starter.
Earlier this month, an insider report claimed that “almost all media observers‘ thought Jarrett Stidham had the best offseason of them all Denver Broncos quarterbacks. When it comes to predicting the future, the oddsmakers in the NFL were not impressed with this report.
To no one’s surprise, and in all likelihood not those media observers either, Bo Nix remains the favorite to be named the Broncos’ starting quarterback to open the 2024 season.
Professional football talkMichael David Smith broke it out on Saturday.
In Denver’s three-way quarterback competition, Nix is a -400 favorite on DraftKings.com. Newcomer Zach Wilson is a +450 underdog, while Jarrett Stidham, who started the Broncos’ final two games of last season, is the outside pick at +650.
– Michael David Smith
What’s happening now on the Broncos beat? Don’t miss any news and analysis! Take a moment, sign up for our free newsletter and receive the latest Broncos news in your inbox every day!
So, the bookmakers basically have Stidham in the “long shot” position. Interesting. And it’s true to some extent, even if the arithmetic doesn’t reflect each quarterback’s perceived offseason performance.
Wilson has 33 starts in his career and will make just over $1 million this season. The Broncos may have declined the fifth-year option on his contract, but Sean Payton claimed the Broncos thought, “We’d love to work with this guy,” before acquiring Wilson in a trade.
Payton coveted Wilson before the draft. Why? It’s hard to say, but Payton wanted the former No. 2 overall pick in Denver and worked to rebuild Wilson’s trust right away.
Meanwhile, after releasing Russell Wilson and triggering an $85 million dead money charge that the team will absorb over the next two years, the Broncos are very much under their salary cap. According to Denver, Denver currently has $7.6 million in cap space About the cap.
If the Broncos wanted to budget some “Evan Mathis” money — a reserve set aside for making a late addition or two to the roster after seeing how the chips fall in training camp — $7.6 million would be tight. That means financial concerns, which always factor into NFL personnel decisions, will likely weigh more heavily on Denver’s approach for 2024.
Stidham has a $7 million salary cap hit in 2024. If the Broncos were to let him go before the season starts, they would eat up $1 million in dead money and save $6 million on the salary cap.
That means Stidham can’t just be a little better than Wilson this summer. He’ll have to be a lot better — think $5 million better than Wilson — to make it worthwhile to keep him around as Nix’s veteran backup and the team’s quarterback fail-safe.
Stidham has only four career starts. Wilson dwarfs him in actual game experience, even if Stidham has been in the league longer.
However, this is all background semantics. Because, as the oddsmakers say, it’s Nix’s job. And he won’t lose it. That’s not the type of man he is. Plus, Payton isn’t trying to throw away another season.
The question isn’t which quarterback wins the starting job. That goes without saying, it’s a fait accompli: it’s Nix. It will come down to which veteran Payton ultimately chooses to keep around as a backup to his hand-picked first-round rookie starter.
Time will tell. But that’s the real competition about to take shape when the Broncos hit the grass for training camp on July 23.
Follow Mile High Huddle on X And Facebook and subscribe on Youtube for daily livestream podcasts from the Broncos!
