April 24.
That date is now more important to the Broncos than even March 17.
The latter is the date by which Denver’s National Football League team must cut Russell Wilson or be obligated to pay him $39 million for the 2025 season, whether he with the team then or not. (His $37 million salary in 2024 is already locked in.)
The former is the first day of the 2024 NFL Draft.
It’s virtually guaranteed that Sean Payton will not waste those millions of the new owners’ wealth by keeping Russell around any longer.
And based on his two-game audition as starting quarterback at the end of this season, it’s unlikely that Jarrett Stidham is the long-term answer under center if winning a Super Bowl is the goal.
That means Denver needs to pick a quarterback in the first round on 4/24/24.
What about free agency? you ask.
My answer is personified by Wilson, Joe Flacco, Aaron Rodgers and countless other one-time stars who were unable to duplicate their pasts, either because of diminished performance or injury, or both.
Wilson wasn’t a free agent when Denver acquired him, I know. But that’s beside the point.
By the time he arrived in the Mile High City with a Super Bowl Ring on a finger, he was no longer the relative munchkin who beat the odds for almost a decade in Seattle.
By 2022, when Broncos GM George Paton paid a king’s ransom in players and draft choices to acquire someone the Seahawks were hoping to unload, Wilson remained a competent NFL quarterback but not one who was likely to lead a team to a Super Bowl ever again.
His 5-foot-10 height had become a liability because he had lost just enough of his speed and quickness that he could no longer scramble as he did routinely in his prime. And with that, those big linemen—all taller than he—represent a much bigger obstacle.
As his 11-19 record in two seasons in Denver suggests, he’s not the miracle-worker he was when he went 104-53-1 in Seattle.
There will be at least five well-regarded college QBs in the coming pro draft: Caleb Williams of Southern Cal and Jayden Daniels of Louisiana State, the two most recent Heisman Trophy recipients; North Carolina’s Drake Maye, whom draftniks think could go first; and Oregon’s Bo Nix and Washington’s Michael Penix Jr., this year’s Heisman runner-up.
Penix was one of the two starting quarterbacks in the national championship game a few days ago.
Even though Heisman winners in the past 20 years have about a 50-50 record of equaling or even approaching their collegiate level of play once in the NFL, both Williams and Daniels are certain to be chosen before Denver’s turn rolls around.
So, too, will Maye—if the “experts” are right.
Nix and/or Penix seemingly will remain on the draft board long enough for the Broncos to have a choice to make.
The first choice, of course, will be whether or not to use their highest ’24 draft pick on a quarterback. Certainly, there are other needs.
But in today’s NFL, the best teams have lights-out quarterbacks.
Thus, if it were my call, I’d risk my No. 1 pick on a player who regularly takes the snap from center.
And if the choice is between Nix and Penix, I like what I’ve seen of Penix, even though his injury history is a concern. (He never played more than seven games in any of three seasons for Indiana before jumping to Washington.)
Penix passed for almost 9,300 yards and 66 touchdowns in two seasons for the Huskies. Nix, who left Auburn after three relatively ordinary seasons, threw for 8,101 with 74 TDS in two years with the Ducks.-
Washington’s won-lost record with Penix was 25-2, heading into the national championship game. In Nix’s two years at Oregon, the Ducks were 22-5. (Three of those losses came in head-to-head matchups with Penix, each by three points.)
In Sunday’s season-ending loss to the Raiders, Stidham completed 20 of 34 passes for 272 yards. He was 20-for-32 the week earlier against the Chargers. In those eight quarters he threw for two TDs, both the result of nifty running by those who caught his passes.
What does all this mean?
Stidham deserves a chance to keep the seat warm for whomever Payton and Paton choose. But choose they must.
Denny Dressman is a veteran of 43 years in the newspaper business, including 25 at the Rocky Mountain News, where he began as executive sports editor. He is the author of 15 books, nine of them sports-related. You can write to Denny at denny
dressman@comcast.net.