Let the bickering in apountry begin. Are you with Trevor Siemian? Or do you roll with Paxton Lynch?
This isn’t a quarterback controversy. Itap an uncivil war not seen since Tim Tebow left Denver.
When new Broncos coach Vance Joseph insists itap an open, 50-50 competition between Siemian and Lynch to be the team’s starting quarterback, I believe him.
I also believe Joseph cannot possibly know exactly what he’s getting himself into by letting apountry be a house divided between Mr. Skittles (Siemian) and the Pirate (Lynch).
“Itap open,” Joseph said, “and itap going to go down to the wire, I hope.”
Here’s applause for Joseph committing to take his sweet time to fully evaluate the team’s two young quarterbacks. If it requires all of training camp, or even half the regular season, to choose between Lynch and Siemian, thatap fine by me.
Why? His call on the quarterback is one Joseph must get right, or he won’t be the Broncos’ coach for long.
A year ago, Gary Kubiak prioritized making the playoffs over finding the team’s QB of the future, and he failed at both tasks. While itap understandable why Kubiak took the win-now approach with the defending Super Bowl champs, he walked out the door at Dove Valley headquarters leaving a hot potato in the lap of Joseph.
How Joseph negotiates the noise emanating from the Siemian vs. Lynch debate will reveal much about if he’s cut out to be an NFL head coach. Joseph must not only sell his decision to the Broncos’ locker room, he must sell it to apountry.
Around here, a coach unable to control the hubbub gets run out of town real quick. Or have you forgotten Josh McDaniels? Around here, the passionate fan base will scream about the quarterback until itap nearly impossible for a coach to ignore. Or have you forgotten Tebowmania?
Whether the position is left tackle or quarterback, Joseph insists “The best guys will play.”
We all want to believe sports represent the ultimate meritocracy. But when the debate is about the quarterback in a football-crazy town, locker-room politics and the court of public opinion get all tangled up with whatever evidence is recorded in the all-22 video by Lynch and Siemian.
Think not? Well, Jake Plummer always was and always will be a better NFL quarterback than Jay Cutler, but that didn’t stop the Snake from losing his job when Mike Shanahan turned over a winning team to his prized first-round draft choice.
Remove the personal bias, and the math doesn’t lie. Although Siemian was more experienced in the Denver offense and produced a much larger sample size in 2016, there was no significant difference between him and Lynch in completion percentage, touchdown-to-interception ratio or quarterback rating.
“I think you learn pretty quickly, or at least I did, that you’ve got to earn it every year and every day in this league,” Siemian said.
There’s a weird dynamic between apountry and their two quarterback prospects. If Twitter is a window into the irrational mind of football fanatics, then Siemian is either the next Tom Brady or Brian Griese, while Lynch is either the league’s next great gunslinger or too dumb to read NFL defenses.
“I believe in myself to be a starter this year,” Lynch said.
While Siemian can command a huddle and is tough as nails, New England coach Bill Belichick exposed Siemian’s limited skill set with a no-frills defense . Although Lynch’s lack of footwork and focus can drive a coach nuts, if new offensive coordinator Mike McCoy can’t find the pages in his playbook that allow Lynch’s playmaking ability to shine as the starting quarterback, then John Elway hired the wrong coaching staff.
Let the bickering begin.
