Do the Broncos actually have a plan to find a quarterback, other than general manager George Paton professing the urgency of a guy who can’t find a date to the prom?
If Aaron Rodgers kisses and makes up with the Packers, while Seattle steadfastly refuses to trade Russell Wilson, where does that leave Denver when the quarterback carousel stops spinning? With a second-tier veteran? Please. Not again.
San Francisco wants to dump Jimmy Garoppolo, which rhymes with “Oh, heck no!” While the standards of excellence in apountry have fallen to a sad place late franchise owner Pat Bowlen wouldn’t recognize, shouldn’t we be done with quarterbacks other teams deem unworthy of winning a Super Bowl?
In a year when itap suggested only a fool will rush in and select a quarterback during the early stages of this NFL draft, beauty is in the eye of the beholder.
Yes, the athleticism of Liberty quarterback Malik Willis makes him a sexy choice who could be sold to Broncos fans itching for anything that could again get football passion pumping through their veins. Forget his small hands; only a knucklehead will fall in love with the production of 23-year-old Kenny Pickett as a fifth-year senior at Pittsburgh.
The smart, contrarian play is to place a bet on North Carolina’s Sam Howell, who has the kicking-and-screaming toughness, the football intelligence and the deep-ball accuracy the Broncos value.
Yes, there are two major raps against Howell.
No. 1: Analysts, who ignore his fight during close losses to three ranked teams, blame Howell for playing on an iffy team in 2021, which caused him to run for his life while throwing for 3,056 yards with 24 touchdowns and nine interceptions for the Tar Heels, who finished with a 5-7 record.
No. 2: Although thick and muscular, Howell measures only an inch taller than 6 feet. His response? Cite one of the quarterbacks he admires most. “The main guy is probably Drew Brees. A shorter guy (but) you can tell he’s really good at processing information. He always has a really good understanding of what he’s doing with the ball, before the ball’s even snapped. Even though he’s a shorter guy, he can make every single throw on the field,” Howell told reporters at the NFL combine.
Finding a quarterback thatap a winner, Paton admits, is “probably the hardest thing we can do when you’re sitting in my seat.” But finding the best QB in whatap regarded as a weak draft class is exactly the football puzzle that should allow a drafnik like Paton to excel.
Paton is a grinder, not a gambler. For better or worse, he’s everything John Elway was not as a general manager.
When scouting players, Paton does his homework, while Elway trusted his gut. Elway swung for the fences with a healthy bravado, even when he whiffed. Paton is a football geek who lives to binge-watch video of draft prospects, celebrating the discovery of gems that peers mired in groupthink never see.
In the wild AFC West, populated by gunslingers named Patrick Mahomes, Justin Herbert and Derek Carr, the quarterback of the Broncos can’t blink. The longer he played, and the more he got hit, it seemed as if Teddy Bridgewater began to lose his taste for the fight. That won’t be the case with Howell, who insists every time he takes the field, “I go out there with a fearless mentality.”
Although the quarterbacks in this draft class have been dismissed as meh at best, I strongly suspect QB-needy teams might well reach for Willis or PIckett well ahead of what their scouting grades merit. Let Detroit or Carolina make that mistake. As much as he wants a quarterback, desperation doesn’t seem to fit the modus operandi of Paton.
He’s all about that value and drafting smarter than his competition. So at No. 9, Paton can fix his pass rush (Jermaine Johnson of Florida State, perhaps) or hope Notre Dame’s Kyle Hamilton, a safety with a linebacker’s thump, slips down the board.
Then Paton’s bold gamble can be to use the team’s stockpile of draft picks to trade back into the middle of the first round and land Howell before New Orleans or Pittsburgh or a team known for smart football decisions takes the most under-rated QB in this draft.
