Two days before the 2021 NFL Draft, the Broncos, a team then in need of a quarterback just as it is now, acquired Teddy Bridgewater in a trade with the Carolina Panthers.
Bridgewater joined third-year player Drew Lock in Denver’s quarterbacks room, but the Broncos, who held the No. 9 pick, insisted the trade hadn’t taken them out of the first-round quarterback market. In reality, general manager George Paton wasn’t eager to select a signal-caller out of that draft’s much-hyped quarterback class. The Broncos traded for Bridgewater to be their starter, then drafted cornerback Pat Surtain II to be a centerpiece of the defense.
It was the plan all along.
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Three years later, the Broncos have once again traded for a quarterback right before the NFL Draft, where they hold another premium pick (No. 12) and still have a hole at quarterback. Denver on Monday swung a trade with the Jets for Zach Wilson, one of the quarterbacks from the failed 2021 class. He became the fourth quarterback of the five drafted in the first round that year to change teams.
Unlike in 2021, though, this trade shouldn’t be viewed as a referendum on Denver’s plans in the draft. Wilson’s arrival doesn’t fundamentally change the calculus. Paton last week said that if there is a special player available at the game’s most important position when the draft begins, “then you do whatever it takes to get him.”
Broncos coach Sean Payton has called moving up to the top of the draft to select a quarterback a “realistic” proposition.
“Certainly a possibility,” he added last week.
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What the Broncos acquired in the trade for Wilson — they swapped their sixth-rounder for the Jets’ seventh-rounder in the deal — is an opportunity to see whether the talent that made the former BYU standout the No. 2 pick in that 2021 draft can be harnessed more effectively than it was in New York. There, his development was stunted by numerous factors — some within his control; others outside of it. He crumbled as a result.
There should be no sugarcoating how poorly Wilson has performed as a starting quarterback. He has completed only 57 percent of his 993 career passes. He has thrown more interceptions (25) than touchdown passes (23). He has been sacked 113 times in 34 starts, posting a 10.2 takedown rate that is even higher than Russell Wilson’s mark (9.7) during his two seasons in Denver.
What Wilson needed desperately was a reset, a chance to escape the bright lights of New York and the expectation that he would save a franchise that has for years seemed unsalvageable. He wasn’t supposed to carry that weight last season after the Jets acquired superstar Aaron Rodgers, but that all changed when Rodgers was lost to injury on the fourth play of the season. Wilson floundered in an offense built for Rodgers by former Broncos head coach Nathaniel Hackett, who had few answers when Rodgers wasn’t running it.
Wilson won’t face the same expectations in Denver. Here, he isn’t the franchise’s top pick. The Broncos have the league’s second-longest playoff drought behind the Jets, but Wilson isn’t the one being asked to end it like he was in New York, at least not yet. There will be nothing promised for him in Denver. Perhaps not even a roster spot in Week 1, depending on how the draft unfolds and how training camp competitions shake out from there. The Broncos will only pay half of Wilson’s roughly $5.5 million salary after the Jets picked up the other half to facilitate the trade.
There is a world in which the Broncos can’t land a quarterback at the top of the draft Thursday, or even in the second or third rounds. Even then, Jarrett Stidham, who replaced Russell Wilson as the starter with two games left last season, would be the favorite to begin 2024 under center. The Broncos will need time to get Wilson up to speed in an offense Stidham has been running for a full year, including game situations.
Wilson gets to reset in the Rocky Mountains, in a state bordering the one he calls home. He’ll learn from an accomplished offensive leader in Payton and work with an ascending and well-respected quarterbacks coach in Davis Webb. The Broncos will see if that environment can help Wilson find confidence in his game, one that was never really able to develop in New York. The Broncos have paid a low cost to evaluate a significant talent in their building and see whether there is a capable quarterback ready to be pulled out of him.
What Denver hasn’t done is materially change its approach with the draft ahead. The Broncos also signed veteran cornerback Levi Wallace on Monday. Adding his experience to a room that includes Surtain and young players Riley Moss and Damarri Mathis could mean the Broncos would look at other positions in the draft before adding a cornerback.
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But the addition of Wilson doesn’t alter the QB picture in the same way. The Broncos are in the business of finding a quarterback who can help turn their franchise around.
“It has to be the right fit, the right one,” Payton said last week.
The Broncos must be sure they are ready to support that signal-caller in a meaningful way if they do take one early in this week’s draft. The quarterback they acquired Monday is living proof of what can happen when you fail to build that kind of environment around a player who enters the league with the weight of a franchise on his shoulders.
(Photo: Dustin Bradford / Icon Sportswire via Getty Images)
