Broncos head coach Sean Payton said last weekend that he thought the team would keep three quarterbacks on their initial 53-man roster and that prediction was proven correct on Tuesday.
Rookie Bo Nix is the starter with Jarrett Stidham and Zach Wilson behind him on the depth chart heading into the start of the regular season. Wilson making the cut might not have been a popular projection coming off his dismal play for the Jets over the last three seasons, but Wilson had a good preseason with his new team and General Manager George Paton said he thinks the second overall pick of the 2021 draft still has the upside that people saw in him before his Jets tenure.
“No doubt. He has starter tools all over,” Paton said, via Kyle Fredrickson of the Denver Gazette. “It’s been pretty cool just watching him. Really, no expectations. He can just go out there and play football. He has all the starting traits in the world. He’s still working through some things. You could see the really good last week in the game. He can throw it as good as anyone in the league. . . . I do think he’ll be a starter in this league.”
Stidham was Nix’s top competition for the starting job this summer, but Paton’s review of Wilson’s skills could mean the team would have a decision to make if their first-round pick is out of the lineup for any extended portion of the 2024 season.