At one point during camp, Broncos coach Sean Payton seemed to be inclined to keep Ben DiNucci on the roster as a third quarterback. Payton decided that the revived third quarterback rule didn’t provide enough of an incentive to do it.
The situation prompted Payton to raise a legitimate concern about the construction of the rule aimed at ensuring a team won’t be stuck with no quarterbacks — especially in a high-profile, standalone game.
“I think there were a lot of people that felt like if the new rule said, ‘Hey, you could bring a third [quarterback] off your practice squad on game day, that would have possibly been a good solution,’” Payton told reporters on Tuesday. “The new rule basically says if you keep a third on your active [roster], you can bring him up free. What you had in Philadelphia versus San Francisco was a once in every four-year occurrence.
“We like the two guys who are on the roster, and we think we are going to have a good practice squad quarterback. That’s the approach we are going to take. Now, there are some teams that will keep a third on their active [roster]. It’s really just your decision on how you want to handle your 53. The new rule still requires you to keep a third on your 53. I will be anxious to see—let’s call it a week from now—how many teams have three on their 53. I’m sure there will be a few, but we will have a third in the building.”
For now, 13 teams have three quarterbacks on the active roster. One team, the Patriots, has only one.