Unsurprisingly Payton praised Stidham after low-scoring Broncos win
Dec 31, 2023, 6:11 PM | Updated: Jan 1, 2024, 8:13 am
The Denver Broncos turned to Jarrett Stidham to spark their offense. While the team ended up with their second-fewest points on the season at just 16, it was enough to top the lowly Los Angeles Chargers.
The Broncos were eliminated from the playoffs despite the win, and it capped a rollercoaster week where veteran star quarterback Russell Wilson was benched. The team continues to say the change came in search of more points, something that didn’t happen in the first game post-Wilson. The quarterback’s camp has shared the details of his contract, making it fairly obvious that the Broncos benched him due to health concerns regarding future injury guarantees in Wilson’s contract.
Wilson was brought in to end the Broncos carousel of quarterbacks, while Payton was brought in a year later to bring some stability to the struggling franchise. Both could go to the Hall of Fame one day, but the quarterback was not the coach’s guy and Payton again hinted at that after the Broncos win on Sunday. The first-year leader of the orange and blue praised Stidham for his pretty sub-standard performance.
“I thought he was good. I thought—he’s collected, calm. I thought he was played with real good poise,” Payton said about. “You felt experience reelative to a guy who hadn’t had as many minutes as some others, but you certainly didn’t feel that during the course of the game. I thought he was efficient in and out of the huddle. I thought he made some good throws for us. Overall I thought it went pretty good.”
Stidham went 20-for-32 with 212 yards, one touchdown to no turnovers, was sacked twice for 12 yards, and picked up six yards for six carries. If those numbers feel familiar that’s because they’re almost identical to what Wilson is averaging per game this season, 19.8-for-29.8 with 204.7 yards, 1.7 touchdowns to 0.5 picks, three sacks for 17.2 yards while getting 22.7 yards on 5.3 carries a game.
And that might be Payton’s point. Sure, Wilson is likely better but given his large contract, the coach may feel he can get much of the same production from a guy making his third career NFL start.
“My job is to come in here and move the chains and score points and ultimately win,” Stidham said, admitting they left points on the board. “So, like I said, we thought we did some really good things offensively. I thought the O-line played incredible tonight. But obviously, when we got in the low red (zone,) we got to put the ball in and had a couple of chances to do it and didn’t do that. So we gotta we gotta fix that for sure.”
It had been about five years since Stidham last won a game as the quarterback, a bowl win for Auburn over Purdue.
The Broncos have one more game left this season where Stidham will likely start. He’s signed for the 2024 season on a pretty cheap deal and will factor into the team’s options as they’re likely to move on from Wilson. The question is, will Stidham be the team’s top quarterback next year or backup—an answer that could in part come in Week 18.
