If the Broncos are to challenge the Chiefs, their best shot starts with a Round 1 QB

On Sunday, two paths to the Super Bowl revealed themselves.

Sunday night, the San Francisco 49ers showed it can be done with Mr. Irrelevant and a perfect storm of dynamic offensive skill-position players and a stable of defensive studs — including a league-leading four defensive Pro Bowl selections. And to that, you add one of the league’s foremost tacticians and offensive strategists as head coach.

Brock Purdy has every advantage possible. For most of the 34-31 comeback win over Detroit, he was quarterback-as-point-guard. Occasionally driving to the hole, but generally focused on distribution to their constellation of stars.

Three-and-a-half hours earlier, the Kansas City Chiefs did it with a coach of similar stature in offensive mind, a Hall of Fame-bound tight end, an inconsistent corps of wide receivers and just one defensive Pro Bowler.

Of course, the Chiefs also had Patrick Mahomes, a quarterback so transcendent that he can overcome a gradual retreat in the quality of skill-position contributors around him. In a matchup against a Baltimore side with the likely league MVP, Mahomes played with an efficiency that Lamar Jackson lacked.

And with a roster that doesn’t sit in San Francisco’s class, the Chiefs are back on the game’s biggest stage for the fourth time in five seasons.

Thanks to an elite quarterback. The rising tide that lifts the red-and-yellow boats. The one that has guided the Chiefs to their last six in an eight-year run of uninterrupted AFC West titles.

Two teams followed divergent plans to Super Bowl LVIII.

But just one of those plans is feasible for the Broncos where they sit today. Last season revealed that the roster — already projected to be over the 2024 salary cap as it is — needs too much restorative work, and the team lacks the draft capital to address it all sufficiently.

And that plan is the one they should have taken in 2018 when they had the No. 5 overall pick in a quarterback-rich draft.

The new Broncos quarterback should come from the first round.

COULD A TRADE UP YIELD A NEW BRONCOS QUARTERBACK?

Maybe it’s Caleb Williams, Jayden Daniels or Drake Maye. Those three quarterbacks appear to have separated themselves atop the draft class.

Any of them likely requires a trade up — and a sacrifice of draft capital, player capital or both. But audacious trades up can work. Ask the Chiefs above darting 17 picks through the 2017 first round to select Mahomes.

Or perhaps it’s Bo Nix or Michael Penix Jr. Drafting either should require no movement from pick No. 12.

But just one thing is clear: What the Broncos have tried since Super Bowl 50 isn’t good enough.

And they’ve tried almost everything:

• The late first-round pick (Paxton Lynch)
• The Day 2 draft pick (Drew Lock)
• The late-round draft pick (Trevor Siemian)
• The veteran free agent (Case Keenum)
• The unwanted middle-to-lower-middle-tier veteran acquired via trade (Joe Flacco, Teddy Bridgewater)
• The perennial Pro Bowler acquired via trade (Russell Wilson)

Everything but a pick in the top half of the first round. And historically, that has the best success rate — although even this is middling. Just 34 of 66 quarterbacks taken in the first 16 picks from 1990 through 2021 made even one Pro Bowl. Only 25 became successful starters over at least three seasons with their original team.

But that success rate — 37.9 percent becoming successful long-term starters with their first team — is much better than the 27.2-percent rate from picks 17 through 32. Or the 13.3-percent rate of picks 33 through 100. Or the 6.5-percent rate from picks 101 through 266.

To pick a quarterback of the future in the top half of the first round is not to guarantee success. But it does give the Broncos the best possible shot of finding “the man.”

And Broncos history reveals that their greatest success came with quarterbacks taken early. They’ve never made a Super Bowl with a quarterback taken later than the 6th overall pick.

If they have a conviction on a quarterback who could go off the board in the top five picks, the Broncos shouldn’t hesitate. Maye could fit their offense. Daniels comes from LSU, a program in which Payton’s staff has deep, knowledgeable connections. And Sean Payton made his sentiments known about Williams during his lone season working for Fox.

Because they aren’t likely to accumulate enough ingredients to prepare a meal like the 49ers can. Not anytime soon, anyway.

But what the Chiefs have? The Broncos can mimic that — if they can draft a quarterback and develop him into a star.

The odds aren’t great. But with a salary-cap crunch, it’s likely the best plan. And this draft offers a perfect chance to do it.