QB question: Who comes here?
When the Broncos walked off the field for the last time in 2017, they knew what they had just seen.
Chiefs rookie quarterback Patrick Mahomes, a first-round draft pick who had yet to play in a regular-season game before facing the Broncos in Denver, flashed the arm strength most knew he had but also the decision-making most believed would need more time and experience to acquire.
“He’s a quality quarterback. He’s a quarterback of the future for the Chiefs,” Broncos linebacker Von Miller said afterward.
“He’s smart. I see him checking protections. I see him reading the defense. We know how strong his arm is, and the guy is a competitor,” Broncos cornerback Aqib Talib said days later in a radio interview. “So I think Alex Smith, he definitely might be on the market next year.”
Mahomes, it became clear, is the future for Kansas City. Smith, who may have played his final game with the Chiefs in a playoff loss Saturday, could be sporting new colors in 2018. (He has one year remaining on his contract, and when asked by reporters after the wild-card loss to Tennessee whether he wanted to stay with the Chiefs, he offered limited words aside from, “Yeah, are you kidding?”)
If Smith isn’t an option for Kansas City, could he be one for the Broncos? What about Kirk Cousins? Or Drew Brees? Or Baker Mayfield or Josh Allen or Josh Rosen or, hey, what about Eli Manning?
The truth is nearly every option is being considered by the Broncos — drafting a quarterback, signing a free agent, trading for a veteran. Would the Chiefs actually trade their starting quarterback to an AFC West rival?
The Broncos capped another playoff-less season with another quarterback quandary, leaving
them in essentially the same spot they were a year prior when Gary Kubiak resigned after two years as their coach.
It’s probably worse, actually, because hope for potential among their two young quarterbacks, Trevor Siemian and Paxton Lynch, has been eroded by mediocre performances and time. The former has one year remaining on his rookie contract and is due about $1.9 million in salary in 2018, thanks to performance escalators. Lynch has salary cap hits of about $2.6 million and $3 million, respectively, over the next two years.
Lynch’s future is the bigger question and “one that’s going to be high on the topics as far as discussion, where we think he is and if he can be that guy going into the future,” Broncos general manager John Elway said last week.
The options for the Broncos vary in cost and experience and are dependent on whether Elway views this team as ripe for a rebuild — something owner Pat Bowlen never did — or in need of a revamp.
Starting anew with a rookie quarterback would probably require time and patience. Finding a veteran QB, despite the cost, is a sign that Elway believes the rest of his roster has the pieces to go deep in the playoffs and will stick to “Plan A,” as he calls it.
“I don’t really see him drafting a rookie and trying to rebuild,” Talib said. “I see him getting a vet and getting back to the top ASAP, because that’s where he belongs.”
This month, the Broncos will coach the Senior Bowl and guide a North team that is expected to include Mayfield, Oklahoma’s Heisman Trophy winner. They will get a close look at his potential as a possible No. 5 pick in the draft, as well as that of Allen, from Wyoming.
Come March, if neither is re-signed already by their incumbent teams, Cousins and Brees figure to be high on the Broncos’ list too — though each would carry a significant price tag.
“There’s a lot of unknowns,” Elway said. “Until we kind of figure out exactly what that is — once we figure that out, then we can set a plan of how we want to attack it. I think there is no doubt we have to get better at that position.”