The Denver Broncos have locked up most of their key players with extensions, but there are still some moves to be made. The Broncos have a couple of key holes to fill, and the $28 million they have in cap space might not be enough to get the players they want.
Trades are rare in this kind of NFL scenario, but they do happen. According to Luca Evans of the Denver Post, the Broncos have some assets that might serve them well in the trade market, and backup quarterback Jarrett Stidham is one of them.
Stidham is under contract through the upcoming season, and a trade would save the Broncos $6.5 million in cap space. That’s not a lot, but Diana Russini of The Athletic recently reported that teams have reached out to Denver about a possible trade for the backup quarterback.
Coach Sean Payton has pumped up Stidham’s value before. He’s said several times that he thinks Stidham could start for several NFL teams, and if there is a team that values him as a possible starter, the Broncos could get a lot back, relatively speaking.
Add in the fact that this NFL draft class is light at quarterback, and that could drive Stidham’s value even higher. Payton has also talked up third quarterback Sam Ehlinger, so he could step up, although no one really knows how serious Payton is about that.
A trade like this wouldn’t be a priority. It would basically take a sucker team to do that, but there's no shortage of those in the NFL at this time of year.
Stidham played reasonably well in the first half of the AFC Championship game against New England after starter Bo Nix broke his ankle in the divisional round, and there probably isn’t a quarterback in the league that would have fared well in the snow storm that followed in the second half.
The level of quarterback panic that hits the league at this time of year is always amazing, and some teams will take themselves into just about anything. There might be a backup tight end Payton likes, or a bigger running back who’s worth bringing in for a look.
The wild card here is Nix’s status. We still don’t know where he is in his rehabilitation process, and the Broncos aren’t about to tell us more, not after the fiasco that ensued when Payton revealed key information about the quarterback’s medical situation that really should have been kept private. The situation is worth monitoring, though, especially as the level of QB desperation rises this month.