Paxton Lynch was supposed to replace Peyton Manning for the Denver Broncos, but his football career was very different.
Once upon a time, quarterback Paxton LYnch was “the guy.” Teams like the Denver Broncos loved his size and arm strength, to the point where teh Broncos made him their first-round draft pick back in 2016 after they’d won Super Bowl 50, and Lynch is still trying to make his NFL comeback, according to Luca Evans of the Denver Post.
The 6’7” Lynch is now 32, but he never gave up on making it back to the NFL, and Evans said Lynch refers to it as “a climb back toward himself.”
It’s been a long, hard journey, but Lynch does have a sense of humor about it, even if he’s now at the Arena League level.
“I’m gonna play ’till I’m 45,” Lynch said when a teammate gave him shade for trying to make the Colorado Spartans. beamed back. “Like I’m Tom Brady.”
Lynch was making $600 a game, and he didn’t even get to make his debut this year, as he tore his LCL in a Spartans early road game. Lynch was definitely ticked off about this, but he doesn’t regret the effort, even with the recent cost.
“I was like, ‘OK, if I play this year in arena football,'” Lynch said, “‘I’m going to play as Paxton Lynch. I’m going to have full confidence in myself. I don’t really care.’ And that’s what I did.
“It felt good to do that again.”
Lynch didn’t have much to feel good about during his NFL career. He stated with the Broncos, then went to the Seattle Seahawks and the Pittsburgh Steelers. After that it was the alphabet soup of the lower pro football levels, which included stops in the CFL, USFL and XFL.
“I always knew who I was off the field,” Lynch explained. “But when it became Paxton Lynch the football player, and all these people had these different opinions about me – that’s when it was hard for me.”
Lynch has his eye on coaching in college football, and he says he’s also been doing his comeback for his 10-year old son, Asa, who’s a “burgeoning quarterback,” according to Evans, in Denver youth football.
“When he goes out there and is afraid to throw an incompletion, or afraid of this, I’m like, ‘You’re messing up, and you’re not even feeling good about messing up,” Lynch said. “Because you’re not even doing it, like, 100%.’”
Lynch doesn’t know if he’ll try to come back from his injury again in 2027, but he is sure he’ll walk away happy if he is done.
“I do feel like that’s what I came out here and did — I was, like, authentically myself,” Lynch said.