There is a first time for everything and we’ve evidently reached that point with the Broncos’ Paxton Lynch when it comes to first-round quarterbacks in the modern-day NFL.
There were a lot of first-rounders at the game’s most important position in the 2018 NFL Draft — five in all, the highest number since 1999 — and most of the teams which went signal caller at the top of the process are going to figure out sooner rather than later just how much pressure there is to get them on the field quickly.
It starts with Baker Mayfield in Cleveland and follows with Sam Darnold in New York but will also matriculate to Buffalo with Josh Allen and Arizona with Josh Rosen.
The only thing that will prevent a groundswell in those cities demanding the young QBs hit the field is relevancy. If the bridge quarterbacks in place — Tyrod Taylor with the Browns, the Jets’ Josh McCown, A.J. McCarron of the Bills and Sam Bradford with the Cardinals — keep their respective teams in the playoff race there is an opportunity for them to stay on the field. If not, forget it.
That thesis is best highlighted by what went on in Chicago last season when everyone from general manager Ryan Pace to then-coach Josh Fox paid significant lip service to the idea that Mike Glennon would be the guy while No. 2 overall pick Mitchell Trubisky, a raw but gifted prospect selected No. 2 overall out of North Carolina, slowly learned the ropes. That idea ultimately lasted all of a month before it became obvious that the Bears were no threat to Minnesota, Green Bay or Detroit in the NFC North and Trubisky was undergoing trial by fire and, more often than not, paying the price for it.
Which leads us all the way back to Denver where the Broncos are in Year 3 of the Lynch experiment since selecting the lengthy signal caller with the 26th pick in the 2016 draft yet suddenly want to pump the brakes.
It’s fair to say bottom of the first round is not equal to top-five or even No. 10 as Rosen was selected this year by the Cards with the best evidence of that being Lamar Jackson, the fifth and final first-round signal caller taken this year at No. 32 overall by Baltimore. Jackson is the only one of this year’s group who can expect to sit and “enjoy” a redshirt season due to the presence of a competent veteran with a Super Bowl on his resume in Joe Flacco and, even more so, Flacco’s bloated contract.
Fast forward to 2020, however, and if Jackson isn’t pushing for playing time, the narrative gets ugly.
That time frame isn’t speculative in Denver, however. It’s real, yet according to the Broncos, it’s an opportunity for Lynch to take a breather after Denver went outside the organization to bring in Case Keenum, a journeyman who took off in Minnesota last season after an injury to Bradford, taking Minnesota all the way to the NFC Championship Game before the clock struck midnight on his personal Cinderella story.
In the prior two years, Lynch lost out to former seventh-round pick Trevor Siemian, ironically now the backup to Kirk Cousins with the Vikings.
And now Denver head coach Vance Joseph is telling Lynch to kick back and take some time to reflect.
“I think for Paxton and our football team it’s been a weight off all of our backs to have a starting quarterback and have everyone’s role defined from Day 1,” Joseph told reporters at the team’s rookie camp. “So for Paxton, he can relax and get better each day and not worry about a competition.”
You never want to throw any player under the bus as a coach but when you start talking about a QB with a first-round pedigree about to enter his third season in those terms, it’s equivalent to raising the white flag and stipulating to “bust.”
Remember the Broncos will have to decide on the fifth-year option for Lynch by next May and if he’s not playing well by then that decision is already made, meaning the Memphis product will be elsewhere by 2020.
Things can obviously change. In a violent sport where everyone is just a play away from entering the lineup Joseph understands he still might need Lynch at some point this season but this is clearly a reclamation project now with Denver hoping Keenum’s past struggles in Houston and with the Rams before hitting it big in Minneapolis serve as a rallying point for Lynch, who has far greater physical gifts than the guy [Siemian/Brock Osweiler for the past two and now Keenum] he will be watching for a third straight season.
“I think for Paxton being around Case also — I mean, Case has been through some ups and downs in his career, so he can learn from Case on how to handle those things,” Joseph surmised. “It takes time to be an NFL quarterback. You would hope with Case being here, he can sit back and relax and get better as a quarterback and not worry about being the guy right now and just compete to be our backup.”
The latter part of that is perhaps the most damning. Forget about the 6-foot-7 Lynch pushing Keenum, he’s now got to hold off another seventh-round pick from last year, Chad Kelly, just to be the backup.
Kelly is the nephew of Bills legend Jim Kelly, a good friend of John Elway and fellow member of the famed 1983 draft class alongside the Broncos GM, and a player who has remade his body after redshirting his own rookie year with a wrist injury.
“I think eating a lot of spinach and chicken paid off instead of eating fries and fried food,” Kelly, a former All-Sec player at Ole Miss, said at the Broncos’ rookie camp last weekend. “I came here and kind of knew I needed to move around and get back to my old playing weight back in early college and high school. I’m feeling like I can move around and do some things with my legs, but also being powerful in throwing the ball.”
Whatever happens with the Broncos moving forward, none of these developments sound all that relaxing for Lynch.
