Denver Broncos’ playoffs fate in hands of backup quarterback

The message to backup quarterbacks is fairly consistent: always be ready, because you are only one play away from running the show. That said, when you spend 17 games of the regular season and then more in the playoffs standing on the sidelines, earpiece in and cap on watching the starting quarterback go about his business, surely your mind begins to wander. How about Cancún again for that post-season break. I said I would go through the loft last off-season. I can use the next few months to start draining those right-to-left putts.

Given that Jarrett Stidham has not thrown a meaningful pass in the NFL in more than two years, you could forgive him for pondering all of those distractions even as the Denver Broncos marched into the playoffs. And then the team’s coach, Sean Payton, returned to the podium half an hour after his initial press conference late last Sunday to deliver some news which changed everything. Bo Nix, the starting quarterback, had fractured his ankle on the penultimate play prior to the Broncos’ game-winning field goal over the Buffalo Bills. Nix’s season had been nixed. And now, one game away from reaching the Super Bowl, this was Stidham’s team.

“He will be ready to go and ready for the moment,” said Payton, enthusiastically endorsing his new starter as you would expect, insisting that the Broncos had seen more promise from Stidham behind the scenes than those outside of the team realised, effusing how Stidham and the rest of the backups had continually frustrated the Broncos defensive starters in training. Even if all of that is true, Stidham on Sunday will attempt to become only the second quarterback since 1950 to not start at all in the regular season and then win a playoff game.

And yet, all is not lost. Backup quarterbacks have come in before and led teams to Super Bowl titles, as recently as Nick Foles in 2018 with the Philadelphia Eagles. Foles was even named Super Bowl MVP following his part in the Philly Special, a rare instance of a quarterback catching a pass in the Super Bowl.

There are some obvious differences between the two. Foles had the end of the 2017 regular season to bed in as the starter after Carson Wentz tore his ACL in Week 14, and also had two previous seasons with over 10 starts under his belt before he joined the Eagles in 2017. Stidham has only made four starts in his entire career.

To further illustrate how unlikely a position this is for Stidham to find himself seven years into his NFL career, consider the rest of his résumé. Drafted in the fourth round by the New England Patriots back in 2019, he was named as Tom Brady’s backup and viewed as a potential successor before slipping down the depth chart and being traded away to the Las Vegas Raiders for a sixth-rounder. Two starts, two losses in Vegas and Stidham arrived in Denver as a backup.

Not that Stidham seems perturbed by the size of the challenge in front of him this week. When the Cleveland Cavaliers went 3-1 down in the 2016 NBA Finals to the Golden State Warriors, a meme circulated of LeBron James looking relaxed – sunglasses on, headphones in – as a caption underneath read that teams who trailed 3-1 in the finals had never successfully come back to win a championship… on 32 occasions. James and the Cavs of course went on to make history by turning things around, making the improbable possible. So it’s little wonder a version of that same meme featuring Stidham has been circulating in the run-up to Sunday’s AFC Championship game. “Stiddy’s ready,” as Payton put it.

Losing Nix is colossal but not a complete death knell. Visiting teams at Mile High Stadium have to contend with playing at altitude in Colorado. The Broncos defence ranks as one of the best, giving up a league-low 29 touchdowns in the regular season thanks to a fearsome pass rush led by Nik Bonitto.

And the history books contain more backup quarterbacks who went on to become Super Bowl champions including some of the greatest names in the sport: Tom Brady, Roger Staubach, Doug Williams, Terry Bradshaw. Jeff Hostetler, a bit like Stidham, had barely started any games in his career before replacing Phil Simms during the 1990 season and leading the New York Giants to a title. Kurt Warner was such a wild success story, going from undrafted and working in a grocery store to quarterbacking a Rams offence nicknamed “The Greatest Show On Turf” to a Super Bowl, that they made a film about him, American Underdog.

Can you understand if the news of Nix’s injury left Broncos fans cursing the gods and presuming the season was over? Absolutely. But as history shows, and until Stidham comes out and throws three interceptions, all is not necessarily lost.

Photograph by Justin Edmonds/Getty Images