Every day, following practice, we here at BSN Broncos will be giving you our opinion on what we saw go down in the quarterback battle that day. Keep an eye out shortly after practice for our observations from the day, opinions on what took place and, ultimately, the day’s winner.

ENGLEWOOD, Colo. — The day we all had been waiting for turned out to be a bit of a disappointment.

After just about as much hype for a practice and a position battle as we’ve seen in this town, the Broncos—in their first training camp practice under Vance Joseph—put on a shortened and fairly action-less practice.

With that being said, you want to know what happened and we’re here to tell you what we saw.

Red Zone

The team spent the day working inside the 20-yard line, with the quarterbacks appearing to split reps with the first team. That meant that just about every throw on the day was a short one and, in all reality, neither of the quarterbacks were on their best game.

“Obviously versus our guys in the red zone it’s though because those DBs don’t back pedal,” head coach Vance Joseph said after practice. “I thought it was really a good practice for the first time out for camp.”

The good news for the two competitors is that neither man threw an interception on the day. As you may recall from last season, it was March Sanchez’ repetitive turnovers that eventually spelled his demise in the competition.

Play of the Day

Big plays and crowd eruptions were few and far between, but the biggest one of the day came as Paxton Lynch was working with the first team. Lynch dropped back, saw a strong rush coming, stepped up in the pocket and perfectly lobbed a perfect ball to C.J. Anderson in the corner of the end zone for a touchdown.

“[Lynch] has a good arm,” Joseph said about the former first-round pick. “Those guys with the big arm got to kind of find their way as far as being aggressive with the ball. Trevor has played more football, he is more conservative by his personality, but that’s not a bad thing. They are both different guys. It’s obvious when you watch them play that they are both different guys. They’ve both been productive players, and we are happy about both guys.”

Siemian Not Sharp

For a guy who is often lauded for his accuracy, Trevor Siemian wasn’t exactly sharp on a day that involved a lot of short passing. The man who was named the “starter” of the day by Vance Joseph on Wednesday, had a hard time beating the tight coverage in the short-yardage situations.

Asked if he felt like he picked where he left off in the Spring, Trevor even admitted he didn’t feel his best.

“About two periods in, probably,” he explained. “It took me a while. But once you get going and knock the rust off, it’s good to be back.”

(Maybe they should have had that passing camp!)

(That was a joke)

In the end, it was Trevor in his own, tongue-in-cheek and self-deprecating way, that summed things up.

“Hopefully, the No. 13 that comes out of the locker room tomorrow is better than the slappy that came out here today,” he said.

Now, Siemian was far from a “slappy”—a popular scouting term for a guy who sucks—on the day, but in his own way, he admitted he expects better from himself. Maybe a rough start could light a fire for the usually mild-mannered Siemian.

Scoreboard

Take it with a grain of salt because the sample size was small, but we promised you a daily winner, and we will deliver.

All things considered, it appeared Paxton Lynch had the better day of the two, making a couple big plays and also avoiding mistakes. On a day where the format seemed to favor Siemian on paper, a win for Lynch—albeit a slight one—is an impressive start.

Sidenote: Lynch also won the press conferences on the day with a legendary quote about rocking a cutoff shirt.

“Trees don’t grow in the shade,” he said.

Stay tuned throughout training camp for all of our quarterback competition coverage.