ENGLEWOOD, Colo. — After a day where he pulled no punches on his quarterbacks, Vance Joseph said on Monday he was a bit happier with his two young signal callers.

“They came out and they were sharp early on,” he said. “It wasn’t perfect, but it was better than yesterday.”

The offense as a whole came out hot early, clearly inspired to bounce back after getting embarrassed by the defense on Sunday. There was a physical edge from the line, an extra burst from the running backs and we got a predictable fight after the ‘O’ let the ‘D’ get away with some roughness Sunday.

“Football is a game of adversity and a game of mistakes,” Joseph said. “You’re going to have bad days but how you bounce back is critical.”

The offense bounced back early but the quarterbacks, specifically Paxton Lynch, cooled down after the hot start and that made for the story of the day.

Rollercoaster Lynch

As the practice began, it appeared it was going to be a big-time Paxton day; the second-year quarterback started in 11-on-11 red-zone work with a fantastic throw to Virgil Green for a touchdown. Lynch perfectly floated a ball to the very back right corner of the end zone, where Green elevated, snagged the ball, and tapped his toes for the score.

On his next throw, Lynch found C.J. Anderson wide open in the flat to start his day 2-for-2 with two touchdowns.

In the next drill, Lynch was also perfect in his two opportunities, finding Emmanuel Sanders on an out for a quick five yards and following it up with a seven-yard completion to Cody Latimer to move the chains.

Lynch was firmly in control of the day until the team shifted to 7-on-7 work in the red zone.

On his first throw of the period, Lynch looked to the left, threw into a group of players and ended up finding Justin Simmons who was headed the other way. On the very next play, No. 12 looked to rocket one to the back line of the end zone, but Corey Nelson elevated and picked him off again.

Lynch went on to throw two more incompletions, including another near pick on the next play.

Coaches can live with a lot of mistakes; there are even certain interceptions they can live with. What coaches cannot tolerate, under any circumstances, are turnovers in the red zone. In 7-on-7, a time when the quarterback faces no pass rush, interceptions are even worse.

“I’m looking for decision making, guys,” Joseph explained after practice. “Making critical errors in the scoring zone, we can’t have. If you make an error on 1st-and-10 or 2nd-and-10, we can overcome that but if we’re going in to score, we’ve already got three points, and we give them seven, we can’t have that.”

“More games in this league are lost than won,” the head coach added. “We can’t go out and lose the game, that’s my point to the quarterbacks.”

No matter how you slice it, those quotes do not bode well for the way Lynch played on Monday.

Steady Siemian

On Monday, for the first time all camp, the quarterback competition looked exactly the way we expected it to all offseason.

Lynch made the plays that raise your eyebrows as well as the ones that furrow your eyebrows, and all the while, Trevor Siemian didn’t do much of either.

Siemian did what he does best, making the easy stuff look easy and staying within himself.

The third-year quarterback started the day with an easy completion to Juwann Thompson in the flat before taking a chance towards the back line of the end zone—similar to Lynch’s throw to Green but closer to the goalpoast. Siemian floated it up nicely for the tall receiver, who got his hands on it but had it ripped out by the likes of Lorenzo Doss and Chris Lewis-Harris.

In the next drill, Siemian threw just one pass, a deep shot down the field that turned wide receiver Marlon Brown around a bit before he stumbled, hit the ground and made the catch of camp. While it certainly wasn’t a perfect throw, the completion was the longest of the day for either quarterback.

During the period that Lynch’s day went up in flames—red zone 7-on-7—Siemian took the proverbial field goal. No. 13 had two completions to go along with two incompletions, but neither of the connections made it beyond the goal line.

“We put them in tough spots today again in the red zone,” Joseph explained of that period for the two quarterbacks. “You would think red zone is easy for the quarterback but it’s not, those DBs are not backpedaling, there is no threat of a deep ball so every ball you throw that’s an errant throw may be intercepted, that’s tough for a quarterback.”

Siemian fell short of impressive on Monday, but he took the title of the only QB in the last two days to go without making a big mistake.

“Go win it”

Before ending practice, Vance Joseph gave each quarterback one final rep.

“The idea is that it’s the last play of the game from the eight-yard line,” he said. “One play, no timeouts, go win it. It’s all about competition, pushing our offense and defense to be competitive. Every drill is being graded; every drill ends with a result, a winner and a loser.”

Lynch, who was working with the first team on the play, appeared to have his play go awry, with some sort of miscommunication resulting in an apparent Von Miller sack.

On Siemian’s play with the second team, he threw a ball to the right side of the end zone in tight coverage, the ball appeared to be catchable but eventually hit the ground.

As for the quarterbacks, no winner on the day here, the defense taking the crown.

Play of the Day

The play of the day goes to Marlon Brown for his incredible catch from his back.

The throw of the day goes to Paxton Lynch for his perfectly floated ball to Virgil Green in the back of the end zone.

Scoreboard

While it looked like Paxton was going to take the day by the reins in the early going, the turnovers in the red zone are simply unacceptable. By simply standing pat and avoiding big mistakes Siemian gets the win on the day for the quarterbacks.

Don’t agree? Go back and read those quotes from Vance Joseph about turnovers. Most importantly, this one: “More games in this league are lost than won. We can’t go out and lose the game, that’s my point to the quarterbacks.”

Trevor Siemian may not have won it, but he didn’t lose it. Unfortunately for the former first-round pick, he did lose it.

Day-to-day score: 2-2-1

10-point scale score: 6-4, Siemian

Collective 10-point scale score: 26-24, Siemian