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When Peyton Manning and Brock Osweiler both walked away from the Denver Broncos within a three-day span this past March, second-year seventh-round pick Trevor Siemian was the only quarterback left on the roster from the 2015 Super Bowl winning team.
Once the team found themselves in this peculiar conundrum, it was very obvious that general manager John Elway needed to add more bodies to the quarterback room before the 2016 seasonal calendar began.
And he did just that.
After acquiring experienced veteran Mark Sanchez in a trade with the Philadelphia Eagles and trading up to draft rookie Paxton Lynch in the first round of this year’s draft, Siemian quickly became an afterthought and the horse in the race that many thought least likely to come out on top.
But just as he did back in August and September, when he overcame the odds and won the starting quarterback job, Siemian once again has shown tremendous strides, and on Wednesday, his teammates named him one of three mid-season captains.
“It’s a tremendous honor for me; it really is,” Siemian expressed after having the captain’s title bestowed upon him. “It means a lot to me, first of all, be a part of this locker room and to know that some guys think of me in that light. A huge honor for me, really excited to be a part of this.”
Denver Broncos head coach Gary Kubiak chimed in as to how he thinks the team wants Siemian to accept his new role as one of the three captains anointed by the players this week.
“To be such a young guy and in his first year of playing, I think it tells him that they want him to lead them, regardless of what year he’s in,” the head coach said. “He needs to continue to do that and push forward. We have to help him.”
Though Siemian’s numbers at the mid-point of the season aren’t exactly popping off the page—accounting for only three more touchdowns (8) than turnovers (5) and amassing a QBR of only 54.5—his 6-1 record as the starting quarterback is the number that matters most to his comrades within the locker room.
“Win games,” Shane Ray said bluntly to reporters on Tuesday of what he did to earn the honor. “He’s leading the offense. When ‘Trev’ is hot, and that offense is clicking, we’re booming. Everything is working. We’re feeding off the offense and their feeding off of us. We can do our job, and they can do their job. When ‘Trev’ is on, it’s just magical out there because you see how we play as a team.”
While Ray alluded to the importance of Siemian’s on-field production leading to Denver’s success on both sides of the ball, the intangibles a quarterback must bring to the huddle and his offensive unit are just as integral to a team’s chances of reaching the promise land come February.
Broncos offensive coordinator Rick Dennison pointed to some of those specific intangibles he has seen from Siemian when concluding why he believes the team elected their starting quarterback out of Northwestern as a team captain eight games into the season.
“It seems like he’s taken on a bigger leadership role. He’s running the huddle well. People are looking up to him to help the tempo,” he said. “I think he’s really taken a command of what everybody is doing.”
In just a matter of two short months, Siemian has gone from third string camp body to starter and newly appointed team captain of the reigning Super Bowl champions. Not bad for a seventh-rounder out of Northwestern.
