Paxton Lynch won his first career game for the Denver Broncos on Sunday afternoon. Well, at least that’s what the history books will state.
As has been the case for most of the last two seasons for the Orange & Blue, the man under center wasn’t exactly the reason for the ‘W’ next to their name on the schedule.
In his first start since a solid-but-losing performance in Week 5 against Atlanta, Lynch was underwhelming. 12-of-24 passing for 104 yards and no touchdowns, 4.3 yards per pass and a passer rating of 61.8. Those hoping Sunday would be the beginning of the Paxton Lynch era in Denver will all but certainly have to wait for another day.
After the game, though, with a win in their hands, the sentiment was not about the rookie’s struggles but rather what he did right. Unlike his counterpart Blake Bortles, who put the ball in the Broncos hands on three separate occasions, Lynch protected the ball for the Broncos, giving the team that had won 28 straight games when winning the turnover battle a chance to make that 29.
“I think some of his decision making was better than it was against Atlanta,” said head coach Gary Kubiak to KOA after the game. “He has to learn there’s some situation where ball placement—giving us a chance to make a play—we had a couple chances on some deep balls late in the game, they started playing us with a lot of man so just give us a chance with the ball.
“That’s learning,” he continued. “But I think we took a step forward. I thought the first half he played pretty decent in what he did, got us in field goal position before the half. Second half, I’m not sure we helped him a whole lot.”
Lynch, who was admittedly not overjoyed with his performance, also mentioned protecting that ball.
“I felt a lot more comfortable out there,” the rookie told KOA. “Obviously, there were some things that we want to get accomplished that we did, like not turn the ball over. Obviously, it wasn’t pretty, but I’ll take in a win in my second start over my first start for sure… You don’t want to play like that to where you’re holding back but you just know going into the game, if you don’t turn the ball over and you have a defense like that, you’re always going to give yourself a chance to win. We knew coming into the game that we were going to have to protect it. We did that and we won.”
While the numbers weren’t pretty, that’s an extremely mature and important mindset from a rookie. Of course, you always want to be careful putting too short a leash on any quarterback, but the Broncos have been very clear with their QBs over the last two seasons: “As long as you don’t put the defense in bad situations, we have a great chance to win.”
Just like Trevor Siemian, who played his best game last week, Lynch will develop with time.
“I think the more you play in this league, the easier it gets for you,” Lynch said. “The more you can see, the easier it gets to see things. It was only my second start, so some things were still a little different than what we thought they were going to be, but we still got it done.”
They still got it done. For a team who entered the day on the outside looking into the playoff picture and left the field right back in it, that’s all that matters.
