Examining the quarterback conundrum the Broncos face on a short week

DENVER — Since Peyton Manning left after Super Bowl 50, no team has had more turnover at the most important position in sports than the Denver Broncos.

On Sunday, the Broncos started their league-high eighth quarterback since the 2016 season.

In 96 hours, they can extend their league-high to nine.

After benching starting quarterback Jeff Driskel in the fourth quarter of Denver’s 28-10 loss to the Tampa Bay Buccaneers on Sunday, Vic Fangio said the Broncos’ next starting quarterback has yet to be decided.

“We’ll make that call quickly,” Fangio stated on Sunday evening. “We’ll talk about it as a staff and move forward.”

Driskel’s job is up in the air after the Broncos struggled to put points on the board. In over three quarters of play, Denver’s offense put up just 10 points, had five series without a first down, had a safety and an interception.

Denver’s starting quarterback was constantly throwing the ball with pressure beating down on him and only led the offense to one touchdown drive.

“Obviously we were struggling on offense,” Fangio said, explaining why he benched Driskel in favor of Brett Rypien. “Our pass offense in particular — you know, we didn’t run it well either — we just wanted to get a new guy in there, see if he could get it out of his hand a little quicker, direct the protections and see if it could provide a little spark there.”

On his first eight dropbacks, Rypien did just that. Making protection checks at the line of scrimmage, the second-year undrafted quarterback out of Boise State completed his first eight passes for 53 yards and drove the offense into the red zone. But on his ninth dropback, Rypien looked for the end zone and threw an interception to end the drive and essentially the game.

With Drew Lock almost certain to miss another week or more dealing with a bad bruise in his shoulder suffered in Week 2 against the Steelers, the Broncos are, once again, in limbo at the quarterback position.

Starting a new quarterback midseason is incredibly difficult. Starting a new quarterback on a short week adds another layer of difficulty on top of that. Starting a third different quarterback in three weeks is, well, even tougher on the quarterbacks, offense and team.

If the Broncos go in a different direction than Driskel, they’ll be doing all three of those. If Fangio and his staff stay with Driskel, they’ll be starting a player they benched just days before.

Not only do the Broncos play their next game on the road, but they also play against the Jets on Thursday night football. With the short week, the Broncos will have exactly one practice — one — before their next game. Denver will practice on Tuesday before a likely walkthrough on Wednesday.

If it’s not Driskel starting under center on Thursday night it will be between Rypien or newly signed Blake Bortles.

Rypien would provide a small sense of continuity to the offense as he’s been on the team since 2019 and played in the final series of Sunday’s game. However, he’s never started an NFL game but does have the playbook down.

Bortles, on the other hand, would be the complete opposite of Rypien. The former first-round pick would bring a wealth of starting experience to the Broncos’ offense but would be far from having the playbook down.

In fact, if Bortles were to start for Denver on Thursday night, it would come exactly one week after he attended his first practice with the team. Bortles’ experience, however, appeared to be key in John Elway’s eyes.

“It was important for us to have that veteran and have a guy that’s played where if we had another quarterback go down we would have a guy that’s game ready,” Elway told DenverBroncos.com on Friday, explaining why he signed Bortles.

Driskel didn’t go down due to injury, but he went down on the Broncos’ depth chart. After joining the team just days ago, Bortles was inactive for Sunday’s game.

Sitting at 0-3, the Broncos have to travel across the country on a short week to attempt to go 0-4 for a second-straight season. The most important position in that quest to get their first win of the season is undecided.

Trevor Siemian, Paxton Lynch, Brock Osweiler, Case Keenum, Joe Flacco, Brandon Allen, Drew Lock and Jeff Driskel have all started for the Broncos since 2016. Denver could add one more to that list on Thursday night.