Here's how the Broncos ended Draft Day exactly where they started at quarterback

ENGLEWOOD, Colo. — It didn’t take long late Thursday night for Broncos general manager George Paton to be asked about Aaron Rodgers and the myriad reports that the Broncos were in discussions with the Green Bay Packers about trading for the reigning NFL MVP.

He didn’t say that they’d reached out to the Packers. But he didn’t say they didn’t, either.

“We are just going to focus on the draft right now,” Paton said. “We will focus on Patrick Surtain II and what a great player he is. We’re excited to have him here.”

Paton’s response could be a better deflection than any that will be made by Surtain or the secondary during the season to come.

But Rodgers — and the quarterback situation as a whole — hung over UCHealth Training Center like a fog Thursday night.

“Hung over” also describes how many Broncos fans, fed up with four seasons of below-par quarterback play, felt as the first day of the 2021 NFL Draft ended.

Over the hours of that day, mock drafts by national pundits fueled the hopes of a fan base desperate for a quarterback to go punch for punch with Patrick Mahomes. NFL Network’s Daniel Jeremiah and ESPN’s Todd McShay and Mel Kiper Jr. all mocked Ohio State quarterback Justin Fields to the Broncos.

Not even an hour after the cresting wave of hope for a blockbuster acquisition of Rodgers ebbed. Denver was on the clock with the No. 9 pick. North Dakota State’s Trey Lance was gone, but Fields and Alabama’s Mac Jones remained on the board.

Taking a quarterback was “in play, definitely,” as Paton said after the first round.

But Surtain, the Broncos’ highest-graded defensive player, was the pick.

“Were we surprised [Fields] dropped?” Paton said. “Maybe a little bit, but we set our board and Surtain was really high on our board.”

In a vacuum, that is a perfectly reasonable choice. Surtain is a prime prospect at a premium position.

When measured strictly on the merits of the pick number, player quality and position, there is no rational objection one can make to Surtain. He possesses all of the physical, emotional and mental tools necessary to grow into one of the league’s better CB1s.

But no draft or team operate in a true vacuum. The draft was flush with quarterback prospects; five went in the first 15 selections for the first time in 22 years and just the third time in league history. Incumbent starter Drew Lock just finished a season in which he ranked last among eligible quarterbacks in completion percentage — even when adjusted for the drops by his receivers. And the Broncos’ collective passer rating of 79.0 since the start of the 2016 season — a figure compiled by nine starting quarterbacks — is the NFL’s second-worst.

Starved for production at the quarterback position, the Broncos ended the first round in the same place as they began.

Teddy Bridgewater, picked up Wednesday for a 6th-round pick on a restructured deal that knocks his salary down to no more than $4.5 million, was a league-average quarterback last year, ranking 17th of 33 eligible passers in ESPN’S Total QBR metric during his lone campaign with the Carolina Panthers.

If Bridgewater plays for the Broncos this season and remains at that level, he will be the best quarterback the Broncos have utilized since Peyton Manning’s retirement. “Average” would be an upgrade. Of course, a pessimist can also regard it like Larry Kroger’s 1.2 GPA in “Animal House,” which put him at the top of the Delta Tau Chi pledge class.

Drew Lock could improve; if he makes a significant leap, this is the Broncos’ best outcome. But after two years with an era-adjusted passer rating of 54.1, he’s in the range where fails outnumbered success. Of the 32 quarterbacks since the merger with era-adjusted passer-ratings of 56.0 or lower, just 10 became viable long-term starting quarterbacks. The rest settled mostly as fringe starters or backups.

Data reflects performance, and data like that is unavoidable in the evaluation of Lock. In that regard, making a play for Rodgers would be logical; the 17-year veteran’s deteriorating relationship with the Packers appears to have collapsed entirely. A buzz rattled through Broncos headquarters.

But roadblocks abounded.

The first was the Packers’ continued belief that they can work towards a détente with their future Hall of Fame quarterback — even though they doubled down on their perpetual resistance toward picking a first-round pass catcher by selecting Georgia cornerback Eric Stokes with the No. 29 overall pick. The only offensive player taken by the Packers in the last 10 first rounds was Jordan Love, the heir apparent at quarterback who the Packers selected last year.

The second was Green Bay’s salary-cap situation. Green Bay came into the draft with just $3,748,893 of salary-cap space, per the NFLPA’s daily cap report. To trade Rodgers on Thursday night would have accelerated the cap charge of the prorated portion of Rodgers’ signing bonus to this year’s cap, giving them a whopping $31,556,000 of dead money. Effectively, 17 percent of the Packers’ 2021 cap would be used on a player no longer with the team. After June 1, the cap hit can be divided over multiple years. A $14.352 million dead-money hit in 2022 would hurt, but with the salary cap expected to recover after its pandemic-caused dive this year, that would be more palatable.

Still, the NFL world was different Thursday night than it was Thursday morning. It may  alter once again by the time June arrives. Other teams could marshal their resources to make a play for Rodgers, who would represent a clear upgrade for any team whose quarterback is not surnamed Mahomes, Brady, Wilson, Allen or Jackson.

There was a moment when it looked unlikely that the Broncos could land John Elway in 1983 or Peyton Manning in 2012. Those experiences have taught everyone in this NFL precinct that the audacious can become a giddy reality. Thus, the notion of Rodgers discount-double-checking his way out of Wisconsin and into Denver cannot be dismissed.

If that fizzles, the Broncos will nevertheless have a quarterback room that is better than it was in 2019.

But barring a massive leap from Lock, the Broncos’ search for the kind of franchise quarterback that surrounds them in the AFC West could go on for another year if they can’t net Rodgers.

Denver’s quarterbacking hangover needs to end.

Perhaps soon, it will.

But despite the high hopes of Thursday, it will linger at least a little longer, with an unanswered question that dwarfs any viable answer at another position the Broncos could get from the draft.