Sean Payton has to express confidence in Jarrett Stidham.<\/p>\n
He has no choice. The AFC championship game will kick off Sunday<\/a> and Stidham will be the Denver Broncos\u2019 starting quarterback replacing Bo Nix, who broke a bone in his ankle<\/a> late in Saturday\u2019s win over the Buffalo Bills. No matter how Payton feels about the situation, he has to tell the world and his team that Stidham will play well against the New England Patriots with a berth in Super Bowl LX on the line.<\/p>\n Advertisement<\/p>\n But maybe Payton isn\u2019t just trying to be a salesman. The past few years he has spoken a few times to the media about Stidham\u2019s knowledge of the scheme and his work ethic. He said after announcing Nix\u2019s injury<\/a> on Saturday night that he has felt for a while that Stidham could start for a handful of teams. Stidham has started just four NFL games and hasn\u2019t thrown a pass in either of the past two seasons, but that doesn\u2019t mean he\u2019s incapable. It just means he hasn\u2019t played much because Nix was better.<\/p>\n When Payton was asked why he believes in Stidham, he mentioned the reasons he sees behind the scenes.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s our three years here. In our three years, watching him day-in and day-out that you guys don\u2019t have access to,\u201d Payton said. \u201cHe will be ready to go and ready for the moment.\u201d<\/p>\n Advertisement<\/p>\n Stidham will be the least experienced quarterback to ever start a conference championship game. His four starts are one fewer than Jeff Hostetler, who had five career starts (including playoffs) before he started for the 1990 New York Giants in the NFC title game against the San Francisco 49ers, via Greg Auman of Fox Sports.<\/a><\/p>\n Here\u2019s the good news: Hostetler helped the Giants win a Super Bowl. Vince Ferragamo, who had six starts before the 1979 NFC championship game for the Rams, helped Los Angeles to win the NFC and the Rams led in the fourth quarter of the Super Bowl before the Steelers rallied to win.<\/p>\n [Get more Broncos news: Denver team feed<\/a>]<\/p>\n Whatever it\u2019s worth, Stidham did play very well this past preseason. He was 30 of 38 for 376 yards, four touchdowns and no interceptions. It\u2019s not like Broncos fans have much more they\u2019ve seen to get excited about. Stidham did play fairly well in two regular-season starts for the Broncos at the end of the 2023 season (going 40 of 66 overall for 496 yards, two touchdowns and one interception), and the organization told everyone what they thought of him when they signed him to a new two-year, $12 million extension this past offseason. That\u2019s good money for a backup quarterback. Now the Broncos look for their return on that investment.<\/p>\n Advertisement<\/p>\n \u201cOne of Stiddy\u2019s great strengths is his mental aptitude and his progressions in understanding plays,\u201d Payton told the media on Sunday. \u201cThere\u2019d be practices where I\u2019m looking at [Broncos defensive coordinator] Vance [Joseph], like getting pissed off because Stiddy\u2019 is making our defense look bad. He\u2019s very accurate. He has a lot to his ball.\u201d<\/p>\n The Broncos understand the challenge facing them. Payton will have them ready. They still have a top-flight defense that has been the foundation of their success all season. They will need Stidham to do his job when called upon. And maybe Payton is right, and his new quarterback will surprise everyone.<\/p>\n Panic meter: Not ideal for the Broncos, but maybe not the end of the road for them either.<\/p>\n Here is the rest of the panic meter, looking at the teams that exited the playoffs in the divisional round:<\/p>\n Advertisement<\/p>\n Bills make a major change<\/p>\n The Bills certainly sent a message when they fired head coach Sean McDermott<\/a> but not general manager Brandon Beane. Not only did Beane stay around, he got what looked like a promotion as president of football operations was added to his title. In essence, the Bills said Beane did his job and produced a Super Bowl-level roster, and McDermott was the problem.<\/p>\n Anyone who watched the Bills this season might disagree. The depth at receiver, which Beane did nothing at the trade deadline to fix, was egregious. The defense, particularly against the run, slipped. It\u2019s hard to put all of that on McDermott.<\/p>\n Whatever the case, upgrading the roster around Josh Allen is the priority.. Allen wasn\u2019t at his best<\/a> against the Broncos, with four costly turnovers, but he\u2019s clearly good enough to take a team to a Super Bowl. He just needs that team to be better. The Bills must believe Beane can pull it off. For Allen\u2019s sake, they better be right.<\/p>\n Advertisement<\/p>\n Panic meter: It\u2019s OK for the Bills to have urgency, but now everyone remaining is under pressure.<\/p>\n What happens with Christian McCaffrey?<\/p>\n McCaffrey had a great comeback season. He missed almost all of last season due to injuries, then this season he had 2,126 yards from scrimmage. The 49ers, often decimated by injuries, rode him hard. McCaffrey had 450 touches, 413 in the regular season and 37 more in the playoffs. McCaffrey will be 30 years old next season. While it was great to see McCaffrey stay healthy all season, and he has had some high-usage seasons in the past, that workload is a little worrisome.<\/p>\n Saquon Barkley had 482 touches last season, including four playoff games (just two for McCaffrey; he\u2019d have breezed past 482 touches in two more games), and slowed down considerably this season. In recent history, running backs hitting 400 touches in a season have been a great bet<\/a> to regress the following season. The 49ers did what they had to do this season, loading up McCaffrey like there was no tomorrow. But there is a tomorrow and it\u2019s worth worrying a bit about McCaffrey repeating his fantastic season.<\/p>\n Advertisement<\/p>\n Panic meter: The history isn\u2019t kind here.<\/p>\n What do the Texans do on offense?<\/p>\n There will be an offseason-long discussion about C.J. Stroud<\/a> \u2014 do they sign him to a long-term contract? simply pick up his fifth-year option? neither? \u2014 but it probably doesn\u2019t matter. Stroud isn\u2019t going anywhere, at least not right away. The Houston Texans are stuck seeing it through with him.<\/p>\n The actionable discussion is what the Texans do around him. Stroud didn\u2019t play great this season and really struggled in the playoffs, but Houston didn\u2019t do much to help him last offseason. They didn\u2019t do enough to fix a line that was still well below average this season. Nico Collins is good and a couple of rookies the Texans drafted have promise, but there\u2019s still more work to be done at the skill positions.<\/p>\n Advertisement<\/p>\n Stroud isn\u2019t going anywhere. The Texans have to figure out a way to support him better. That means there\u2019s a lot of work to be done this offseason.<\/p>\n Panic meter: At least the Texans know what they have to do.<\/p>\n Bears actually feel pretty good<\/p>\n Among the teams that lost in the divisional round, the Bears probably feel the best about what\u2019s to come.<\/p>\n Caleb Williams made strides in Ben Johnson\u2019s first season as his head coach. Chicago looked better than they have in years. We\u2019ve seen many coaches<\/a> have one big season<\/a> to start and then fade quickly,<\/a> but this doesn\u2019t seem like that type of situation. If anything, another step forward from some young offensive players and a good offseason building the defense will make the foundation even stronger after a surprising NFC North championship season.<\/p>\n Panic meter: Shouldn\u2019t be much in Chicago.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Sean Payton has to express confidence in Jarrett Stidham. He has no choice. The AFC championship game will…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":421754,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[436],"tags":[175597,2215,176691,13277,1748,2216,49,1755,48,6681,18082,174962,176690,2212,1522,1718,1728,514,61155,948,3949,46168,82,1626,19501,11285,46804],"class_list":["post-421753","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nfl","tag-afc-championship-game","tag-bo-nix","tag-brandon-beane","tag-broncos","tag-buffalo-bills","tag-c-j-stroud","tag-ca","tag-caleb-williams","tag-canada","tag-chicago","tag-christian-mccaffrey","tag-jarrett-stidham","tag-jeff-hostetler","tag-josh-allen","tag-los-angeles","tag-new-england-patriots","tag-new-york-giants","tag-nfl","tag-nico-collins","tag-san-francisco-49ers","tag-saquon-barkley","tag-sean-payton","tag-sports","tag-steelers","tag-super-bowl","tag-texans","tag-the-bills"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/421753","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=421753"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/421753\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/421754"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=421753"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=421753"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=421753"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}