Denver's Backup QB Problem Has a Number Attached to It, and the Number Is Damning

The depth chart entry that should be keeping Broncos fans awake this July is not Bo Nix's name. It's Jarrett Stidham's production figure: 13.5, against a league median of 286.15 for starting quarterbacks. That is 5% of what a functional NFL starter produces. Not 50%. Not 15%. Five. I have been writing about this gap for two consecutive days now, and the number has not gotten less alarming with repetition — it has gotten more so, because Nix's Questionable designation is still sitting there, unresolved, in mid-July.

Here is what makes the situation structurally precarious rather than merely inconvenient. The depth chart currently lists Stidham as the top quarterback by production, with Sam Ehlinger behind him and Nix — the franchise quarterback, the man who threw for 4,210 yards and 28 touchdowns last season — slotted third. That ordering reflects reality on the practice field right now, not some organizational preference. Nix's shoulder surgery, initially framed as a bone-spur procedure with a clean recovery runway, has not resolved on schedule. The Questionable tag that appeared around July 4 has persisted. When a post-surgical designation lingers two weeks past its expected window, the original timeline was wrong, and the contingency planning that should have been theoretical becomes operational.

The contingency, as it stands, is Stidham. That is the problem in its plainest form. There is no rank-2 quarterback on this roster with observed playing time behind Stidham — the roster analysis flags this explicitly as a positional hole, not merely thin depth. Ehlinger exists on the depth chart, but his production footprint is effectively zero. Denver is not one injury away from a backup quarterback situation; it is already in one, because the player currently listed ahead of Nix on the depth chart is producing at a level that would not hold a roster spot on most NFL teams.

What compounds this is the broader context I have been tracking all offseason: the 2025 season's 14-3 record was built on a foundation softer than the wins suggested. Denver's point differential implied a team that should have won roughly 65% of its games, not 82%. They won close games at a rate that history says will not repeat. That means the 2027 season — and yes, I am using that framing deliberately, because the schedule Denver is preparing for is next year's — begins with a regression risk baked in before the injury report even enters the conversation. Add a quarterback who cannot practice fully, a backup producing at 5% of league median, and no viable third option with a production record, and the margin for error shrinks to nearly nothing.

My read is this: Denver's front office has to treat the Nix situation not as a delay to be managed but as a trigger for action. The receiving corps Nix would return to is genuinely dangerous — Courtland Sutton at 81 receptions and 1,087 yards last season, Troy Franklin adding 709 yards, Evan Engram as a reliable outlet. J.K. Dobbins is extended and healthy. The infrastructure for a winning offense exists. But an offense built around weapons only functions if the person distributing to those weapons can play. Right now, the Broncos cannot guarantee that, and the player they are relying on as insurance is not an NFL-caliber starter by any measurable standard. The number is 5%. The problem is real.