Zach Wilson will begin his first training camp with the Denver Broncos on Wednesday.
Head coach Sean Payton told reporters Tuesday that quarterbacks will rotate first team reps to start camp. Wilson is competing with Jarrett Stidham and the Broncos’ first-round draft pick this year, Bo Nix, for the starting role.
“We’ll mix it up again. Obviously, it won’t stay that way for the long term,” Payton said, per DNVR Broncos. “Eventually we’ll settle into the routine we want.”
When will the Denver Broncos name their starting quarterback?
When asked what the narrowing down process would look like, Payton said he’d keep reporters posted and that the process will be organic, according to the Denver Post’s Troy Renck.
“I’m not gonna sit here and lay out like ‘here’s how it goes’ because I think the mistake made is deciding how it goes,” he said. “We’ll see a rotation initially, and then we’ll move on from there.”
What has Sean Payton said about the Broncos quarterbacks?
Only one of the three quarterbacks has experience beyond this offseason with the Broncos’ playbook: Stidham. After the Broncos benched Russell Wilson last season, Stidham started two games.
Denver traded for Wilson in April. Three days later, the team drafted Nix No. 12 overall.
Payton was asked about Nix’s progress in learning the team’s offense, and he compared his rookie quarterback’s progress to Wilson’s.
“(Nix)’s a quick study, so the progress in the playbook will be just like it will be for Zach, right? They’ve both been here the same amount of time I think. All these young players are studying pretty hard,” he said.
Back in May, at the end of the first week of OTAs, Payton was impressed with his group of quarterbacks, saying the three were “doing really well” in their “race to learn this system,” as the Deseret News previously reported.
“You know, it’s kind of the orphan group,” he said. “They’re all orphan dogs. They come from somewhere. But they’re doing good.”
During OTAs, Wilson said he was “excited to attack a new challenge” with the Broncos, per the Denver Gazette’s Chris Tomasson.
“I loved watching him and Drew (Brees) back in the day and just the efficiency they played with, how consistent it was, how explosive they were as an offense and just taking what the defense gives you,” he said. “(I’m) just looking to keep growing and learning every single day from him.”