Denver Broncos make Zach Wilson contract decision after trade, Bo Nix pick

Denver Broncos head coach Sean Payton has made it clear that as things stand right now, his team has not yet settled on a starting quarterback for the 2024 season. Of course, this shouldn’t necessarily come as a surprise if you were to take a look at their current quarterback depth chart. The three QB’s on the roster are five-year veteran Jarrett Stidham, who started the final two games of the Broncos season last year, 12th overall pick in the 2024 NFL Draft Bo Nix, and Zach Wilson, the former #2 overall pick of the New York Jets who the Broncos acquired two days before the 2024 NFL Draft began.

Of those three options, Wilson has the most experience by far, having started 33 games for the Jets over the last three seasons. But Wilson’s uneven play (and that’s putting it lightly) in New York has put the Broncos in a spot where they aren’t planning to pick up Wilson’s fifth-year option ahead of the Thursday deadline, according to ESPN’s Jeff Legwold.

“Sources said the Broncos have informed Wilson and his representatives that they will not pick up the fifth-year option in Wilson’s contract,” writes Legwold. “The option would have been for a guaranteed $22.408 million. By league rules, the deadline to pick up the fifth-year option for 2021 first-round picks is Thursday, and it puts Wilson in a position to try to make the most of the 2024 season with the Broncos before he hits free agency in March.”

In order for Wilson to “make the most of the 2024 season,” that would mean he’ll need to beat out both Stidham AND Nix for the starting job during training camp and the preseason. This will be no easy task. Even though Stidham has hardly lit the world on fire, and Nix may not yet be NFL ready, the public perception of Zach Wilson will likely handicap his chances of winning the job. We’ve seen Zach Wilson in long stretches as an NFL starting quarterback, and it rarely looked all that great.

Zach Wilson was a wildly disappointing 12-21 as the Jets starter, and frankly, that record is a little better than Wilson has shown to be on the field. For his career, Wilson has been responsible for 28 touchdowns and 34 turnovers, and he’s thrown for only 185.1 yards per game. Even still, Sean Payton remains optimistic about having Wilson in his Broncos quarterback room.

“We were really happy to bring Zach on board. We know we wanted to add into the [quarterback] room, and I think I said that much even at the owners meetings. We really liked that opportunity. There were a number of veteran backups that signed contracts, and yet we saw talent with a player that just three years ago was the No. 2 pick in the draft. We really like his traits.”

… Just don’t like his traits enough to lock in that expensive fifth-year option, and frankly, I can’t blame the Broncos here.