With the retirement of Peyton Manning and the departure of Brock Osweiler, the Denver Broncos’ quarterback position is still very much unsettled.
The team currently has only Mark Sanchez on the roster with starting experience. In this, he has to be considered No. 1 on the depth chart.
One man who seems all too aware of the team’s problem under center is safety T.J. Ward. Based on an interview with NFL.com, Ward does not seem sold on Sanchez:
“Whenever you don’t have a quarterback, it’s going to impact a team,” Ward said, via NFL.com. “But defensively, we have one mindset: No one scores. So (if) we continue to do that, continue to prepare and dominate on the defensive side, then we’ll be all right. But we got to find someone back there. Right now I think we have Mark Sanchez signed and he has some experience in this league.”
H/T to Josh Alper of Pro Football Talk for the quote.
Wow, T.J., tell us how you really feel. Even if skepticism about Mark Sanchez is completely justified (which it is), these are certainly not comments that you want to hear in a public setting from a new teammate.
The Broncos are certainly shopping for a quarterback. It would not be at all surprising if they landed one via free agency/trade or in the draft.
The problem is that basically none of the available, realistic options are players that will definitely take the starting job from Sanchez. At most, any quarterback that Denver does acquire will be competing with Sanchez for the job.
If Sanchez does begin the 2016 season as the Broncos starter, he does so knowing that even after he was signed, a teammate described the team’s quarterback situation as ‘not having a quarterback.’
So while the 2015 season could not have ended better for Denver, the 2016 campaign is certainly starting on shaky ground.