In the world of football, history offers some insight into what Jarrett Stidham is poised to undertake.
Notable names such as Doug Williams, Jeff Hostetler, Tom Brady, and Nick Foles have famously stepped off the bench to guide their teams to Super Bowl glory after being called upon as backup quarterbacks.
However, unlike Stidham, these quarterbacks had at least a few regular season starts under their belts before embarking on their remarkable postseason journeys.
This distinction places Stidham on the brink of making history as he prepares to start for the Denver Broncos against the New England Patriots in the AFC Championship Game this Sunday.
“My focus is solely on Sunday,” Stidham emphasized. “I’m concentrating on how I can help my teammates succeed in that game. What’s my role in each and every play?”
At 29, Stidham finds himself in the spotlight after the Broncos’ starting quarterback, Bo Nix, was sidelined with a season-ending broken ankle during the dramatic overtime victory against the Buffalo Bills in last weekend’s Divisional Round.
Nix managed to finish that game but has since undergone surgery.
With a Super Bowl berth on the line, top-seeded Denver now turns to Stidham, a seven-year NFL veteran who has made only four starts in his career — and none since 2023.
“He’s going to rip it, and that’ll be our approach,” head coach Sean Payton said. “He’s got this calm demeanor that I think suits him well. He’s played in big games in college. I said this at the start of the season: I felt like our [No.] 2 was inside the best 32 [quarterbacks in the NFL]. And I think everyone feels that way.”
The odds are against Stidham.
He is set to become the seventh quarterback to start a playoff game after not starting at all in the regular season. Frank Reich, who filled in for the Bills’ Jim Kelly in 1992, was the only one to win.
Even more dramatically, Stidham is set to become the second quarterback to start in the playoffs after not attempting a single pass all year.
“My advice to [Stidham] is to block out the noise,’’ Hostetler, who led the Giants to a Super Bowl title after the 1990 season as an injury replacement for Phil Simms, told the Denzer Gazette.
“That’s really hard to do because you’ve got reporters asking questions. They were asking me things like, ‘This coach doesn’t think you can get it done. [John] Madden doesn’t think you can get it done.’”
But Payton has faith in Stidham, an Auburn alum who was originally drafted by the Patriots in the fourth round in 2019.
Stidham spent his first three seasons in New England, then went to Las Vegas via trade after Josh McDaniels — who was his offensive coordinator with the Patriots — became the Raiders’ head coach in 2022. McDaniels has since returned to New England as its OC.
Payton made the steady Stidham one of his first free-agent signings after taking the Broncos’ head-coaching job in 2023.
“That signing was important,” Payton said. “You don’t know when [Stidham will be needed while] it’s happening, but I’m glad … that acquisition took place.”
Stidham is 1-3 in his career as a starter. He’s thrown eight touchdown passes and eight interceptions in 20 career appearances.
Despite being the home team, the Broncos (14-3) are 5.5-point underdogs to Drake Maye, Mike Vrabel and the second-seeded Patriots (14-3).
But if the Broncos somehow go on to win the Super Bowl, Stidham will join the ranks of Hostetler, Foles and others in NFL lore.
“Going back to when I was backing up Russ [Wilson in 2023], I’ve prepared the same, every single week, like I am the starter,” Stidham said. “It just hasn’t, obviously, been that way, minus two weeks. So my preparation hasn’t changed one bit.”
