Gardner Minshew? Teddy Bridgewater? Justin Fields? Broncos need someone to push Drew Lock

Man, he’d be fun. Aren’t we overdue for fun? The gunslinger with the Deadwood mustache. A party in the back that never ends. Gardner Minshew, mullet flowing in the crisp mountain air, driving the Denver Broncos to glory.

Glory and jorts.

Of course, NFL trades take two to tango. And that the Jacksonville Jaguars front office is racing like Richard Petty to supplant Minshew with Trevor Lawrence and C.J. Beathard at quarterback should give you more than a little pause.

Broncos general manager George Paton is a lot of things, but he doesn’t strike you as the sort who’s comfortable with a kid who once went home and attempted to break his own hand with a hammer in order to score a medical redshirt. Coach Vic Fangio prefers free safeties to free spirits.

Still, the Broncos need somebody new in that quarterback room. Somebody fun. Somebody interesting. But, preferably, somebody good.

There are guys who need space and guys who need pushing. We’ve already seen a season of Drew Lock with space.

Let’s try the other way.

As quarterback acquisitions go, you’d like to see the Broncos aim higher than Carolina’s Teddy Bridgewater, of course. With this franchise, historically, from Charley Johnson in 1972 to Peyton Manning four decades later, fortune has almost always favored the bold.

Short of a draft day shocker, it sure feels as if we’re ambling toward a Paton/Bridgewater reunion. It feels like we’re waiting for the Panthers to shake things up, either at the draft or shortly thereafter. Carolina just took Sam Darnold off the hands of the Jets, who were presumably clearing the runway for BYU’s Zach Wilson.

From there, it’s not hard to connect the dots: Paton and Bridgewater go back a ways, with the former having played a role in drafting the latter to Minnesota in 2014.

Paton is like Fangio in that he prefers, all things being equal, to roll with the guys he knows, the dudes he’s already seen and scouted. We also just saw Lock beat Bridgewater, head-to-head, in Charlotte, last fall. As fallback plans go, the Panthers quarterback would be better than nothing. But only just.

The trouble with Bridgewater or Minshew is that neither one probably lifts us out of quarterback purgatory. Nor does it give Broncomaniacs the sledgehammer they so desperately want in order to break this blasted 6-to-8-win ceiling.

Somebody may still slip to the Broncos at No. 9 — somebody such as Ohio State’s Justin Fields or North Dakota State quarterback Trey Lance — but it’ll be somebody with more question marks than Lawrence or Wilson.

Meanwhile, Lock hasn’t been objectively bad enough to sink this franchise into a top 5 pick. Or consistently good enough to keep up with the Chiefs, Raiders and Chargers. On the other hand, No. 3 does come comparatively cheap. Which is helpful when OverTheCap.com says you’re paying Ja’Wuan James $10 million in 2021 and $11 million in 2022 to do whatever it is that Ja’Wuan James does.

Unlike John Elway, Paton doesn’t have to live up to a legend here that he spent decades cultivating. Or the obligation, real or imagined, to generations of kids who ran around town wearing replicas of his jersey.

And that’s the point of having a fresh set of eyes. Objectivity. Cold. Cruel. Real. Head over heart. Reason over sentiment. If a player ticks both boxes — the Vonster, Justin Simmons, Shelby Harris — then great. If not, lean on the former.

Bridgewater is what he is. If Paton wanted Andy Dalton, he’d could’ve done it. If he wanted Mitch Trubisky, he could’ve done that, too. Short of throwing the fan base Fields or Lance to dream on, he probably should’ve by now.

Lock can still be the most talented guy in the quarterback room come July. He can still have the biggest arm. The most upside.

But if No. 3 looks across the table and his primary competition is Jeff Driskel, Brett Rypien and a day 3 draft pick, Paton owes the veterans at Dove Valley an apology. And Broncos fans a heck of a lot more than that.

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