The five biggest questions surrounding the Broncos as they head into training camp

We’re so close, guys.

In 10 days, the Denver Broncos will begin training camp, and we can start talking about real football. Not football that counts, but football nonetheless. No more speculation and nonsense; there will be real men on real football fields throwing real footballs.

It’s about time!

And with that said, many of the questions we’ve been asking ourselves for the last six months will actually begin to get answered. If we want to know how a player is performing, all we have to do is watch them; preseason games may be glorified scrimmages, but they teach us a whole heck of a lot more than mid-June speculation.

So, with so much riding on the line, here are the five biggest questions surrounding the Denver Broncos as they head into training camp:

Is there a quarterback competition?

The short answer is yes, but it may just be that the question is phrased incorrectly. In reality, the question we should be asking is whether there is a legitimate quarterback competition?

If that’s the question, my guess is that no, no there’s not.

And this can go a couple of different ways. For one, Gary Kubiak and John Elway may have made their choice that Mark Sanchez is their starting quarterback day one and that Paxton Lynch will be slowly worked into the starting lineup down the line. In that scenario, he’ll get the majority of the first team reps, he’ll be on the field for two-and-a-half quarters of the Broncos’ third preseason game and he’ll take no more than a few snaps in the fourth game.

And that scenario makes sense. Sanchez is far, far and away the most experienced of Denver’s three quarterback options, and if they have any indication that he’s going to win the starting job, they should stack the deck in his favor from the start; he’s not going to be playing at his best if he’s truly splitting reps with Trevor Siemian and Lynch.

They could also stack the deck in Lynch’s favor, too, though. Remember, for however good you think Lynch may be, Elway did not trade up in the first round to select a quarterback he didn’t see as the franchise’s future starter. If he wants him to start Week 1, he’ll start Week 1.