Peyton Manning rode off into the sunset. Brock Osweiler packed his things and headed to Texas. And Broncos Country now stresses over their quarterback position.

Despite Colin Kaepernick being the name in headlines, Mark Sanchez has not stopped grinding. He wants to be the Broncos starting quarterback, and he wants to lead them to a championship.

“Listen, I don’t care who is there, what is going on right now,” Sanchez told the Denver Post. “They are going to give me a fair shake, that’s all I can ask for, a fair shot. I am good. Let’s go. I will bet on myself and compete my butt off. I will be friendly and professional with whoever is there. But I want this bad. Really bad. I want what they experienced last year.”

The quarterback hasn’t wasted any time. He’s already brought all his Broncos wideouts down to Mission Viejo High School in California for a passing camp he’s calling “Broncos Beach.

“One, it’s just to be around each other. That’s important. It sounds like they have that family atmosphere in Denver. They talk about the locker room and it sounds fun. It’s because of stuff like this,” Sanchez said. “They get together in the offseason, and make sacrifices with their time and their money and travel to do that. Emmanuel and Demaryius were awesome, saying, ‘Let me call so and so.’ They’ve been great.”

https://twitter.com/b_fowler13/status/717818183663493121

Though Sanchez is working hard, the reality is that Denver is still looking into other options. Kaepernick’s name is still heavily in the mix, NFL draft prospects are abundant and Sanchez still has a lot of work ahead of him. And on top of all that, Elway’s unpredictability leaves no room to guess who Sanchez’s competitors will be.

That said, nobody will be able to deny that he didn’t work for the opportunity. Only time will tell if it pays off.