As the Denver Broncos quarterback competition comes down the home stretch, it appears that Trevor Siemian has pulled out to a discernible lead. In the Broncos’ second preseason game, Saturday against San Francisco, it was as much what Paxton Lynch failed to do than what Trevor Siemian did that put Siemian in position to be named the starter.

If it were simply about putting points on the board, Lynch managed to outscore Siemian on Saturday 13-10. If it were simply a matter of box score stats, Siemian passed his way to a 128.2 passer rating via 93 yards and a touchdown on 8-of-11 passing (compared to Lynch’s 72.3, 9-for-13, 39 YDS, 0 TDS, 0 INTS). Neither of those things will be the ultimate deciding factor, of course.

When Head Coach Vance Joseph, Offensive Coordinator Mike McCoy and the rest of the Broncos coaching staff goes to the game tape on Sunday, they’ll be looking for positives and negatives from both quarterbacks. What they’ll find, is that the negatives outweighed the positives for Lynch.

Although he produced 13 points and scored on three of five drives, all three of those scoring drives were assisted by turnovers. While he completed 9-of-13 passes, he threw for just 39 yards and on multiple occasions missed wide-open receivers. Lynch was Denver’s leading rusher at the half with 27 yards on three attempts, but he looked more like he was running a college read-option offense than commanding a pro-style scoring attack. He absorbed a big hit on a sack, but the sack only came because he failed to identify a safety blitz and didn’t change his protection.

Lynch was widely regarded as a 2-3 year project, and he looked very much the part in Saturday’s win. He still provides Denver a dangerous playmaker to back up Siemian, and will have another full season to continue to learn and grow as an NFL player.

For now, though, Siemian looks to be the logical choice. His drives have been more productive from a yardage standpoint, and his maturity and control of the huddle is evident. He’s growing better at picking up blitzes, trusting his downfield passes and moving up in the pocket.

Siemian may have produced only 10 points against the 49ers second-team defense, but he was clearly the quarterback with more positives than negatives on Saturday night.

The staff at Mile High Sports was tracking all the positives and negatives noted on Twitter Saturday night. Here’s a rundown of what the MHS team and some of our favorite follows had to say about Siemian and Lynch against the 49ers.

Lynch Positives

https://twitter.com/RonnieKRadio/status/899101286682972162

Lynch Negatives

https://twitter.com/RonnieKRadio/status/899091519323291649

https://twitter.com/AllbrightNFL/status/899104672178475008

https://twitter.com/JoshNorris/status/899115896333094912

Lynch Neutral

https://twitter.com/RonnieKRadio/status/899100358621798400

Siemian Positives

https://twitter.com/AllbrightNFL/status/899111250105389058

Siemian Negatives

https://twitter.com/RonnieKRadio/status/899110739431964672

Siemian Neutral