Paxton Lynch was the 26th pick in the 2016 Draft, but it looks like his Broncos (and perhaps NFL) career is coming to a close. As a rookie, he sat on the bench behind Trevor Siemian, who was taken with the 25t0h pick in the 2015 Draft and vastly outplayed Lynch during the summer of ’16 to win the job. And in 2017, Lynch missed time with shoulder and ankle injuries, but he also was the third most productive QB on a bottom-5 passing offense, looking worse than both Siemian and Brock Osweiler. Lynch has now fallen to third on the team’s depth chart even with Siemian and Osweiler gone: Case Keenum was brought in to be the team’s starter, and Chad Kelly — the 253rd pick in the ’17 Draft — has moved ahead of Lynch on the depth chart.

That’s right: the Broncos 1st round pick in 2016 has now been beaten out by 7th round picks from both the 2015 and 2017 drafts.

Let’s assume Lynch finishes 2018 with zero touchdown passes.  That would give him 4 career touchdown passes through three seasons.  The graph below shows quarterbacks drafted from 1992 to 2015 plus Lynch, with the X-Axis representing draft slot and the Y-Axis showing touchdown passes through three years.  Lynch is the red dot. [continue reading…]