DENVER _ Trevor's being Trevor again.
He does this, you know. Here comes Siemian, all toothy grins and dry wit, looking like some pushover from Northwestern. I mean, Northwestern? They tuck in their T-shirts at Northwestern. They make great lawyers, smart business owners, maybe an occasional journalist worth reading. But NFL quarterbacks? Sounds fishy.
"I can't tell you how many times he just kept coming and coming and all the sudden you're winning. It's what he does," says Mick McCall, the offensive coordinator at Northwestern and a former coach at Mullen and Douglas County high schools. "Something goes wrong, he shakes it off and comes at you. It's his demeanor. You don't expect it. He's so laidback, but yet he's a harsh competitor."
It's what Trevor Siemian does, and he's doing it again. The Broncos visit the Bears in a preseason game Thursday at Soldier Field, and the QB race inches on. While Twitter prepares Butt Fumble jokes for Mark Sanchez and analysts debate over Paxton Lynch's readiness, this unassuming seventh-round draft pick comes along and throws a wrench into the conversation. In the nine practices I've seen, Northwestern graduate/trailblazer/outlier Trevor Siemian has been the best quarterback in training camp for the Broncos. Really. That's happened.
And everybody's surprised.
Everybody except the football folks at Northwestern.
"Not surprised one bit," McCall says.
Don't get it twisted: None of the candidates will request practice film from this training camp to show their grandkids. All three quarterbacks threw an interception again Tuesday. Denver's hungry 'D' has been feasting like it's playing the Panthers.
But when the Broncos committed $4.5 million to Sanchez, then used a first-round pick on Lynch, the odd man out appeared to be the 24-year-old Siemian. Surprise!
Shoot, the folks who rarely are wrong, the gurus in Las Vegas, put odds on the Denver quarterback race. Guess who had the worst odds? Siemian, of course.
Does this mean Siemian wins the starting job over Sanchez, the veteran, and Lynch, the rookie? Nah. Siemian must win by TKO to beat Sanchez and his experience. Does it mean the next jersey in your closet should be Siemian's No. 13? Only if you're a Northwestern lawyer. So all is good in Broncos land?
Course not. It's Aug. 10, and a preseason game is must-see TV in Broncos Country because fans don't know their quarterback. But that this is even a conversation _ Siemian and Sanchez were listed as co-QB1s on the first depth chart _ is pretty much what Siemian does. His resilience is admirable, really.
Especially when you consider Siemian once walked into the coaches offices at Northwestern and said he might quit football. Rehabbing from a knee injury sounded like an awful idea, and Siemian wondered aloud if he'd even be drafted.
"I had done an internship in commercial real estate, and I did another one in medical-device sales. I liked both," he told me. "I wanted to start in real estate."
Less than two years later he might start at quarterback for the champs in a Super Bowl 50 rematch against Cam Newton and the Panthers.
"Oh, yeah. I remember that conversation. And Trevor would have been fine just walking away from football," says McCall, a Colorado native whose grandmother had Broncos season tickets as early as the 1960s. "He would be successful at anything he chose to do."
How close was Siemian to pursuing a career outside football?
"Probably closer than I want to admit," he said with a laugh. "Especially after the knee (injury). I was at a point where I said to the Northwestern guys: 'Do I even have a shot here (in the 2015 draft)? Am I even going to get a look after this?' That was part of it. But I didn't want to have any regrets 5-10 years from now. I didn't want to look in the mirror and say, 'I should've gone after this.' That would've been hard. I wanted to give it a shot. At least now I would know."
If Gary Kubiak and the Broncos don't know who their quarterback will be, I sure don't.
"From an evaluation standpoint, we're looking at things pretty equally," Kubiak said Tuesday.
But the attribute that could carry Siemian to the starting job might be the most ironic: Football isn't his everything, evidenced by his courtship with quitting the game entirely. He plays free, without pressure and with house money. Get sacked? Whatever. Throw a pick? Big deal. There's a lot to be said for operating with no worries, and a seventh-rounder who faced the Broncos' naughty defense all of last year while leading the scout team has no worries.
"Just rolls off his back," McCall says. "It's why he's so good in a 2-minute drill."
The Broncos have big questions at quarterback.
"The bottom line is when my head hits the pillow every night, I don't want to have any regrets," Siemian said. "I don't want to say, 'I should've studied a little more' or given it a little more effort. I want to know I did everything I possibly could for this job. If that happens, I can sleep at night."
Is Siemian the answer? Not even the Broncos know yet. But Trevor's being Trevor, forcing the Broncos to make a decision no one expected them to face.
