Denver Broncos head coach Gary Kubiak has made his decision, and the Broncos will defend their Super Bowl title a week from Thursday with Trevor Siemian under center.

Coach Kubiak informed the team this morning of its starting quarterback.

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— Denver Broncos (@Broncos) August 29, 2016

The move is a bit of a surprise, and it’s really a delay of the inevitable.  Siemian is a second-year former seventh-round pick whose only significant playing time came in preseason over the last two years.

How much far ahead of rookie first-round pick Paxton Lynch can he actually be?

It’s understandable that the team doesn’t want to start Lynch and if he struggles put him on the bench. Kubiak would like to make the move to Lynch once and not flip-flop between quarterbacks as the Houston Texans did last season with Brian Hoyer and Ryan Mallett.

Siemian is the riskier, safe choice.  The completely safe choice would have been handing the keys over to veteran Mark Sanchez, who couldn’t hold down the starting job.

Denver is hoping to catch some lightning in a bottle with Siemian, and maybe he’ll defy the seventh-round odds and become a functional signal caller?  And if he does indeed become functional he’ll be replaced anyway….by the first-round pick….who they drafted to be the franchise quarterback.

Although Siemian is following the legendary Peyton Manning, he doesn’t have to be vintage Manning.  He simply has to execute the offense, lean on the running game and one of the best defenses in the last decade. This makes it easier for the young quarterback going into his first monumental challenge against the Carolina Panthers on September 8th.

“The thing about replacing Peyton — nobody is going to replace Peyton,” Siemian said. “Those shoes are a little too big to fill. For me, I’m not reading too much into anything and trying to be the best teammate and leader I can be.”

Siemian is saying all the right things and that’s likely what secured him this job.  It’s certainly not his 27 for 43, 285 yards, one touchdown and two interception preseason performance.  The fact that Siemian is starting is likely more of an indictment on the play of Sanchez than anything else.

It’s likely that Sanchez will be released on Saturday and he could find a home in Dallas or Minnesota.  This would have been a great opportunity to resurrect his career, at least temporarily until Lynch was deemed ready to go.  It’s pretty much determined that the former first-round pick from USC’s days as an NFL starting quarterback are over.