ENGLEWOOD, Colo. \u2014 Four days before the Broncos’ biggest game in a decade, Jarrett Stidham stepped in front of a throng of media and set the tone.<\/p>\n
“This is not about myself, first of all,” Stidham said to begin his press conference ahead of the 2025 AFC Championship Game.<\/p>\n
Poised to make his first start in two years on Sunday against the Patriots, Stidham made it clear his focus isn’t on the national media attention. It’s not on how his life could change if he finds success over the next three weeks. It’s not, frankly, about him.<\/p>\n
Instead, Stidham \u2014 poised to make his first career playoff start \u2014 is only focused on how to best help his team deliver in a big moment.<\/p>\n
“At the end of the day, I’m not focused on anything but Sunday,” Stidham said. “What is my job on each and every play? How can I help my teammates succeed on Sunday? I do not care about anything outside of the next five days and what my job is. That’s the only thing I’m focused on.”<\/p>\n
Stidham and the Broncos’ offense will also be driven, in part, by a desire to play at a high level in honor of Bo Nix, who suffered a season-ending ankle injury in Denver’s Divisional Round win.<\/p>\n
“My heart goes out to him and everything that he means to this team, because obviously we wouldn’t be in this position without Bo,” Stidham said. “\u2026 I know all of us on offense and I know the whole team, we want to go out there and make him proud this Sunday.”<\/p>\n
As Stidham steps into a nearly unprecedented situation \u2014 he has the fewest career starts of quarterback to start a conference championship game and will make the latest first start of the season since Roger Staubach in 1972 \u2014 he’ll lean on his preparation. While he hasn’t attempted a regular-season pass since late in the 2023 season, Stidham said he’s always been ready over the last two seasons.<\/p>\n
“I think every week I’ve always \u2014 going back to when I was backing up [former Broncos quarterback] Russ [Wilson] \u2014 I’ve prepared the same every single week like I am the starter,” Stidham said. “It just hasn’t obviously been that way, minus two [starts in 2023]. My preparation hasn’t changed one bit, and that’s just kind of how I view it.”<\/p>\n
Stidham believes he’ll be aided this week due to the “full speed” nature of the Broncos’ practice reps, and Head Coach Sean Payton pointed to the “real good defense” that Stidham faces in practice.<\/p>\n
“You try to make practice as hard as possible, that way Sunday it’s not a shock,” Stidham said. “That’s how we practice here, and that’s how we’ll always practice here.”<\/p>\n
Payton credited Stidham’s decision-making and arm strength on Wednesday, and he said he knows Stidham is “going to rip it” when Sunday’s game against the Patriots arrives.<\/p>\n
His teammates have expressed a similar level of belief, and they trust in the veteran player to deliver in the conference title game.<\/p>\n
“In one of the biggest moments in a lot of our careers, he’s stepping up and ready to go take advantage of his opportunity because of the preparation and the way that he carries himself week in and week out,” wide receiver Courtland Sutton said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"ENGLEWOOD, Colo. \u2014 Four days before the Broncos’ biggest game in a decade, Jarrett Stidham stepped in front…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":695420,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2062],"tags":[1010,232,231,258,2426,7,3872,100984,6,98071,1004],"class_list":["post-695419","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-denver-broncos","tag-aric-dilalla","tag-broncos","tag-denver","tag-denver-broncos","tag-denverbroncos","tag-football","tag-jarrett-stidham","tag-new-england-patriots-at-denver-broncos-2025-post-3","tag-nfl","tag-playoffs-2025","tag-top-stories"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/115936789029424332","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/695419","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=695419"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/695419\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/695420"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=695419"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=695419"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=695419"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}