FOXBORO \u2014 When Jarrett Stidham throws his first pass in Sunday\u2019s AFC Championship Game, it will be the first he\u2019s attempted in any meaningful game since Week 18 of the 2023 season.<\/p>\n
Zak Kuhr, who will spearhead the Patriots\u2019 defensive effort against Stidham this Sunday, said the quarterback\u2019s years-long layoff was more the result of situation than talent.<\/p>\n
New England\u2019s interim defensive coordinator on Thursday called Stidham a starting-caliber quarterback capable of being QB1 for multiple NFL franchises.<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t know if it\u2019s so much the challenge of that he hasn\u2019t played in a while, more than just the whole team as a challenge,\u201d Kuhr said. \u201cHe\u2019s very capable of being a starting quarterback. He could be the starter for a number of teams. Very talented, athletic, smart. He can run better than what most people think. Strong arm, very accurate. You watch this film. But I don\u2019t think it brings some added level of difficulty as far as preparing for it.\u201d<\/p>\n
Stidham has spent his entire pro career as a backup, however, first with the Patriots, who drafted him in the fourth round in 2019, then with Josh McDaniels\u2019 Las Vegas Raiders, who acquired him before the 2022 season. The Broncos signed him in 2023, then re-signed him last offseason, paying him $12 million over two years to be second-year pro Bo Nix\u2019s understudy.<\/p>\n
Nix suffered a season-ending broken ankle on the final drive of Denver\u2019s divisional-round win over Buffalo, thrusting Stidham \u2014 whose only snap this regular season was a Week 8 kneeldown \u2014 into the top spot for the AFC title game. It will be the fifth start of Stidham\u2019s career and his first in the postseason.<\/p>\n
Just six current Patriots players overlapped with Stidham in Foxboro, but one member of New England\u2019s coaching staff knows him well: McDaniels, who worked with the 29-year-old signal-caller during his stints with the Patriots and Raiders.<\/p>\n
\u201cSmart. Accurate. Great human being,\u201d New England\u2019s offensive coordinator said. \u201cWorked hard, great teammate, just hadn\u2019t had the opportunities based on the situations and those type of things. But I just enjoyed working with him, enjoyed my time with him, and I\u2019m sure he\u2019ll be ready to go this week, for sure.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"FOXBORO \u2014 When Jarrett Stidham throws his first pass in Sunday\u2019s AFC Championship Game, it will be the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":698747,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2065],"tags":[114,925,7,3872,101891,101890,1744,393,2455,2454,249,6,208,101718,525,27625],"class_list":["post-698746","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-las-vegas-raiders","tag-afc-championship","tag-bo-nix","tag-football","tag-jarrett-stidham","tag-jarrett-stidham-broncos","tag-jarrett-stidham-patriots","tag-las-vegas","tag-las-vegas-raiders","tag-lasvegas","tag-lasvegasraiders","tag-new-england-patriots","tag-nfl","tag-patriots","tag-patriots-broncos","tag-raiders","tag-zak-kuhr"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/115944173508553627","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/698746","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=698746"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/698746\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/698747"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=698746"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=698746"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=698746"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}