Denver Broncos: A.J. McCarron a better option than Kirk Cousins?
By Randy Gurzi
The Denver Broncos reportedly have interest in pursuing Cincinnati Bengals quarterback A.J. McCarron, but is he a better option than Kirk Cousins?
The Denver Broncos are in the market for a change at quarterback after spending the past two seasons with Trevor Siemian beating out 2016 first-round pick Paxton Lynch. Siemian was an overachiever for a seventh-round selection, but was nothing more than a stop-gap. It’s probably also a safe bet to say Lynch is not the man.
With those issues going on in the Mile-High City, potential free-agent quarterbacks are seeing their names linked to the Broncos a lot these days. The latest name to surface is Cincinnati Bengals backup A.J. McCarron.
Vic Lombardi of Altitude Sports Network spoke on Pro Football Talk Live recently and said the Broncos have every intention of pursuing the former three-time NCAA National Champion from Alabama should he become a free agent — he had a grievance hearing Wednesday to see if he could be awarded unrestricted status.
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McCarron’s name comes in after plenty of rumors had the Broncos looking at Kirk Cousins, formerly of the Washington Redskins. While Cousins is more experienced, it may make more sense to go after McCarron.
The first reason is his age. During the 2018 NFL Season, McCarron will turn 28 and Cousins will be 30. While that’s not a huge age gap, it does feel better to get a guy still in his twenties. This may not be a huge deciding factor, but it’s something that general manager John Elway likely will consider.
A more important factor is pay. Cousins has started 57 games in his career and has three-straight seasons of 4,000-plus yards. As for McCarron, he has three starts. Surely the pay discrepancy will be much greater as Cousins can look for similar money to what Jimmy Garoppolo got — five years and $137.5 million. As for the guy with three starts, it’s likely he comes in at a greatly reduced price.
That does make it more of a gamble as McCarron’s small sample size is a risk. The good news is he played well when given the shot and even put up a solid performance in his lone NFL playoff start.
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The money Denver saves by going for the less-experienced signal caller could also help them keep both Demaryius Thomas and Emmanuel Sanders — both receivers who have been rumored to be on the move so the team could create cap space. In the end, it probably makes a lot more sense to go for McCarron and hope keeping a strong team around him is enough to get them back into the mix for a playoff spot.