Is Paxton Lynch Enough to Lead Loaded Denver Broncos Back to the Super Bowl?

Paxton Lynch is the perfect quarterback prospect to lead the Denver Broncos back to the Super Bowl someday. But can "someday" be February 5, 2017?

There's no doubting Lynch's potential. Bleacher Report NFL Draft Lead Writer Matt Miller's No. 3 quarterback, the 6'7", 244-pound passer has an archetypal NFL frame. Even better, he has rare mobility for his size—whether moving inside the pocket, outside the tackle box or down the field. As Miller noted, there are questions about Lynch's consistency throwing the ball, but he's got the arm to grow into a great passer.

Lynch's agent, Leigh Steinberg, looks at the quarterback and sees a little of former client Ben Roethlisberger, as he told FoxBusiness.com. Roethlisberger, of course, was thrown into the deep end as a rookie with the Pittsburgh Steelers and led his team to 13 wins and the AFC Championship Game.

Tasked with defending the Lombardi Trophy and armed with a roster that has everything but a quarterback, Broncos executive vice president John Elway might have seen another passer when looking at Lynch: Brock Osweiler. The lanky 2012 second-round pick kept the Broncos on course for the title last season when Peyton Manning went down, and Lynch has a similar toolset.

Elway put his feelings on Lynch simply to Nicki Jhabvala of the Denver Post: "He was the guy."

For the price of a third-round pick to move up and get him, The Man in Denver has his guy at quarterback. But is Lynch ready to take Denver's starting job?

If he is, he'll have plenty of help.

Demaryius Thomas and Emmanuel Sanders return as one of the most fearsome receiver tandems in the NFL, free-agent tailbacks C.J. Anderson and Ronnie Hillman are safely back in the fold and newly signed offensive tackle Russell Okung will be anchoring the offensive line.

On the defensive side of the ball, lineman Malik Jackson and linebacker Danny Trevathan are the only significant departures from the No. 1 yardage defense of 2015; the Broncos poached Jared Crick from the Houston Texans to help replace Jackson, and Trevathan's replacement could easily be found on Day 2 of the draft.

Meanwhile, Pro Bowlers Von Miller, DeMarcus Ware, Chris Harris and Aqib Talib will return, keeping together the lethal combination of pass rush and pass coverage that stymied all of the NFL's best teams this past postseason.

Though Osweiler did enough to win, he finished 2015 with just 10 touchdowns in seven starts. He also had an 86.4 passer-efficiency rating. Manning's regular-season numbers were grisly: nine touchdowns, 17 picks and a 67.9 passer rating—tied with Ryan Mallett, per Pro-Football-Reference.com, for the lowest qualifying passer rating in the league.

Put another way: Lynch would have to play better than the worst quarterback in football to make the Broncos contenders in 2016.

Then again, even Osweiler cleared that bar, and it wasn't good enough to start in the Super Bowl. He was benched in the middle of the regular-season finale in favor of the pressure-tested Manning—even though "experience in pressure situations" was practically the only thing the future Hall of Famer had left in the tank.

As 9News' Mike Klis reported, the addition of Lynch means the Broncos are done pursuing Colin Kaepernick. If it's not Lynch, the fallback plan is Mark Sanchez:

Now, the Broncos have turned their franchise over to a signal-caller who's never seen anything like NFL pressure.

Lynch played high school football at a tiny private school in Deltona, Florida. He played college football at Memphis in the American Athletic Conference. The Miami Beach Bowl and Birmingham Bowl, to which Lynch led the Tigers in 2014 and 2015, were just the eighth and ninth bowl games in school history. Memphis ran a one-read offense and played little elite FBS competition, and Lynch struggled in the few games it did.

If he plays, he's going to be asked to beat the best football teams in the world. As Klis wrote, the "overwhelming consensus" among Broncos observers is Lynch will have to start on the bench.

"I wouldn’t say I’m a project," Lynch told reporters, per Klis. "I don’t think any [college] quarterback is ready. ... There [are] some good quarterbacks on the roster and there will be good competition among all of us."

David Zalubowski/Associated Press/Associated Press

Osweiler had three years of learning from Manning and warming the bench before his mettle was tested. Lynch will begin his Broncos journey looking up the depth chart at Sanchez, yes, but the rookie will be expected to earn the starting gig much faster than Osweiler did.

Lynch has landed in the perfect place to maximize his talent, and his ceiling is as high as it gets. In a league starved of quarterback talent and passing-game expertise, Elway and the Broncos have had a breathtaking run of success with a parade of different signal-callers. They finally have the player they want to build their future around and a supporting cast built to win now.

Given a perfect system for his enormous talent, as fine a supporting cast as any quarterback could hope for and a Hall of Fame mentor who fervently believes in his ability, Lynch already has the opportunity to be a Super Bowl-winning quarterback.

All he has to do is go out on the field and take it.