How different is Jarrett Stidham from Bo Nix? The real numbers behind the Broncos QBs

Jarrett Stidham has gotten a lot of attention ahead of his 2025 season debut in the AFC championship game. It’s not often a backup quarterback is thrust into the spotlight quite like Stidham has. That’s what makes the Denver Broncos and New England Patriots clash that much more interesting. The Patriots will be at a disadvantage thanks to the Denver altitude, but having to deal with a backup quarterback kind of balances the scales. 

That said, Stidham isn’t your typical backup quarterback though. The numbers will tell you Stidham isn’t the drop off from starter Bo Nix that you’d think. That’s why we’re going to dive into the numbers behind the differences between the two. Sean Payton has a solid track record in getting the most out of backup quarterbacks with Stidham as his next project.

*All of Jarrett Stidham’s stats were taken from the 2023 season unless otherwise noted

Behind the numbers: How much better is Bo Nix than Jarrett Stidham?

Denver is in good hands one way or the other and the advanced metrics prove Stidham might just be good enough to keep Denver’s season alive. 

When you break it down, Stidham isn’t too far behind what Nix is, production wise. When you look at things like EPA per play. Nix obviously has a larger sample, but that doesn’t directly correlate to a better EPA per play. In this case, his is slightly higher than Stidham’s. We pulled Stidham’s stats from 2023, the last time he played, and used Nix’s 2025 stats.

So if Nix really isn’t elevating the offense per play much better than Stidham did the last time he played, how much is Denver really in a worse position with Stidham? The biggest difference between them is that Nix is more efficient as a mobile quarterback than Stidham is. Nix has been much better at generating plays while scrambling, which will probably be the one thing Denver misses most from him. 

This season, Nix has 356 rushing yards and five rushing touchdowns this year compared to Stidham’s nine carries for eight yards in 2023 – that’s only three games, but he also doesn’t have a season with more than 84 rushing yards in his career either. While some of those plays are designed runs, you could say Nix’s ability to create, avoid sacks and turn negative plays into positive ones will be missed. Here is their sack avoidance comparison. 

Why Jarrett Stidham’s preseason run should set him up for success

What Stidham did this past preseason should give Denver fans all the excitement they need to believe in him this weekend. In three preseason games, Stidham was 30-for-38 with 376 yards and four touchdowns. He had no interceptions either in the preseason and passer rating of 143.0. 

Sure, it’s the preseason, but when you have a guy that can play like that in somewhat of a real game scenario, it’s nice to see that he can have some success. And when you look at Stidham’s stats as a starter compared to Nix, you have to think about why Nix has struggled so much to impact the game more on offense. 

Now again, this is skewed because Stidham has four starts compared to Nix’s 34. It’s a fair question to ask if Stidham had more starts, would he be as efficient. Regardless, it goes to show why Nix’s impact isn’t nearly as big as it could be. We know that Nix’s mobility will be the most important thing missing from this offense, but that’s about it. 

Stidham should be in position to fit in well with this offense. Payton was able to go 5-0 with Teddy Bridgewater as a backup to Drew Brees in 2019. The fact that Stidham has been with the Broncos since Payton took over, that just further proves why inserting Stidham into the lineup could benefit Denver more than people may realize.

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