Seemingly every draft analyst stressed that while Paxton Lynch has all the talent of a franchise quarterback, he needs at least a year on the bench before he’ll be ready to start at the NFL level.

The Broncos disagree.

According to Jason Cole of Bleacher Report, John Elway, Gary Kubiak and the rest of the Broncos coaching staff believe that Lynch is capable of starting for the reigning champs as a rookie.

“The Broncos have an extreme amount of confidence in the ability of Lynch to be able to start, even perhaps as a rookie,” Cole said. “In talking to Gary Kubiak and John Elway this week, they said that Lynch showed the ability to retain a lot of the offense when they met with him in the pre-draft workout portion of the draft process.”

What Cole stressed, though, is that this will be a true, open and earnest quarterback competition. Lynch will be given an opportunity to prove himself this offseason, but so will Mark Sanchez, who the Broncos also feel can succeed within their offense.

The competition will get kicked off next week as OTAs are set to begin, and you can bet just about anything that Lynch and Sanchez’s daily performance will be the talk of Broncos Country.