Broncos QB Mark Sanchez will start in Thursday's preseason opener
— -- ENGLEWOOD, Colo. -- It's not a mandate, and it's not a decision for the regular season, but Mark Sanchez will start at quarterback for the Denver Broncos in the team's preseason opener Thursday night against the Chicago Bears.
Immediately after Tuesday's practice, Broncos coach Gary Kubiak wouldn't say who would start at quarterback in the game, but the Broncos later announced it will be Sanchez. Sanchez and Trevor Siemian will each play a quarter against the Bears, with rookie Paxton Lynch set to play the second half of the game.
"One of them will go first, one of them will go second, Paxton will play the majority of the second half," Kubiak said. "... Mark and Trevor will play a quarter apiece, Paxton will play the second half. That's the plan."
In a training camp practice on Tuesday that was open to the public, it was Sanchez who took virtually all of the work with the starting offense.
In the Broncos' first depth chart of training camp, released Monday, Sanchez and Siemian were listed as co-No. 1s.
The two quarterbacks have split virtually all of the plays with the starting offense in training camp, with Lynch getting a smattering of plays. But Tuesday, Sanchez clearly took more work with the starters in the team drills as the Broncos went through a variety of situations.
Both Sanchez and Siemian were sharp in the workout and threw the ball well.
Because the rest of the starting offense will be on a pitch count of sorts in terms of how many plays the group will stay in the game, at least one scenario that the quarterbacks could play out involves Sanchez starting and playing with the starters Thursday and then Siemian getting some time with the starting offense Aug. 20 against the San Francisco 49ers.
"One of them is going to play with those guys, and one of them is not," Kubiak said of the quarterbacks' working with the starters. "...They've been practicing with all of them, so it really doesn't matter. The majority of this game will be about our 2s and 3s."
Kubiak said people should not read into which quarterback starts against the Bears. "What we're going to try to do is put a number of reps and what we want to see from each one of them," he said.
Sanchez, with 72 career regular-season starts, is the only one of the three quarterbacks who has thrown a pass in a regular-season game. As a rookie, Siemian played one play last season for the Broncos, and it was a kneel-down. Lynch was the Broncos' first-round pick in this year's draft.
Asked Monday what he thought would matter in Kubiak's decision to name the starting quarterback, Sanchez said it would be everything he does in practice and in a game.
"Everything that you put on film is important," he said. "It's not just one game, one series or one play. It's your entire body of work."
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