Before the Denver Broncos beat the Buffalo Bills to advance to the AFC Championship Game, their odds to win the Super Bowl were +700. After the Broncos won in overtime but lost starting quarterback Bo Nix to an ankle injury, their odds to win it all got worse despite being one game closer, collapsing to +1100. For reference, none of the other teams left have worse odds than +255.

Every NFL fan not wearing a Broncos beanie - and, honestly, even some of the ones that are - has decided the AFC’s No.1 seed now has no shot with Jarrett Stidham starting at quarterback. The guy hasn’t thrown a pass in a game in two years!

But the world doesn’t know Stidham like Joe Gillespie, his coach back at Stephenville High School, does.

“If I get the opportunity to go play in this (AFC Championship Game), I want that guy taking snaps,” Gillespie said. “What an unbelievable opportunity. But also, what an unbelievable situation you’ve been placed in. That’s why they make movies.”

As the old saying goes, if you made Stidham’s football career into a movie script, Hollywood directors would throw it out for being too improbable. Sure, he was a five-star quarterback coming out of Stephenville High School. But after transferring from Baylor after his freshman season in the wake of the sexual assault scandal that led to Art Briles’ resignation, he spent a full season as the scout team quarterback for Waco Midway High School while taking online classes at McLennan Community College. Then he matriculated at Auburn and was drafted in the fourth round of the 2019 NFL Draft by the New England Patriots. Now, the career backup with a 1-3 record as a starting quarterback over six professional seasons can beat the team that drafted him with a Super Bowl trip on the line. 

But give this script a chance before you chuck it. It begins at an elementary school in Stephenville, where high school football coach Joe Gillespie picks up his fifth-grade son, Josh, one afternoon. Gillespie, ever the eye for talent, notices one kid standing on the curb waiting for the bus. 

“It looked like he was a foot above everybody,” Gillespie said.

When Josh climbed into the truck, Joe gestured over to the kid and asked who it was.

“Oh, that’s Jarrett Stidham,” Josh said, maybe with a slight twinge of mystery. “He just moved here from Kentucky.” 

“What a freak,” Joe said, throwing the truck in reverse.

But Joe soon realized that while Stidham was a freakish athlete, he was a regular, good-natured kid. Since Josh and Stidham were in the same grade, Joe got to know the young man more than a head coach usually would.

“The dude came over to my house, swam in my pool and ate my hot dogs,” Joe said.

And while Joe manned the grill, he may or may not have been thinking about Stidham one day barbecuing opposing defenses as a Stephenville Yellow Jacket. There was just one problem: Stidham was just as talented on the basketball court. So gifted, in fact, that Joe worried Stidham might choose basketball over football.  

“Are we a basketball player that plays football, or are we a football player that happens to have some talent in basketball?” Gillespie asked Stidham during freshman year.

But Stidham gave an emphatic answer: In Stephenville, Texas, football is king, and Stidham worshiped it. He was talented enough to play varsity as a freshman, but Gillespie put him on the freshman team so he could develop - and send a message to the district. 

“I want you to send a message that this is what it’s going to be like for the next four years,” Gillespie told him. 

Stidham would have to wait for his turn at quarterback a little longer, however. Stephenville had an entrenched senior starter named Tyler Jones. So, as a sophomore, Stidham played wide receiver and defensive back. While he was instrumental to Stephenville winning the state championship that season, there was no question that wide receiver wasn’t a forever home. 

“I definitely had the best second-string quarterback in the nation at the time,” Gillespie said. “I was like, ‘This is gonna play advantageous for you, dude. Because you’re going to see things that most quarterbacks don’t see because you’ve played wide receiver.’”

But not everybody agreed with that strategy. That offseason, Gillespie took Stidham and a group of Stephenville players to a Baylor football camp. Art Briles, the head coach at the time, was Gillespie’s high school coach. Midway through the camp, Briles sidled up to Gillespie.

“You’re the luckiest human on the face of the earth,” Briles said.

“What do you mean?” Gillespie asked.

“How in the world did you win the state championship, and that guy wasn’t your quarterback?” Briles said.

Over the next two years, Stidham developed into a five-star quarterback. But Gillespie thought his career would end prematurely. In late October of his senior year against Big Spring, Stidham scrambled on one of the first plays of the game. Tip-toeing the sideline, he stuck his arm out to shield himself from a big hit from Big Spring’s linebacker. It seemed like a routine play, but Stidham was wincing as he walked back to the huddle, shaking his hand out. The next pass play, he fluttered the ball, and Gillespie knew he was hurt.

When Stidham came to the sidelines, the knuckle on the ring finger of his throwing hand was stuck up about two inches higher than it should’ve been. 

“I’m not a doctor, but I could tell that’s not right,” Gillespie said. 

It wasn’t. Stidham went to the locker room and came back out without shoulder pads or his helmet. He underwent hand surgery the next day, then sat out for the next five weeks as Stephenville reached the third round of the playoffs.

The doctors cleared Stidham, but Gillespie didn’t want to play him and risk his bright future. He had Stidham dress in full pads and participate in warm-ups, but it was mainly to scare Lubbock Estacado into thinking he was back. 

But Stephenville’s offense sputtered out of the gates, and Lubbock Estacado scored a quick touchdown. With the season on the brink, and his five-star chomping at the bit on the sidelines, Gillespie inserted Stidham. Stephenville scored a touchdown on ten-straight drives, and Stidham set a school record with nine touchdowns in the game, throwing for six and running for three. 

This is the performance Gillespie thought of the moment he heard Stidham would start the AFC Championship Game. He’s seen what happens when Stidham comes off the bench before. 

“If they were able to win this game and then a championship, my gosh, what a movie,” Gillespie said. “It would be encouraging for all kids and all coaches.”