Former Auburn standout Jarrett Stidham has competition to be the Denver Broncos’ starting quarterback in the 2024 season, and it didn’t come out of the NFL Draft.

The Broncos are trading the 203rd choice in the 2024 NFL Draft to the New York Jets for quarterback Zach Wilson and the 256th selection in this year’s draft, NFL Network and the New York Post reported on Monday.

The Jets acquired Wilson with the second selection in the 2021 NFL Draft. Wilson has started 33 games in his three seasons, producing 12 victories. Last year, New York replaced Wilson with four-time NFL MVP Aaron Rodgers. But when Rodgers sustained a season-ending injury in the first game, Wilson came back for 11 starts in 2023, with Tim Boyle and Trevor Siemian also making starts at quarterback for the Jets last season.

In 2023, Wilson completed 221-of-368 passes for 2,271 yards with eight touchdowns and seven interceptions and ran for 211 yards on 36 carries. Among the players who have at least 900 passes over the past three seasons, Wilson’s career passing-efficiency rating of 73.2 is the worst, with Justin Fields at 82.3 next up on the list from Wilson.

The Broncos released Russell Wilson on March 7 after they had made a massive trade to obtain the quarterback from the Seattle Seahawks in 2022. Wilson started 30 games over the past two seasons for Denver. But Stidham was in the lineup for the final two games of 2024 as the Broncos prepared for an offseason decision on Wilson’s contract.

Denver holds the 12th pick in the first round of the NFL Draft on Thursday night, and the Broncos trading up to add a quarterback has been a popular prediction in mock drafts.

While attending the NFL’s annual meeting last month, Denver coach Sean Payton said Stidham would have the opportunity to compete for the starting quarterback job for the first time in his NFL career.

“He’s definitely competing to be the starter,” Payton said. “I don’t think we have a term ‘driver’s seat’ really, but he is going to compete for that position. I know he’s anxious and excited to do that, and I’m sure there’ll be other candidates that will be competing with him.”

Payton said at that time the Broncos were “still in the quarterback market.”

“We like Stiddy, but we’re going to add,” Payton said. “But we’re not panicked. We don’t play a game for a while, and we feel like we’ll add a vet, and we’ll see about the draft.”

Denver won Stidham’s first start for the team 16-9 over the Los Angeles Chargers on Dec. 31. In their season finale, the Broncos fell 27-14 to the Las Vegas Raiders, who sacked Stidham five times. In the two games, Stidham completed 40-of-66 passes for 496 yards with two touchdowns and one interception.

After Stidham closed his career at Auburn by throwing for 373 yards and five touchdowns in a 63-14 victory over Purdue in the Music City Bowl on Dec 28, 2018, he joined the New England Patriots in the fourth round of the 2019 NFL Draft.

In his first NFL preseason, Stidham completed 61-of-90 passes for 731 yards with four touchdowns and one interception as he led the AFC in passing yards and beat out veteran Brian Hoyer to serve as Tom Brady’s backup during the three-time NFL MVP’s final season with New England.

Stidham played in three NFL regular-season games in 2019 and five in 2020, when he backed up another former Auburn quarterback, Cam Newton.

In 2021, Stidham never got in a game after sustaining an offseason injury, and New England went with rookie Mac Jones as its starting quarterback and Hoyer as the backup. Stidham had surgery on July 28, 2021, because of a back injury and spent the first nine weeks of the season on the reserve/physically-unable-to-perform list.

Stidham joined the Raiders in May 2022, when Las Vegas sent a sixth-round choice in the 2023 NFL Draft to New England for the quarterback and a seventh-round pick. The trade reunited Stidham with Las Vegas coach Josh McDaniels, his offensive coordinator for three seasons with the Patriots.

In a similar situation as 2023, Stidham made his first two NFL starts in the Raiders’ final two games of 2022 as Las Vegas prepared to part ways in the offseason with No. 1 QB Derek Carr.

In 16 NFL games, with four starts, Stidham has completed 117-of-197 passes for 1,422 yards with eight touchdowns and eight interceptions and run for 97 yards on 32 carries.

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Mark Inabinett is a sports reporter for Alabama Media Group. Follow him on Twitter at @AMarkG1.