Lynch’s impressive spring has reportedly closed the gap on 2016 starter Trevor Siemian.

According to 9NEWS Denver’s Mike Klis, second-year quarterback Paxton Lynch “made his move” during the last two weeks of the offseason and has closed the gap on Trevor Siemian.

Klis states that a “switch flipped” and Lynch started getting better and performing like they expected the former first-round pick to perform in practice.

His switch was flipped. He started to get it. He started to play as if he was doing just that – playing. Playing and not thinking about his protections and hot reads and coverages and delivering the ball on time.

During those two weeks, Lynch closed the gap on Trevor Siemian and while he has yet to overtake Siemian, he is in a legitimate position to pressure him for the Starting Quarterback Job.

It’s not that Lynch has overtaken Siemian. It’s just that his game is now in legitimate position to compete once training camp opens July 27 and the preseason schedule begins Aug. 10 at Chicago.

It has been said by multiple people during the spring, but Lynch has looked like a completely different quarterback than the one we saw last season. He looks more comfortable, confident, and just better than he was six months ago. This is the development the Denver Broncos wanted to see from Lynch this offseason and he delivered. Now he has made up that big gap that was between him and Siemian at the start of the spring and made it noticeably smaller. Now Lynch is a serious contender for the Broncos Starting Quarterback job.

This report by Klis has lead Mike Florio from Pro Football Talk to say that Siemian will need to “win big” to be the Broncos starting quarterback in 2017. Hm, that sure sounds familiar.

Siemian still has the lead, per Klis, but a contest that seemed to be headed for a blowout may now be going the other way. And that’s bad news for the third-year seventh-round pick, given that as practical matter he’ll need to win big in order to win the job. All ties and anything close to that likely will go to the second-year first-rounder, whom the Broncos undoubtedly hope to give opportunities to reach the ceiling they surely believe he has.

Otherwise, they wouldn’t have traded up to get him 14 months ago.

I think Florio hit the nail on the head here. With Lynch closing the gap quickly, Siemian will need to win big to retain the Broncos starting quarterback job. Anything close will go to the Broncos former first-round pick. As Florio states, they didn’t trade up to select Lynch in the first round for nothing. Elway wants to see a return on his big investment.

I’ll say it again, this is Paxton Lynch’s job to lose. If that switch continues to be flipped during training camp and the preseason, it will be his job come week one.