Trevor Siemian isn’t supposed to be here. He isn’t supposed to be a potential heir to Peyton Manning only a year into his pro career. He wasn’t even supposed to be drafted last summer, when he was recovering from a knee injury and had given considerable thought to a career in real estate.

He isn’t big, he isn’t flashy and he certainly isn’t boisterous. He also hasn’t contributed more than a single snap — a kneel-down — in a regular-season NFL game.

But the Broncos’ open quarterback competition has been just that — open — since March, when Manning retired, Brock Osweiler bolted and Mark Sanchez, a seventh-year vet, arrived to fill the void. It stayed open when the Broncos traded up to select their future in Paxton Lynch. And it still is open after the Broncos’ preseason victory at Chicago, where Sanchez and Siemian each played a quarter.

Siemian, the most experienced quarterback in Gary Kubiak’s system, also is the most unknown, in part because the 24-year-old from Northwestern doesn’t fit the narrative playing in the minds of many fans and media, who are searching as intently as Kubiak to find the Broncos’ next starter. And now he has a chance — a legitimate chance — to be the Broncos’ next starting quarterback.

But if anything is clear in the muddled competition at Dove Valley it’s this: What is believed rarely matches what is real.

Behind the Facemask

There’s a brief pause on the other end of the line as Dr. Walter Siemian carefully ponders the question.

Does Trevor ever get nervous? Or is his calm, if confounding, demeanor unwavering?

“He’s been like that his whole life,” says Walter, Trevor’s father. “He’s just so icy cool and calm it’s as if he’s been doing it his whole life. And you know he hasn’t. His personality is that nothing’s too big for him. To tell you that I’ve seen him overwhelmed with anything, never. But like all of us, he’ll have his moments and he’ll get upset if things don’t go exactly his way, because he’s what you would call a perfectionist.”

At Broncos practices, Siemian’s typically one of the last to leave the field, using the extra minutes to take additional repetitions. At Thursday’s exhibition opener in Chicago, he was among the first on the field — three hours before kickoff.

For him, pressure spurs action, not panic.

Kubiak labels him a quiet guy, but one whose confidence is unmistakeable and unshakeable.

“He’s probably in the best command in all honesty because Mark continues to learn our offense, and he’s doing a great job, but Trevor has been on for a year and a half,” Kubiak said after Thursday’s game in Chicago. “Trevor is in command of what we do, how we do it, what we want to get done. He just needs to play.”

Pat Fitzgerald, who coached Siemian at Northwestern, describes him as genuine.

“There’s just no false bravado with Trevor,” Fitzgerald says. “There’s no show, no drawing attention to me. It’s going to be hard-hat, lunch pail, ‘Let’s go to work. We’re here to get better.’ That’s how he was in our program every day. Is he going to get up and pound his chest in front of the squad? I can think of a handful of times when his blood was boiling because we weren’t doing well or we were kicking butt and he was fired up. … What you see is what you get.”

And his teammates say he’s a prankster.

“Oh yeah. He’s funny as hell,” Fitzgerald says. “There’s no doubt. He’s just a normal guy. Typically the O-linemen are pretty good pranksters, and he’s right there with them.”

But after a year of watching from the sideline and listening in the Broncos’ meeting rooms, Siemian took his development further to become more than a quiet leader.

The Student

The call came as Jake Plummer wove his way through Wyoming en route to his annual vacation spot in Idaho. Siemian, on his way to Washington, D.C., for the Broncos’ honorary trip to the White House in June, phoned the former quarterback and Kubiak disciple, hoping he would lend some advice on the Broncos’ system and on the challenge that awaited him in Year 2.

For about 40 minutes they spoke, their connection dipping in and out as Plummer weaved his way through the mountains.

Plummer told Siemian a bit about his history with the Broncos. He told him that opportunities, like the one Siemian received Thursday in Chicago, cannot be squandered. He told him that, to win over the team’s leaders, such as DeMarcus Ware and Von Miller, he would have to prove himself on the field in the big moments. He told him that the process is never-ending, too, that every year requires more practice and more studying.

“I told him, ‘Fans aren’t going to want to see Trevor Siemian. They want to see Paxton Lynch, the guy they screamed and yelled about when they picked him in the first round,’” Plummer says. “I think Trevor’s highly capable of playing — he’s got the skillset and the talent — but he’s just in a spot where he could do well and still not be the guy, with a first-round QB behind him. It’s a tough spot to be in, but I told him don’t worry about that. ‘Go do your job, go do your thing and people will ultimately respect you even more for that.’”

Throughout his first year as a pro, Siemian was a sponge. He watched Manning — the way he spent hours studying the playbook, the way he took rep after rep until it was as close to perfect as possible. He watched Osweiler follow suit.

“That got me pretty well prepared for coming into camp this year and going into preseason,” he says. “For me, it was the expectation of this is what it takes if you want to be pretty good at your job. I got to see that every day and it’s definitely something I’ve taken with me.”

He turned to Plummer, then he returned to Chicago for a few weeks in the offseason to practice with his former coach and teammates at Northwestern.

“He and I talked about how things are going, there’s no question he’s locked in,” Fitzgerald says. “He had laser focus when we start talking about where he was at and what he needed to do. It was very clear in his mind the steps he needed to take when he got to camp. But that’s how he was when he was here, too.”

That’s how he was when the Broncos took notice his senior season, when he endured both the greatest high and lowest low of his collegiate career in the span of a week. On Nov. 15, 2014, Siemian completed 30-of-48 passes for 284 yards in an overtime upset of Notre Dame. Seven days later, he was helped off the field after tearing his anterior cruciate ligament against Purdue. His season was over. His college career was over. His NFL hopes were in doubt.

As he awaited surgery, he looked ahead — to commercial real estate. He lined up a job in Chicago, but refused to give up on football. As Siemian rehabbed, Fitzgerald received a call from Broncos general manager John Elway, passing-game coordinator Greg Knapp and Kubiak. They wanted to know more about the quarterback who gained their notice earlier that season and stood out on tape. They also wanted to bring him to Dove Valley for a visit and meet with him days later for a workout in Chicago, only four months removed from surgery.

Siemian had the Broncos’ attention.

He still does.

“I just think people don’t know much about him,” says Plummer. “I didn’t know much about him. But Kubiak has a keen eye for talent and he’s a great evaluator. I think he wouldn’t be saying this kid has a chance to start if he didn’t believe it.”

Trevor Siemian: By the numbers

6,144: Passing yards in three seasons at Olympia (Orlando, Fla.) High, an Orange County record.

5,931: Career passing yards at Northwestern University. Ranked fourth all-time.

250: Draft pick by the Broncos in 2015.

81.2: Passer rating in one quarter of play in Broncos’ preseason victory at Chicago on Thursday.

2nd: NFL season. Was active for six games as rookie in 2015.

1: NFL regular-season snap — a kneel-down at the end of the second quarter at Pittsburgh on Dec. 20, 2014.

Nicki Jhabvala, The Denver Post