ENGLEWOOD, Colo. -- Jake Plummer has walked, run, thrown and called plays in Paxton Lynch's shoes.

When Plummer played quarterback for the Denver Broncos, Gary Kubiak was as the team’s offensive coordinator. The two had success to the degree that until Peyton Manning arrived, Plummer had the Broncos’ highest career win percentage as a starter .

And Mark Sanchez's recent thumb surgery not withstanding -- he is expected to be out seven to 10 days including the start of the team's organized team activities next week -- Plummer sees a significant learning curve for the Broncos’ prized rookie quarterback. He hopes the Broncos give Lynch time to develop.

"I hope that people are patient, not only with his development, but with wanting to push him out there too soon," Plummer said. "If they do it right, and I can’t imagine (John) Elway and (Kubiak) not having some kind of master plan in working him along in the right way, they have a guy with a huge future. And with Sanchez there you’ve got a guy that’s highly capable of running the system. But coming from where Paxton is coming from to what he’ll do with the Broncos, he’s got some work to do."

Start with talking and then move to more technical quarterback matters. Lynch didn’t call plays in the huddle at the University of Memphis or work from under center.

"I mean everybody talks, you don’t need to call plays from Pop Warner on to get it," Plummer said. "But play calls will be different, and in a West Coast-type offense they are a little more wordy than some others. The good thing is the call works you through what everybody’s doing, but he’ll have get used to all of those concepts, the variations, and be ready to do that at game speed."

Plummer knows calls have changed since he played in Denver. But he offered a glimpse of what it could look like for Lynch, who had plays signaled into him in college. Sanchez says his previous knowledge of "the terminology" of the West Coast offense has been helpful since he joined the Broncos.

Plummer retrieved a "simple" pass play from his memory -- one that included a slot receiver with a tight end: "Double wing right, 76, U shallow cross." That speaks to the formation, pass protection call and the route of the primary receiver on the play.

"Double wing right is formation, 76 is protection, the U receiver has the cross, and that concept has other routes with it if you’re a receiver other than the U," Plummer said. "So that call carries with it everybody else's responsibilities, and you can tweak the call to change the primary receiver, add motion, maybe flip the formation the other way. Those are all things he'll be working through."

A bread-and-butter play-action pass would be "strong right slot, fake 38 stretch throwback" and one of the longer calls, Plummer said, would be something on the order of "shift to double wing right, Z fly, 76, U shallow cross."

"What I’m doing is telling everybody I’m lining up in a bunch formation, when I say shift you are going back to a double wing," Plummer said. "Again, it’s something he’ll adapt to, learn, but when you put that on top of learning everything else, that’s a time issue, a reps issue. He’s just got to do it over and over."

Just like working under center. Before Manning had taken snap in a Denver offense with Kubiak as the team’s coach, Plummer explained how even a player as historically proficient as Manning would have a period of adjustment.

Lynch faces plenty of work there, too. For a player so tall -- he measured 6-foot-6 5/8-inches at the scouting combine -- Lynch is nimble and throws well on the move. But it is the timing in Kubiak’s offense as the quarterback comes away from center, in three-, five- or seven-step drops, that will take work.

"To me it’s him getting under center, the angles you take on the stretch (run) plays for the handoff, the angles you take to drop back to throw, that’s going to be a big learning curve," Plummer said. "That is huge, the speed cut, curl route, basic cross, your five-step drop isn’t just, 'Hey take five steps', those change, you take an inch off, or three inches off, or quicken the third step on this certain route on this kind of a play. Your five-step drop, you can have three different five-step drops for three different routes, but it’s still a five-step drop."

Plummer arrived to the Broncos after six seasons with the Arizona Cardinals. He made 82 NFL starts before he took a snap in the Denver offense, yet still found plenty of adjustments waiting for him.

"And I’d get graded down a lot because there were times I would take a seven-step (drop) when I was supposed to take a five and throw the hitch," Plummer said. "But I’d get away with it, because I had quick feet and I could still set up and throw it. But sometimes it would burn me. The key for me, for Paxton, or anybody is just to get to point where you play with a quiet mind and not counting, that you just feel it and throw. And for a young guy that’s just a lot of reps -- a lot -- not throw, just drop back, over and over."