DENVER — On Tuesday, LeBron James infiltrated the city of Denver. He has stayed, and will linger for at least a few days, long after the Lakers’ team plane flew back over the Rocky Mountains with a win over the Nuggets.

His digital likeness has become a beacon, now, for a Broncos fan base looking for a shred of hope in their backup quarterback Sunday against the New England Patriots. Jarrett Stidham has been LeBron-ified. Over the past two days, swaths of Twitter fan accounts began changing their profile pictures to a digitally altered, superimposition of Stidham’s face on a meme of James sporting sunglasses and wired earbuds back in the 2016 NBA Finals, before his Cavaliers came back from a 3-1 deficit to the Golden State Warriors. It is a back-against-the-wall rallying cry. It is now everywhere, in the Denver cyberspace.

Stidham has seen the memes. Even thinks they’re funny. But in his first seven public words since being named the Broncos’ de facto starting quarterback, he pushed the digital spotlight elsewhere.

“I mean,” Stidham began Wednesday, in front of a large crowd of reporters, “this is not about myself.”

First, it is about Bo Nix, the quarterback who Stidham described as “one of my best friends” and who has become a spectator after a crushing season-ending ankle injury. Second, it is about his locker room, a Broncos group that has won games all season on the back of its defense and does not need an entire movement around a 29-year-old backup to get up for an AFC championship game.

Sunday’s start is a life-changing moment for Stidham, with the chance at a Super Bowl and at a significant pay raise from his current $6 million average salary if he puts on a show against New England. That is moot, for now. He insisted to reporters Wednesday that he did not care about anything except “the next five days.”

And he positioned himself, publicly, as more of a replacement part in this Broncos system than a standalone lightning rod.

“Obviously, there’s implications, and winner advances, and all that kinda stuff,” Stidham said. “But at the end of the day, it’s still football. And that’s how I view it. So I’m not treating it any differently. I’m not treating my preparation any differently.

“I’m just going to go out there and play, and be myself.”

The Broncos have confidence in that self, though, and Stidham’s ability to whip his own spin into Sean Payton’s offense across this week of preparation. After Stidham lost the starting job to Nix before the start of the 2024 season, he told reporters he had “zero doubts” he was a starting quarterback in the NFL. He has carried the same belief every day since, through two years where the six-year veteran has simultaneously taken pride in mentoring Nix.

“I think the biggest thing in this business is if you get complacent with your job,” Stidham said Wednesday. “Their job upstairs is to find someone that’s better than you.”

Denver hasn’t. Stidham was one of Sean Payton’s first signings upon arriving in Denver in 2023, after the head coach saw Stidham — then with the Las Vegas Raiders under head coach Josh McDaniels — go 23 of 34 for 365 yards, three touchdowns and two picks against a top San Francisco defense in a spot January start in 2022. Retaining Stidham was one of Payton’s priorities upon arriving at a crucial offseason in 2025, and the Broncos handed him a two-year deal worth $12 million to keep growing with Nix.

It wasn’t for lack of suitors. On Monday, Patriots head coach Mike Vrabel made clear that New England was interested in Stidham in free agency.

“I know that we did a lot of work on him in the offseason here,” Vrabel said on a radio show.

On Wednesday, Payton made clear that New England wasn’t the only one, saying he thought there were a lot of teams who “felt that way.”

“Obviously, there’s always opportunities out there and stuff,” Stidham said, when asked about Vrabel’s comments. “But I think at the end of the day, there was a combination of things that went into my decision to come back here. And I believe in Sean, and Davis (Webb), and Joe (Lombardi), and our room. And being behind Bo, and helping him grow. And I take a lot of pride in that.

“And I felt like over the last two years that I was here, I got a lot better.”

This all brought him to Saturday night’s 33-30 win over the Bills, when Stidham went to take a shower, get dressed and walked into the training room where he found out about Nix’s X-rays. In the snap of an ankle, Stidham’s life changed.

He is operating, for now, like it hasn’t. He went to Target earlier in the week with his kids.

“Incognito,” Stidham recalled. “Nobody noticed.”

They could, soon.

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