Rather than venturing out Thursday to find a legit veteran quarterback, the Broncos took a snow day.

While Seattle was trading for Sam Howell, crossing another name from a long list that once contained everyone from Sam Darnold to Gardner Minshew, your favorite down-on-its-luck football team was asleep at the switch.

Again.

Taking a cue from Broncos owner Greg Penner, who warned us that he was going to do a whole lot of nothing in free agency, I’m going to grab my blankie and get cozy by the fire. Wake me when our long football nightmare in Denver is over.

Saddled by salary-cap debt from the worst trade and contract in franchise history, are the Broncos too broke to care?

In the cafeteria at team headquarters, they’re serving a steaming vat of dead-money stew for breakfast, lunch and dinner.

Forced to choke down the heap of financial trouble cooked by departed quarterback Russell Wilson, it appears coach Sean Payton has zero appetite for the leftovers being offered him via trade or NFL free agency.

Buckle up, buttercup.

And brace yourself for a 4-13 record by the Broncos in 2024.

This dead horse is going to be ridden by Jarrett “Sparky” Stidham.

It appears the Broncos have no Plan B.

OK, I get it. Why spend money or draft capital on a bridge quarterback when you’re a team traveling the road to nowhere?

All the signals now scream the Broncos have identified a young quarterback prospect in the upcoming NFL draft that Payton is willing to wager his future on.

Maybe Payton has fallen in love with J.J. McCarthy, Bo Nix or Michael Penix. But in a tough business where young quarterbacks not named John Elway or Peyton Manning are seldom a sure thing, I would’ve hedged my bet by taking a limited-liability gamble on Howell.

Not to rub the noses of Broncomaniacs in another too-raw, too-soon memory, but Howell threw for 299 yards during Washington’s 35-33 victory against Denver, which effectively ended any chance of the awkward relationship between Payton and Wilson working in Week 2 of last season.

While no football genius, even a knucklehead like Broncos general manager George Paton should realize you keep throwing QBs against the wall in the locker room until something sticks. Cut through the noise of draft-choice swaps in the trade that went down between Seattle and Washington, and the Seahawks got Howell for the price of a late-third round pick, slightly less than what Paton spent to watch tight end Greg Dulcich sit on the shelf.

Yes, the flaws of Howell were on tape for anyone to see during the 17 games he started for the Commanders in 2023. With his swagger came interceptions that should’ve been swallowed rather than thrown.

But Howell, who also has already passed for more than 4,000 yards at the NFL level, was born in the same calendar year as Nix and Penix. If the Broncos are going to rebuild around a young quarterback, wouldn’t it have been prudent to take as many shots as possible at getting it right?

All that’s left for the Broncos to do now if they want a veteran QB is to scour the bottom of the bargain bin.

Sign Jimmy Garoppolo? Past his prime, I’d rather watch Jimmy G on “The Bachelor” than “Sunday Night Football.”

Go get Ryan Tannehill? Don’t know how to sell a 35-year-old on the downside as a significant upgrade over Stidham.

Trade for Justin Fields? Well, only if Payton envisions DangeRuss Light as Taysom Hill 2.0.

So what’s ahead for the Broncos? Pain. Trotting out a rookie quarterback to get beat up with a bad team is a good way to ruin a long-term investment. In the AFC West, where Patrick Mahomes and Justin Herbert work, Stidham is the third-best quarterback in the division, on his best day.

Yes, before it became trendy among all the cool kids, I floated the idea that your Broncos could be so bad this season they might be able to draft Colorado quarterback Shedeur Sanders out of their backyard in 2025.

But that’s a pipedream, not a plan.