My lack of trust in Payton goes far beyond the fact Wilson has won 115 regular-season games in his NFL career, while Stidham is a 27-year-old journeyman who has won zero.

This move stinks of money, because details of his $245-million contract extension would make it extremely costly for Denver if Wilson gets seriously injured before messy divorce proceedings with the team begin in the offseason. Worse, it reeks of retribution by Payton, who blew a must-win game against New England by calling two stupid timeouts late in the fourth quarter, then tries to play us all for fools by blaming Wilson.

In 40 years of following the Broncos from Greeley to London and the Super Bowl to the basement of the AFC West, I’ve never listened to a coach so full of self-aggrandizing balderdash as Payton spews on the regular.

With general manager George Paton, who compounded the mistake of trading for Wilson by rubber-stamping a massive extension before he threw a single touchdown pass in Denver, standing in the wings, Payton looked TV cameras in the eye and sent a message to the locker room: If Wilson isn’t safe, nobody is.

“I can’t replace the entire offensive line. I can’t bring in five new receivers,” said Payton, whose offensive genius has produced 21.8 points per game, which ranks Denver 16th among 32 league teams in scoring. “If it continues over a period of time, there will be another guy here talking to you.”

Those are the words of a coach who inherited Wilson, then has acted as if the task of molding an offense around an unconventional quarterback was more a burden than a challenge.

If the players aren’t beginning to wonder who’s next to get thrown under the bus by Payton, they’re naive fools who deserve what’s coming to them.

After being told Stidham will be entrusted with beating the Chargers and the Raiders to keep their snowball’s-chance-in-Hades hope of making the playoffs alive, the Denver locker room was about as chipper as your friendly neighborhood morgue.

The Broncos are a dead team walking.

Not since Joe Flacco and the Ravens ripped the Super Bowl dream from the hearts of fans during a playoff game nearly 10 years ago has the vibe of Denver’s stadium felt more morose than Sunday night, when Payton had his team totally unprepared to play a bad New England team and Bill Belichick was the Grinch that stole Christmas.

“I came here to win and win a championship for us,” Wilson said following the 26-23 loss to the Patriots, in what now sounds like the sad epitaph to the death of his career in Colorado.

There’s no arguing the skills of Wilson have eroded over time, with the 527 sacks he has endured extracting a physical toll. I’m not certain he completely understood the harshly lofty standard to which quarterbacks are held in Broncos Country, spoiled by John Elway and Peyton Manning. By any measure, his 11-19 record as a starter over the course of two seasons must be regarded as a flop.

Let us not forget, however, that Wilson also is a Super Bowl champ, with nine invitations to the Pro Bowl and 334 touchdown passes to his credit. He is a Broncos captain and an accomplished Black man that a crusty, old, white coach has too often treated like a 10-year-old child, dressing him down for all the NFL world to see in Detroit and now requiring him to stand on the sideline as a chastised back-up quarterback in his home stadium.

You always follow the money in pro sports, and by benching Wilson, the Broncos protect themselves from the possibility of owing Wilson an addition $37 million if he gets hurt and can’t pass a physical in March.

“I understand the economics here,” groused Payton, irked the football business of the Broncos might be any of our damn business.

For life after Wilson to be fun on the football field, it could help mightily if the quarterback restructured his contract to make trading him more than remotely feasible. But after the way he has been dissed and dumped by Payton, who could blame Wilson if he told the Broncos to stick that proposal where the sun doesn’t shine?

Domineering by nature, Payton has bullied and bloviated his way to carving out a little football kingdom in Denver, taking advantage of inexperienced new franchise ownership with a cocksure attitude that answers to no one.

But he seems oblivious to the growing suspicion in Broncos Country this emperor has no clothes. And that’s not a particularly flattering look for a coach who when Payton celebrates his 60th birthday this week, he will be 14 seasons removed from his lone Super Bowl victory.

Payton is running out of people to blame for this mess.