You can’t blame former fundraising coach Kendall Hinton if he pinches himself when he wakes up, wondering if he was having or living a dream these past few weeks.

Hinton was the starting quarterback for the Denver Broncos in their loss to the New Orleans Saints on Sunday. What makes the story interesting is the fact that Hinton is really not an NFL quarterback. He’s barely an NFL player, but there he was, one of 32 people playing the most glamorous position in all of sports in an empty stadium in Colorado.

On Saturday, Hinton was as anonymous as you can possibly be in professional sports. He was a practice team player for the Broncos, which means his job was to simulate the other team’s offense during the week of practice to get players on the actual Broncos’ roster prepared for the game.

Because starting quarterback Drew Lock violated a pretty clear NFL rule and refused to wear a mask and exposed himself, and then his fellow quarterbacks to potentially contracting COVID-19, all of the quarterbacks were not allowed to play Sunday. So instead of forfeiting the game, the Broncos turned to Hinton, since he had played quarterback for one year in college at Wake Forest before becoming a wide receiver.

The game was rough. Hinton completed just 1 of 9 passes in the 31-3 loss.

The craziest part of this entire saga is what Hinton’s LinkedIn page looks like. His profile describes him as a “current NFL free agent looking to kick start a career in the medical sales industry.”

After leaving college, he had worked as a fundraising coach at Vertical Raise in Durham, N.C., his only professional experience listed on his page after leaving Wake Forest in 2019.

If the NFL thing doesn’t work out for Hinton, boy, will he have a lot of stories to share that hopefully, can help close sales deals in the medical equipment industry.

Denver Broncos quarterback Kendall Hinton (2) speaks with Broncos’ Offensive Quality Control coach Rob Calabrese prior to an NFL football game against the New Orleans Saints, Sunday, Nov. 29, 2020, in Denver. (AP Photo/Jack Dempsey)

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