Brock Osweiler is ready to make the most of his preseason snaps with Peyton Manning unlikely to play much.

"I’m excited to go out there and see what I can do," Osweiler said. "You always want to compete, we all signed up to play. That’s what I want to do." 

Osweiler was a second round pick in 2012 and is being groomed to take over for Manning whenever the future Hall of Famer retires.

"It’s always a little faster," Osweiler said. "It’s always a little bit different. But that’s one of those things you have to understand. 'Hey, I’m in there with the first group right now, they play a certain way.' And you just need to acclimate to that and adjust and keep the sticks rolling ... There’s no other team I’d rather play, first preseason game. Like I said before, they’re the world champs and they’re the world champs for a reason. I expect their best effort. They have a very talented defense that flies around and gets after it. So I think it’ll be a great challenge for us, but I’m excited for that challenge and I think it’ll be a lot of fun." 

Osweiler was the youngest quarterback on the draft board in ’12 and won’t turn 24 until November. He says Year 3 already feels a bit different than his first two. 

"Absolutely, Year 1, it’s almost like the goal is just learning the playbook, and then Year 2 is apply it to the field, eliminate those mistakes you were making in Year 1," Osweiler said. “And same thing goes from Year 2 to Year 3. So from the way practices have gone from the start of training camp, and even back to OTAs, I feel like a completely different quarterback. I feel like I’m playing at a much higher level than I did last year, and especially my rookie year. I have very high goals for myself and very high expectations, and I expect to play well Thursday."