Is this Brock Osweiler’s inauguration? It was for Colin Kaepernick in 2012

Gary Kubiak has been forced into an awkward situation.

His starting quarterback’s waning skills and injury status have forced him to go to a backup quarterback with 54 career regular-season pass attempts. The Denver Broncos are a contender with a 7-3 record, a comfy lead in the division for a home playoff game and a defense that just might be the best unit in the NFL. But they feel shaky at best — with or without Peyton Manning in the lineup.

This is not something most coaches would want wished upon them. It’s an awkward position to be in for the Broncos’ first-year head coach, placing the fate of his team into unproven Brock Oswiler’s hands.

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Except one recent NFL coach actually chose to put his team in this situation — and it was absolutely a brilliant masterstroke in retrospect.

It was only three seasons ago that Jim Harbaugh’s San Francisco 49ers team was somewhat treading water — a contender, but not really with Alex Smith having shown his limits, at 7-2-1. So Harbaugh made a shocking move following a home tie against the St. Louis Rams: He benched a healthy Smith for Colin Kaepernick, he of the 19-5-1 record as a starter the previous two seasons.

“[Harbaugh] was tired of driving the Corolla,” a team executive told us at the time. “He wanted to take a spin in the Ferrari.”

That was almost three years ago to the day. It felt like a wild, desperate move at the time to some. It was not. The 49ers would come within five yards of winning a Super Bowl.

The Broncos were semi-forced into the Osweiler decision, with Manning banged up, and it’s not an exact parallel in other ways, either. The 49ers had a rugged ground game and a beefy offensive line that they leaned on down the stretch, although you can’t say their defense was as dominant as the Broncos’ group has been this season and Denver’s receivers are better.

Still, there’s a chance that Osweiler could step in and allow the Broncos to do things they were not able to with Manning. As unfathomable as it seems for (a) Osweiler to become a key figure in a Super Bowl run and (b) Manning to potentially end his season — and his career? — as a backup, it’s something we and Kubiak must be prepared to deal with and wrap our brains around.

Yes, Manning’s record-breaking, pick-distributing stinkfest could be the final time he’s a starting quarterback if things go well for the Broncos starting this week against the Chicago Bears. It’s a tough concept to embrace, but a very possible one.

(One fun coincidence: Kaepernick was a few weeks removed from his 25th birthday when he made his first start against the Bears, which was a rousing success. Osweiler will turn 25 on Sunday when he starts against … the Bears. For what that’s worth.)

Even with Bears head coach John Fox having intimate knowledge of Osweiler and his skills that no other head coach in the NFL has, having watched him daily for three years, this is a passing game that can be expanded, no longer stricken by Manning’s limitations.

Expect more dropping from center. Look for more bootlegs, play action off stretch run plays and more vertical shots — all hallmarks of the Kubiak offense but all slightly bottled up these first 10 games because of what Manning could and, well, couldn’t do.

We don’t yet know if Osweiler can be a marked improvement. But that’s about where we were with changeup specialist Kaepernick, who had completed 16 of 26 passes for 206 yards with zero touchdowns, zero interceptions, one lost fumble and five sacks taken in the 2012 season before taking over as starter. In his rookie season, he completed a mere 3 of 5 passes for 33 yards.

Osweiler’s career totals over four years — much of them from garbage time — aren’t vastly superior: 31 of 54 passing, 305 yards, two TDs, one pick and five sacks taken. If you factor in Kaepernick’s pre-starting-gig rushing yards, he accounted for 414 yards; Osweiler’s seven yards rushing on 22 attempts gives him a pre-starting total production of 312.

The difference is that Osweiler’s work mainly has come off the regular-season field — in meeting rooms; through OTAs, training-camp practices and preseason games; and on those veteran’s days off during the regular season when Manning was on the sideline. That’s where his best prep has come, and team sources have praised Osweiler for spending as much extra time he can after practice to get as much on-field work in as he could.

Sunday will be his true indoctrination, and if he starts the ball rolling — the way Kaepernick did in 2012 — it could be the start of a fascinating second act for the Broncos, one that might not include Manning down the stretch. It requires us to forget Manning’s legacy and what has happened to Kaepernick since then.

It absolutely was the right move for Harbaugh to make at the time, and it could be the right one for Kubiak now, independent of Manning’s health.

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