ENGLEWOOD, Colo. — In his short three-year NFL career, Drew Lock’s been put in almost every situation a quarterback can face.
He’s been a starter at the beginning of a season.
He’s been a backup.
He’s been thrust into games when the starter ahead of him got injured.
He’s been on injured reserve.
He’s been a starter due to injury.
He’s been on the COVID-19 list.
He’s taken over as the starting quarterback at the end of multiple seasons.
He’s nearly done it all.
But there’s one designation Lock believes fits him best.
“I feel like I’ve done a lot of good things to the point where I am confident in myself that I deserve and should be a starter in this league,” Lock confidently stated on Wednesday, as he prepares for Denver’s final game of the season. “It’s going to take other people watching my film and seeing that from me and wanting that for me, whatever program that it is. I do personally believe that you give me a starting job, you let me prep throughout the week, I’m going to give you a damn good chance to win a football game.”
In his 23 career games, Lock has completed 59.6 percent of his passes for 199 yards per game to go along with 25 touchdowns, 20 interceptions and a 79.6 passer rating.
After leading the NFL in interceptions (15) in 2020, his only year as the full-time starter, the Broncos brought in Teddy Bridgewater to compete with him for the starting job in 2021. Midway through the preseason, Vic Fangio announced Bridgewater won the competition, sending Lock to the bench.
However, after Bridgewater suffered a concussion in Week 15, Lock became the team’s starting quarterback. In his two starts leading up to Week 18, Lock hasn’t had a single interception.
“I think he’s improved these last couple of weeks incrementally from game to game and that comes with practice [and] that comes with reps and playing in the game,” Fangio stated on Monday. “I thought he made some good throws [against the Chargers]. He had some good reads [and] some that weren’t. He shows his mobility and arm strength. I think it’s hard to compare last year to this year because this year was choppy for him in that he came in midstream in a few games, and then played in a game where there wasn’t much practice, but I do see improvement being made. The talent is there [and] I still think he can be an NFL quarterback.”
Pat Shrumur echoed the head coach’s belief in the 25-year-old quarterback on Wednesday.
“I would agree with coach on that point about his ability to have the talent to play in this league,” Shurmur stated. “You can see in the last couple of games he’s made improvements. He’s made some really good throws. He’s taken care of the ball better than he did a year ago. He’s helped us execute better than he did a year ago. And you’re seeing a young player that’s improved. A young player with talent and then a young player given the opportunity to play and improve sort of shows you that he might have the arrow up on him, which we think he does.”
In his three mid-game appearances in 2021, Lock struggled, only completion 55 percent of his passes for one touchdown, two interceptions and a 59.1 passer rating.
However, after becoming the starter in Week 16, and thus getting the majority of reps in practice throughout the week—which Lock, Fangio and Shurmur alluded to was key—the former second-round pick completed 70 percent of his passes for 398 total yards, one touchdown, no interceptions and a 103 passer rating in his two most recent starts.
“Obviously there’s been some good and some bad, as there is with any quarterback,” Lock said, evaluating whether he should be a starter. “In these last couple of weeks I feel like I’ve done a lot of good things. Like I said, this league is ran by wins and losses, which we didn’t these last couple of weeks.”
In his 20 career starts, Lock has racked up an 8-12 record, including 0-2 this season. With Teddy Bridgewater placed on the injured reserve on Wednesday, Lock will have one more start to prove to himself, the Broncos and the rest of the NFL he should be a starting quarterback.
But he’s only focused on one thing on Saturday when Denver hosts the 11-5 Kansas City Chiefs.
“Win. Just win,” Lock simply said. “In the little bit of time that I’ve got to be a starter, we took care of the football, we moved the football and we just didn’t get the wins. Like I said in the last interview, at least me personally, no one really cares about stats if you’re not winning football games. As far as I’m concerned you can throw those away. That’s kind of my mentality and the only thing I’m looking forward to this weekend is putting everything I got into it to get a win.”
Lock is under contract for one more season with the Broncos. In 2022 he’ll carry a $2.3 million cap hit, but Denver will be able to save roughly $1.5 million against the cap if they move on from him. While Lock’s entire focus is on Saturday’s game against the Chiefs, he did acknowledge he would like to be part of the Broncos moving forward.
“Obviously, I would love to be part of—as long as you’re in the NFL and you’re playing and you get to be on a team as special as this one—I don’t know why you wouldn’t want to be,” he said. “As far as my future goes, that’s not up to me at this point, but I do know my future is playing in a game this [Saturday] and that’s my No. 1 priority right now.”
With an offseason of uncertainty facing the Broncos, Saturday could be Drew Lock’s last start in Denver. Or it could be the start of his comeback story.
