After a rough game against the Chiefs, Drew Lock details how he can play a "whole lot better"

DENVER — The sophomore slump is real. Drew Lock is finding that out the hard way.

After catching the league off guard during his first five starts as a rookie in 2019 — where the second-round pick had seven touchdowns to only three interceptions, a 59.7 QBR, and guided the Broncos to a 4-1 record — the 2020 season has not been as kind.

Sunday against the Super Bowl Champs was a hard dose of reality for the Broncos and their young starting quarterback.

“It was up and down. Up and down,” Vic Fangio said evaluating Lock’s performance, minutes after the Broncos 43-16 loss to the Kansas City Chiefs on Sunday. “I thought we had some good throws. Some good moments in the passing game. But we didn’t have enough. At times, we ran the ball well enough, but we needed to mix in some plays with the passing game in there and they didn’t seem to be coming there.”

While Sunday’s stat line was a slight statistical improvement from his performance against the New England Patriots in Week 6, his numbers were overall still below average. Against the Chiefs, Lock went 24-of-40 for 254 yards, no touchdowns, two interceptions and a 57.7 passer rating.

“For me personally, the pick to K.J. [Hamler], that is a slant. Come on. I can make that throw. I should make that throw,” Lock said after the game, pointing to his second interception of the game where a ball thrown behind Hamler turned into an interception. “It’s just the little execution things that were very easy. Easy things to do that I just didn’t take advantage of. I can play a whole lot better. And I’m going to. That’s the thing, I’m going to. But, this week wasn’t the best for me.”

His struggles weren’t just on Sunday, either.

For the most part, and for a variety of reasons, Lock and the offense haven’t been able to consistently click in the passing game. In the three games in which he’s played from start to finish, the team is 1-2. On the season, in just over three games, Lock has thrown for 679 yards on 56 percent completion, with one touchdown and four interceptions. He also rushed for a touchdown on Sunday.

After Sunday’s disappointing loss, Lock pointed to a few key areas in which he needs to improve. Every area of improvement the 23-year-old quarterback pointed to revolved around one central point — Lock trying to do too much and “press.”

“Since I’ve been here, when I was on the sideline [last year] you saw a lot of people angry and mad—unhappy with the way we started the beginning of [last] season.” Lock said, explaining his viewpoint since arriving in Denver in 2019. “And then you see how happy and excited and looking forward to it everyone was at the end of last season when we started winning. Coming into this year, you want it so bad for the guys around you. Obviously, I want it for myself, but it ends up being that you want it for the guys around you more than yourself. That’s probably the worst part.”

Wanting the euphoria of last season to roll over into 2020 “so bad,” Lock admitted he’s been pressing “a little bit” this year. That’s been on display the past two weeks as Lock has passed up easy opportunities opposing defenses have given him to attempt a bigger play downfield.

“There’s a fine line between taking what the defense gives you… and trying to make a play,” Lock said, admitting he “100 percent” has to get better at balancing that fine line. “I can make the plays when they are there, but I just got to get a little better judgment on when it’s time to make that play, or you know what, they got us. And eventually, we’ll stop having this conversation. It needs to happen faster than later. And it will.”

A way Lock can take what the defense gives him is by going through his reads. All of his reads.

“As bad as I want — maybe something’s not there, let’s run around and make a play, I need to work through getting through all of my reads, getting through all of my progressions,” Lock said, doing a deep self-reflection following the 27-point loss. “It’s just working to the three and the No. 4 [read] that I feel like I personally need to get better on instead of seeing the one, two, ‘alright, let’s try to make a play.’”

“Again, that was a good defense we played today. But I felt like—we ran the ball really well, could have thrown the ball a lot better,” Lock continued. “Missed some throws. It just comes down to us in practice.”

With their season hanging in the balance at 2-4, there’s nothing more that the gunslinger wants to do than will his team to victory. But on Sunday, pressing was depressing.

As Lock works on progressing through his reads and taking what the defense gives him, he can take a bit of his own advice. Last year, Drew reminded himself that you can’t go broke if you’re taking a profit.

“So take what they give you,” Lock said on Dec. 4, 2019.

When the money is there, listen to yourself, Drew, take the profit.