DENVER — No one knows when the offseason routine will return to some semblance of normalcy.
In a typical offseason, new Broncos backup quarterback Jeff Driskel could expect to arrive at Broncos headquarters for an initial team meeting on Monday, April 20. That was originally scheduled as the first day teams that don’t have new coaches can gather.
COVID-19 changed all that. Wednesday, the league formally closed its teams’ facilities to all but skeleton personnel handling security, IT operations and ongoing rehabilitation from injuries, putting more padlocks on teams’ in-person operations.
Now Driskel must prepare for a new scheme and a new team without the benefit of in-person work — perhaps for the entire offseason, if worst-case scenarios come to pass.
“It’s difficult. It’s definitely something that nobody’s really had to do before and it’s not obviously going to be just me, it’s going to be the whole league,” he said. “So we’re all going to be on the same level playing field.”
The best he can do is work out. Gyms are closed, so Driskel lifts weights and runs at home. When he needs to work on his throwing, he enlists his brother and the two head to a park near Driskel’s Orlando, Florida home. There, Driskel works with his new favorite receiver.
Driskel’s brother lives in the Miami area, but headed 240 miles north to Orlando as the pandemic spread and society locked down. There are no shelter-in-place laws in Florida right now, so there is nothing to stop the siblings from working out.
“He’s paying rent in the form of catching me up,” Driskel said. “That’s how I’m keeping my arm live and moving.”
The rest of it, Driskel will have to handle on his own. He received his playbook this week as his contract with the Broncos was signed and submitted to the league office, making his acquisition official.
“I’ve got a lot to learn,” he said. “I’ll have a lot of time to study. I’ve had to learn a bunch of offenses over my football career, so I’m no rookie when it comes to learning a new system. It’ll just be in a different environment this year.”
One thing that will help Driskel is that like Drew Lock, he has vast experience learning new schemes. This is the sixth scheme Driskel has absorbed in the last seven seasons, dating back to his final season at Florida in 2014 before he moved on to Louisiana Tech as a post-graduate transfer a year later.
In just the last 12 months, Driskel has worked in three offenses. Last season, Driskel joined the Lions in mid-September after the Bengals released him from injured reserve at the 53-man roster deadline.
“I’ve learned enough offenses at this point to where I can dive into a playbook and study and kind of learn it my specific way,” Driskel said.
The playbook, he has figured out. He can get that down remotely.
It’s the repetitions with teammates he can’t replicate, no matter how good his brother is at running routes.
“It’s going to be a learning curve for a lot of people, but we’re just going to have to take it in stride and do the best we can with the circumstances presented,” he said.
Eventually, there should come a moment when Driskel can throw to his new teammates for the first time. Right now, that seems a long ways off, with no timetable for a return to normalcy.
“Hopefully we can get out to Denver all together and go through some kind of offseason program,” Driskel said, “but we’re just not sure how that’s all going to work out this year.”
