ENGLEWOOD, Colo. — The wait goes on.
With nothing left in the preseason but two more practices and a finale against the Los Angeles Rams’ backups, Broncos coach Vic Fangio chose not to name a Week 1 starter, keeping open the quarterback derby between Drew Lock and Teddy Bridgewater.
Fangio added that he hasn’t even decided on who will start against the Rams.
“We just want to do it at the right time — meaning, the right time, obviously, for the players involved, for the team involved, and for everybody,” Fangio explained after the Broncos concluded practice in 91-degree conditions at UCHealth Training Center on Tuesday.
And with the Giants game two weeks and five days away, that “right time” hasn’t arrived yet in his eyes.
“We don’t play another game — what’s today’s date, the 24th, right? The 12th, there are 31 days in August, right? So that’s 7 and 12, 19? We’ve got 19 days.”
Nineteen days — but at some point in those 19 days, the Broncos will transition to regular-season mode in their practices. They started that process last week with two practices that saw the No. 1 offense and defense go against scout teams, and they did so again for what Fangio estimated was “60 percent” of practice Tuesday.
So, instead of declaring a No. 1 quarterback and have either Lock or Bridgewater handle all the first-team repetitions, the Broncos had the passers split the first-team work Tuesday.
“There was supposed to be [an even split],” Fangio said.
“Even” calls to mind the “even Steven” description that Fangio has used repeatedly in the last two weeks to describe the state of the Bridgewater-Lock competition.
When he was asked whether that was the case, he responded thusly:
“Yeah, it’s pretty damn close. You guys have seen it,” Fangio said. “I’ve asked a few of you a few times, and neither one of you has come up with an answer, so it is close, and I think it’s close for a good reason: They both have played well.”
Fangio hasn’t asked us, but the final QB-competition scoreboard of 93.5 points for Bridgewater and 86.5 points for Lock doesn’t represent much separation from the 15 days of camp practices and two preseason games encompassed under the scoreboard.
Until Bridgewater’s efficient performance Saturday in Seattle, just one point separated the two, showing just how tight the race has been.
But Lock did some good things of his own in Seattle, and Fangio praised him Tuesday.
“I think he was the victim of some protection breakdowns there early, when he got sacked those couple of times,” Fangio said, referring to Lock’s first series.
“We had a little quarterback-center exchange issue which caused him to get tripped up on that one play where we fumbled it in the red zone and had to settle for a field goal,” he added, referring to a third-down play deep in Seattle territory that looked like it would be Lock’s first pass under center in the game.
Considering that Lock went 3-of-3 for 109 yards and two touchdowns when he worked under center seven days earlier in Minnesota, Lock appeared poised for a positive moment before the snap and then the errant foot of Austin Schlottmann that stepped on his own.
“I thought he made some good throws,” Fangio said. “I thought he stepped up a good time, improvised on that one play to [Seth] Williams. I thought he played well overall.”
On balance, the same could be said of both quarterbacks, at least in Fangio’s eyes.
“I think they know it’s close,” Fangio said of the quarterbacks. “They see the film of each other. And the good thing is they’re both pulling for each other, and they both want each other to do good and make it a hard decision for us, and they’ve succeeded in that.”
Most notably in Fangio’s eyes is this: It’s close because both have done well.
“The good news of this competition is that we feel we have two quarterbacks that we can go win with,” he said.
But full first-team repetitions for one or the other?
That will have to wait.
