ENGLEWOOD, Colo. — Even though Drew Lock has not practiced since August 17, he has been immersed in practice.
That’s the genius of virtual reality.
Lock’s routine over the first eight weeks of the regular season was not what he planned, of course. Being on injured reserve means you cannot practice for at least six weeks — and even after that, not until the team chooses to open a multi-week window before moving you to the 53-man roster.
His injured thumb is healthy now.
“It’s healed up,” he said. “It’s ready. Ready whenever.”
But whenever the Broncos decide to put him back in a practice jersey and start the clock toward his activation from injured reserve, he will do so with a better grasp on what he will see than would have been possible in other Broncos seasons.
That’s because this year, the Broncos invested in the VR technology developed by STRIVR, a company that develops VR protocols — otherwise known as “immersive learning” — for various industries. College and pro teams have been using it in greater numbers over the last few years. Lock mentioned during the preseason that he worked with VR simulations during his sophomore and junior seasons at Missouri.
Lock says he typically reviews each practice twice the day after it takes place.
“So we’ll come in Wednesday, we’ll practice,” Lock explained. “I’ll go in before the Thursday practice, watch it, come back after Thursday’s practice, watch it again, then go in the next day, watch the Thursday practice and watch it again at night, and just take little notes on this run play, [how] the footwork is different this week than the last one.”
You’ve heard of “mental reps,” right?
These are mental reps that are actually worth something.
In recent weeks, Lock received hundreds of extra looks at opposing defenses that he wouldn’t have otherwise had. It’s not perfect; he can’t always approximate the footwork, dropbacks and play-action fakes that game action will require. And there’s also the matter of throwing an accurate pass, which doesn’t come up in a converted conference room.
But when Lock begins practicing, he can lean on the fact that he has already seen eight weeks worth of regular-season looks that a starting quarterback gets.
It sounds great, right?
Not to former head coach Vance Joseph.
Jan 31, 2019; Atlanta, GA, USA; KTLA 5 Morning News reporter Eric Spillman during the LA Stadium and Entertainment District at Hollywood Park virtual reality experience press conference at the Georgia World Congress Center. The Los Angeles Chargers and the Los Angeles Rams will begin play in the stadium in 2020. Mandatory Credit: Kirby Lee-USA TODAY Sports
Nineteen months ago, Joseph and the Broncos signed Case Keenum. One of the reasons why Keenum was considered a viable starter at the time was because of his breakthrough season in Minnesota, a stellar campaign aided in part by VR repetitions.
While Keenum was stuck behind Sam Bradford, he emphasized VR snaps so he could better learn the offense. After he ascended to the starting lineup, he continued implementing VR repetitions to his practice work, as noted by ESPN during the Vikings’ January 2018 playoff run.
Then Keenum came to Denver.
Given the chance to ensure his new quarterback continued to utilize a platform that had helped him, then-coach Vance Joseph passed on it.
“I’ve seen it. I’m not sure how it helps football players,” Joseph said at the March 2018 NFL annual meeting in Orlando. “It’s neat when you look into the glasses and you can see the entire field, but I’m not sure how that helps.”
Could Keenum’s fate in Denver have been different with VR? One doesn’t know, but it couldn’t have hurt.
Today, the Broncos are on the VR bandwagon. Lock, even without the benefit of an actual practice in the regular season, is well-versed in the weak-to-week tactical tweaks because of his repeated VR sessions.
“I think it’s more so just kind of staying in tune of what was going on — different run tracks, different run footwork, certain play-actions that we added in,” Lock said.
“We ran a certain amount of plays, we had install 1, 2, 3 up to 7, but when you start playing against different defenses, you start scheming up different plays to where I had never even seen how a defense reacted to those certain plays, or how the plays played out, until I got to go in there and watch it pretty much from Joe’s [Flacco’s] eye view the whole practice week, to where instead of going out there and feeling like I’m running this play for the first time, I’ve already run it multiple times.”
VR also helped Brett Rypien, this week’s No. 2 quarterback. As a practice-squad passer, all of his regular-season practice work before this week came with the scout team. VR gave him a chance to run the Broncos’ offense.
“Because I’m getting scout-team reps. I’m going up against our defense. With the VR stuff, it’s for the defenses that we’re going to see that week and we’re running our plays,” Rypien said. “Just practicing calling the plays in the huddle and going through the process of what you’re doing pre-snap and kind of making sure that you’re good on the read and everything like that.”
There is one other benefit to VR: If a young quarterback can learn lessons from the extra repetitions it provides, that means the coaches won’t have to waste time with basic fundamentals.
“There’s just little things that I know the coaches don’t want to teach, and I don’t want to be a burden to that,” Lock said, “so that when I come back, I can be as sharp as I can be.”
Virtual reality. In a season that has seen the offense regress in myriad ways in actual reality, this is the one area in which it has has done something right.
