Here's how Drew Lock is becoming the leader the Broncos need

DENVER — A year ago at this time, Drew Lock knew he couldn’t walk into the Broncos’ locker room and have the same kind of presence that he did in college.

At that level, being a four-year starter at the University of Missouri, he owned the locker room. When the Tigers looked for leadership, they looked in his direction. His personality and demeanor helped steer the team — and even the undergraduate student body as a whole — through some challenging moments.

But when he joined the Broncos, he knew he had to watch and learn.

“I definitely feel like I had to hold myself back a little bit at the beginning of the season,” Lock said, “to feel everyone out, feel the situation out, even feel Joe [Flacco] out a little bit.”

That changed day by day — first through camp, then through injury rehabilitation and finally as the starting quarterback in December.

“Slowly but surely, I got to come into myself and really show everyone that I was around who I was — especially when I finally became the guy and got to start playing,” Lock said. “I think we all have seen my personality come out since I started playing.”

A Buzz Lightyear celebration here. A hip-hop song on the sideline there. The organization of skill-position workouts with as much social distance as reasonably possible for any kind of football work. And the mature manner in which he answers questions at press conferences, both in-person last year and via Zoom conference in 2020.

Those sentence fragments, when put together, are pieces of the jigsaw puzzle that reveal the growth and development of a young team leader.

“Just being able to walk into the locker room and feel like I have the respect of everybody, that is 100 percent the one goal that I set for that first year, just gaining respect from this team,” Lock said, “Now that I have that, there’s no worries about personalities making relationships because we all know who I am, I know everybody on this team, I know how they act, I know who they are as person.

“Now it’s time for ball, to where if I need to jump someone, I’m not the rookie anymore yelling at a third-, fourthp year guy. It’s ‘That’s Drew yelling at us. That’s Drew getting on us.’ It’s a whole different mentality behind having a second-year quarterback rather than a rookie quarterback. I honestly really feel that coming into this second year.”

It also could fall to Lock and the other team leaders to remind players that any violation of off-field protocol established to prevent COVID-19 outbreaks threatens the health of players and their families, not to mention the ability to even play games and complete a season.

But Lock has faith that the players can follow the regulations that prevent players from going out socially once they leave the facility.

“The amount of work that it’s taken you to get here, I feel like for you to be able to play the season, go through the offseason and all the work you’ve put in everyone has the same mindset,” he said. “We want to play football; therefore we’re going to have to take care of everything off the field. We’re going to have to stay safe. We’re going to have to stay smart.

“No one wants to throw away these extra two to three months that we put into the offseason of throwing, of lifting and of running. We need to all be safe. We need to all be smart. I know that this team — personally I feel like we’re going to be able to get that done.”

The pandemic-altered environment in which Lock and his teammates must operate has already affected Lock personally. Lock’s father, Andy, is a co-owner of the Summit Grill, a chain of three restaurants in the Kansas City area. The Lock family experienced the economic and morale impact of COVID-19 as the restaurants were forced to limit their operations to try and slow the spread of the virus.

For Lock, this gave him a deeper appreciation of the immeasurable amount of work that went into creating an environment in which the training camp can begin.

“The restaurant business got greatly affected by that. That hurt my heart. That hurt my family. That hurt my dad to see,” Lock said. “Even with people losing loved ones, it’s a really humbling situation without a doubt.

“I’m extremely appreciative of everyone that has put the work in to be able to make my job still happen where I can still have what I love go on. My dad loved going into the restaurant business and going into all his restaurants and seeing all his people. That got shut down to where he wasn’t able to do that. He wasn’t able to do what he loved the most.

“Everyone’s work, all the time and effort that’s been put in to allowing me to be in to be able to throw a football on a field, it really makes me appreciate this game more because there’s the thought that we might not play, there are a lot of unanswered questions. Now that we’re here, it feels amazing. I know everyone else around me feels the same thing.”

Sort of like how the Broncos feel about having a promising young quarterback and leader like Lock in their midst.