Something doesn’t add up with the Broncos and Drew Lock

 

ENGLEWOOD, Colo. — In a lost season, playing second-round pick Drew Lock would appear to be a key priority for the Broncos.

You start finding out what he possesses. You begin the process of on-field evaluation so you can have a better idea as to your needs in the following spring’s draft. This would seem especially crucial given that three quarterbacks could project as top-10 selections, and barring a late-season revival, the Broncos could be back in the draft’s top 10 picks for a third consecutive year.

Broncos coach Vic Fangio sees it differently.

“I don’t think it’s vitally important,” he said.

On Oct. 29 and again on Nov. 13, Lock said that he trusted the plan that the Broncos had for him.

But what is the plan?

When Fangio was asked Wednesday whether he was any closer to designating a point to give Lock game repetitions, he replied, “No, not yet.”

A moment later, Fangio said that Lock does “not necessarily” have to be backup on the 53-man roster before starting, “but it may work out that way.”

Every sign from the Broncos at this moment points to a belief that his development could be hindered by playing him now. That shoving him on the field could lead to a situation like the one that befell Paxton Lynch, where he struggled in two 2016 starts and lost confidence.

But Lynch and Lock are not alike. Not in style, not in composure, not in demeanor, not in college background.

Furthermore, Fangio is not concerned about the notion that the NFL game and speed could be too much for a rookie quarterback like Lock. Seeing how Lock handles it would be part of his education as a quarterback and the Broncos’ education as to what they possess in their second-round pick.

“You know, I don’t worry too much about him getting overwhelmed,” Fangio explained. “Some people are like, ‘Well, he can get overwhelmed and then his career is scarred.’

“If a guy gets scarred from some bad performances, whether they’re all his fault or if it’s the team’s fault, then he probably wasn’t the guy you wanted anyway.”

Bingo.

Thus, Fangio offered the best argument for playing Lock right now. In addition to the fact that every game helps the quarterback adapt to the tempo and demands of the NFL game, there is the mental and emotional test a young quarterback faces.

If this level is too big and too much, you’ll know.

You knew with Lynch. You’d know with Lock.

The sooner you know, the sooner you can make your plans — whether with or without the young quarterback.

Yet Fangio is, to some degree, a product of his past experiences — just like anyone else.

So when he was asked about the importance of getting Lock repetitions this season, he replied that it was not “vitally important” before detouring into a 30-year-old vignette from his first NFL coaching stint with the New Orleans Saints.

“I can remember back in the strike year — some of you weren’t even born yet,” he said.

Indeed, some in the media gaggle were not on this earth for the time frame Fangio cited.

(I was. In middle school, as a matter of fact.)

Back to story time.

“And then another year, might not have been the strike year, it might have been a few years later, we played a young quarterback in New Orleans for about three games,” Fangio said.

SO LET’S STEP INTO THE DeLOREAN

Destination: 1989.

It was two years after that players’ strike, in which one week was canceled entirely and another three weeks saw teams cobbling together squads of replacement players that held down the fort until a smattering of regulars began crossing the picket lines. That eventually begat an end to the strike after four weeks, after which the regular players returned for Week 7 and beyond.

During the 1987 strike, the Saints were guided by a then-27-year-old quarterback named John Fourcade, who owned a Cajun accent as thick as his burly build.

Having played in the CFL, USFL and even here in Denver with the Arena Football League’s Dynamite, Fourcade was the laboratory specimen of the journeyman quarterback. So when the strike arose, he was exactly the kind of player who teams needed during three weeks that were unlike any other in NFL history.

The Saints went 2-1 with Fourcade at the wheel. He completed 53.9 percent of his passes in the replacement games and posted a 4-to-3 touchdown-to-interception ratio.

Most memorably, he literally threw an interception and scored a touchdown on the same play.

For real.

Fourcade played by the seat of his gold pants, and few have ever been so neatly encapsulated by a single snap.

After the strike, New Orleans kept him around as a backup. He threw one pass in the 1988 season, and by 1989 had shown enough to nudge Dave Wilson to the curb and earn the backup spot behind another Cajun, Bobby “The Cajun Cannon” Hebert.

Fourcade’s first extended work in a regular game came nearly two years after his replacement hitch, in Week 3 of the 1989 season in Tampa. A concussion on a late hit from Bucs safety Mark Robinson forced Hebert to the sideline. Fourcade entered, completed 5 of 12 passes, then suffered an awkward twist of his knee when Tampa Bay linebacker Henry Rolling dragged him to the ground near the sideline.

A concussed Hebert later returned to the game.

(And that sentence reveals how different the NFL of 1989 was from the league that exists today.)

But by December 1989, Fourcade returned to the lineup in favor of the benched Hebert. Fourcade started the Saints’ final three regular-season games — two of which came against the playoff-bound Bills and Eagles, and a regular-season finale against the Colts, who would have advanced to the postseason with a win.

Fourcade and the Saints won all three. In those starts, Forucade had seven touchdown passes and three interceptions, completed 60 percent of his passes and posted a 102.5 passer rating.

“He did pretty damn good,” Fangio recalled.

“And then Bobby Hebert held out the next year; he was part of that class-action lawsuit that the players won free agency with and [he] missed a whole season.”

But the three games at the end 1989 made the Saints feel that their journeyman-come-home was the man. With Hebert holding out, the Saints marched into the 1990 season with Fourcade, Mike Buck and an ancient Tommy Kramer as their quarterbacks.

Fourcade promptly threw seven interceptions before he tossed a touchdown pass. The Saints opened the season by going nine consecutive quarters without a touchdown. Two days after finally crossing the goal line in Week 3, New Orleans general manager Jim Finks sent first-, second- and third-round picks to the Dallas Cowboys for another relatively unproven quarterback, Steve Walsh, who had started five games in his rookie campaign the previous year.

“We took the attitude [as a] franchise that, ‘Well, we’ve got this guy that played pretty good for three games,'” Fangio said.

“Well, it didn’t work out that way.”

The price was a bushel of draft capital for Walsh, who was back on the bench by 1991 after Hebert signed a new contract. And that 1990 season was the only one from 1987 through 1992 in which the Saints did not break .500.

Lesson learned.

BACK IN THE DeLOREAN AND BACK TO THE PRESENT

Welcome back to 2019.

After taking a relieved breath upon observing that our journey has not changed anything about the world of today, what does the Fourcade story reveal about Lock and the perception of him?

For one thing, Fangio thinks the small sample size can deceive.

“I think with a young guy, in limited reps, it can be good [and] you can get a false positive, [or] you can get a false negative,” Fangio said.

“You need a whole body of work — and that body of work includes offseason, training camp, build-up, you know? I’m not putting any limits on him if he does get in there, but I would be reluctant to make final conclusions.”

But the Fourcade story is not entirely analogous to Lock. When he made those three season-ending starts with New Orleans, Fourcade wasn’t young by NFL standards; he was 29. Fourcade turned 30 just before Walsh supplanted him in the Saints’ starting lineup.

The truth is that Fourcade’s example applies more to Brandon Allen — another professional journeyman a few years removed from success in the Southeastern Conference.

While Allen has brought a dynamic energy and willingness to take downfield shots to the offense, his completion percentage of 49.2 is the fourth-lowest for any quarterback to attempt at least 50 passes in the past three seasons; only Bryce Petty, T.J. Yates and Ryan Finley are worse.

Allen is more energetic and a better fit for the offense than Joe Flacco. But he is not tearing up foes to the point where you’re planning your future around him.

So why not play Lock?

On the one hand, what you learn might not be accurate if he succeeds. On the other hand, if he stumbles and is scarred, he was not going to be the right guy, anyway.

But in either case, you have more data to make your decision than you possess today.

Without data, nothing adds up.