There’s a massive difference in the way Vic Fangio talked about Drew Lock and Teddy Bridgewater on Saturday night

SEATTLE — Drew Lock and Teddy Bridgewater haven’t made it easy for Vic Fangio to decide who will be the Broncos’ starting quarterback in 2021. But that isn’t bad.

“Both of these guys have done well. We can play and win with either one of these guys, and that’s a good thing,” Fangio said after the Broncos’ 30-3 beatdown on the Seattle Seahawks on Saturday night. “Both of them, Drew and Teddy, have done well, as you guys have seen, and they’ve made it a hard decision.”

On the surface, through two preseason games, both quarterbacks have performed strikingly similar.

Lock went 14-of-21 for 231 yards with two touchdowns and no interceptions on his eight drives, while Bridgewater is 16-of-19 for 179 yards with two touchdowns and no interceptions on his four drives. Overall, both quarterbacks have been nearly identical.

Statistically, the most striking difference has been Bridgewater’s whopping six-points per possession, compared to Lock’s 2.875 points per possession.

After Saturday’s dominant victory, there was another striking difference—the way the head coach talked about both quarterback’s individual performances against Seattle.

“Teddy played well, obviously. You guys saw it,” Fangio said, when asked how impressed he was with Bridgewater’s night. “Some of his good plays were hard quarterback plays, where he had to manipulate the pocket, step up, step laterally, wait for something to come open late. I thought he did really well. He was helped by the fourth-down conversions, but one of those fourth downs was because we dropped a pass on third down that would have been an easy conversion. So I thought he played very well.”

The eight-year veteran unquestionably played very well, as Fangio said. On Saturday, Bridgewater went 9-of-11 for 105 yards with one touchdown and a 136.7 passer rating, while leading two touchdown drives on his two possessions.

“He’s got good quarterback awareness and instincts,” Fangio said, when asked what makes Bridgewater effective. “I think it’s shown in the way he can move within a pocket and buy time that way. There’s two types of elusive quarterbacks—one’s that run around, and there’s the other ones that manipulate the pocket to buy time. The best of that in the past 20 years has been Tom Brady, and he’s got a little of that in him, as far as manipulating the pocket.”

Fangio mentioned Bridgewater in the same sentence as Tom Brady. Not bad company to have. But the praise for Bridgewater wasn’t over.

When asked if Bridgewater’s 21-yard pass down to the one-yard line to Eric Saubert was one of the best stress throws he’s seen all summer, the head coach said, “yeah, it was a great throw.”

“We’ve seen him do it in practice, and obviously it was a good catch, good route by Saubert. I thought Teddy played extremely well,” Fangio added.

The head coach was justifiably thrilled with Bridgewater’s performance.

However, when asked how Lock played, Fangio wasn’t as glowing, despite mentioning Drew and Teddy have done well overall.

“I think Drew, we had some protection breakdowns when he got in there,” Fangio said when asked about Lock’s performance. “I want to see all his plays with a remote in my hand and take a good look at it rather than what I saw on the field at the time.”

The head coach didn’t need a remote in his hand to dish out praise to Teddy for his performance against the Seahawks. However, he wasn’t afraid to give credit to Lock for his impressive flip pass to Seth Williams on 3rd-and-3 that went for 33 yards.

“Good vision, you know,” Fangio said, adding that it showed maturity that he passed it instead of scrambled. “I couldn’t tell because it was on the other sideline, I couldn’t tell if he could have ran for the first or not. You guys probably had a better look at it than I did. That was very good improvisation on his part.”

Lock ended the night 9-of-14 for 80 yards and a 79.5 passer rating. He had three field goals and two punts on his five drives.

With the calendar “closing in” on the Broncos and the regular season, Fangio said he’s closer to making a decision on Denver’s starting quarterback. The decision, however, will not be made on Sunday.

“The earliest it would be would be early next week, or we’ll let it go another week,” Fangio added.

With a decision looming, although Fangio did mention that both Teddy and Drew have played well, it’s hard to ignore the head coach’s heaping praise for Bridgewater on Saturday night.