Training Camp Takes: Why Drew Lock's Monday practice was important

ENGLEWOOD, Colo. — The Denver Broncos took the field for their first padded practice of the year on Monday just after 9:45 AM, and what was their highest-intensity practice of camp thus far also turned out to be the shortest, wrapping up right around 11:15.

After Vic Fangio brought the heat after the offense with a bevy of blitz packages on Sunday, he lightened up a bit on Monday, pairing mostly twos against ones on both sides of the ball.

What became of that? We were on hand for it all.

Exactly how you Drew it up

I remember it like it was yesterday. It was Training Camp 2016, and after days and days of the defense simply rag-dolling the offense, a media member had to ask head coach Gary Kubiak, “Have you put any thought into maybe having the ones take on the twos in a practice to get some of their mojo back?” In typical Kubes fashion, he kind of chuckled and admitted that yes, it had crossed his mind.

Not long after, maybe even the next day, there it was, Trevor Siemian and the first-team offense taking on the supposed “lowly” second-team defense and… well… it was… well… underwhelming… And what was the Broncos offense that year… well… underwhelming.

Look, when you throw the twos out there against the ones, you want dominance, and that’s what Drew Lock delivered on Monday.

You knew Drew was locked in with the first play of the team period when he lobbed a ball over the linebackers, under the safeties and right into the arms of Courtland Sutton. Sutton was just barely open on a post route, to the point where anything but a perfect throw would have been incomplete at best.

From there, Lock continued his hot start, completing three more passes in a row to finish the period, including a nice quick toss on a crossing route to Noah Fant after a low snap allowed pressure to get in his face.

In fact, it wasn’t until the second series of the ensuing 7-on-7 period that Lock had his first incompletion of the day, when Todd Davis got his hand on a ball intended for Noah Fant over the middle.

As the day went on, Lock spread the ball around to guys like Jerry Jeudy (more on this later) Nick Vannett and Melvin Gordon, but it was his chemistry with Sutton that stood out.

In a later team period, after a nice play-action fake, Lock lofted one up to 14 who ran a nice flag route, located the arced ball and elevated for an easy catch despite a not-so-perfect ball.

A few reps later, Sutton broke off a beautiful deep comeback route, and Lock delivered an absolute strike for another big gain.

Interestingly enough, the trust Lock has in Sutton was most evident on an incompletion. During a 7-on-7 period early in practice, the defense covered up all of the early routes, forcing Lock to reset. When he did, he looked up to see Sutton one-on-one with Issac Yiadom deep down the field. Without hesitation, the Q hoisted it up to Sutton, who gained position and elevated over Yiadom for what would have been a big gain had he just finished the fairly easy catch.

In the end, Lock and Sutton are clearly on a different plane, and that’s good news for this offense.

The other side of the coin

On the other hand, while the No. 1 defense got matched up with the No. 2 defense as well, they didn’t dominate quite the same.

Now, this is not to say that Jeff Driskel and the boys were moving the ball at will, but in this scenario, you would have expected to see the defense racking up sack after sack after turnover after sack, and that simply didn’t happen.

Early in the practice, you certainly saw Von Miller and Bradley Chubb generate a bunch of pressure, and as the day went on, guys like Jurrell Casey and Mike Purcell made their presence felt on the inside, but in the end, you didn’t walk away saying “wow” in the way that you would have hoped.

With that said, after the defense owned Day 2 of camp, this is far from a reason to panic, just an observation from the day.

DNVR Stock Report

Trending Up

• Courtland Sutton: As you read above, the Broncos’ top receiver is showing why he has that title, and his relationship with Drew Lock is blossoming.
• Nick Vannett: With this being the first time I laid eyes on Vannett on the field, I was extremely impressed. The new tight end looks huge, fleet of foot and is a force in the run game. I must admit, I was not expecting to be as impressed as I was.
• Todd Davis: If there was one defensive standout on the day, it was Davis. Despite A.J. Johson getting most of the hype, Davis is off to a great start in camp. On Monday, he had multiple pass breakups and also thumped Phillip Lindsay pretty good on a crosser.

Trending Down

• Royce Freeman: With Phillip Lindsay and Melvin Gordon both out there now, Freeman’s lack of explosiveness is more evident than ever. Even undrafted rookie LeVante Bellamy appears to have a lot more spring in his step when he gets the ball.
• Patrick Morris: In three practices for the Broncos offense, the offensive line has looked good in two of them. The other one was the one practice in which Patrick Morris centered the line. It’s not fair to put all of the blame on Morris, but it’s hard to ignore that fact. With Lloyd Cushenberry always in the rearview mirror, Morris has his work cut out for him.

Injury and availability notes

• Andrew Beck was activated off of the Reserve/COVID-19 list and practiced in full on Monday.
• Juwann Winfree is considered day to day with a groin injury, he worked on the side on Monday.
• Vic Fangio said after practice that tight end Austin Fort will miss 4-8 weeks.

Play of the day

If you blinked, you might have missed it, but late in the day, during an 11-on-11 period, Jerry Jeudy showed exactly why people like me and so many others are so bullish on his NFL trajectory. As Austin Schlottman snapped the ball towards Drew Lock in the shotgun, Jeudy exploded off the line setting his defender up for a vicious cut toward the middle of the field on a slant.

Lock drifted slightly to his right and dropped his arm angle to find a lane to hit Jeudy in stride for a big gain.

As I looked back to see just who Jeudy beat so easily, I genuinely could not see which defensive player was supposed to be covering him. Dude is a freak.