Why the Broncos are wrong to believe that practicing Drew Lock next week is a waste

ENGLEWOOD, Colo. — Drew Lock wants to practice. He’s ready for the three-week clock to start leading up to a potential activation from injured reserve.

He says he’s physically ready to practice.

John Elway disagrees.

“Now, he hasn’t practiced since training camp, so he’s been playing catch, obviously, in his rehab, but physically, he’s not ready to go yet, either,” Elway said on KOA-AM 850.

Still, Lock is raring to go, a stallion ready to be released from the stable. And after two months of healing from his thumb injury and a regimen of film study, meetings and VR work that keeps him at Broncos headquarters for 12 hours or more on some days, he believes he is mentally ready, too.

“I’ll always be a confident guy. I’m ready whenever,” the rookie quarterback said Tuesday. “Whenever they’re ready, I’ll be ready.”

Vic Fangio wants to see what Lock can do in practice — but in good time, which he feels is not at this moment.

“I’m anxious for it to happen at the right time,” he said Wednesday.

Elway believes this week is not the right time, in part because next week is the Broncos’ bye, which means a week of limited practices before the team scatters for a long weekend.

“We’re going to try to take advantage of the three weeks that we get with him,” Elway told KOA-AM 850 on Wednesday morning, “because the bye week counts as a week of practice, and therefore, we’re not going to do much in the bye week, and so therefore it’s a wasted week.”

Is it, though?

These weeks are only “wasted” if the 53rd roster spot that Lock would have when activated from injured reserve is so valuable that it is better spent on someone else. But the 53rd player on the roster usually falls into one of three categories:

1. A player with a protracted recovery from an injury who is being given more time, but still likely to end up on injured reserve;
2. A player who is a healthy scratch each week, or, if active, isn’t playing any snaps and is simply an emergency substitute, perhaps a backup to the backup;
3. A player brought in for one week to fill a short-term hole that popped up due to injury.

The second category is the one worthy of focus here.

The Broncos claimed defensive lineman Jonathan Harris off waivers last week; he was inactive against the Colts. The Broncos want to get a look at him; that’s well and good. But at the same time, the game-day roster calculus calls for only five defensive linemen to be among the active 46 players, so two of the seven inactive spots last Sunday went to defensive linemen: Harris and Adam Gotsis, who has not played since Week 4.

Denver also has two backup offensive tackles who have barely seen the field. Jake Rodgers has 20 snaps played this season, all on special teams. Calvin Anderson, a rookie claimed off waivers, has yet to be active for a game.

So what is the better use of a roster spot with a 2-6 team:

Practice repetitions for a second-round quarterback like Lock who could be starting in December — even if he isn’t playing until then?

Or someone at another a position on the edge of the 53-man roster who is barely playing, if at all?

Even though holding Lock back from practice means the Broncos can delay their decision on him, it’s not as if these practices are made up down the line. They’re gone forever. You can’t put missed practices into the bank and draw from them later.

Practice work today could help him be ready tomorrow — even the work from the short week next week. That would put Lock on the 53-man roster sooner … but that also would be a better use of that final spot because of the greater potential reward, given the primacy of the quarterback position in determining a team’s outcome.

Elway said that he is looking at Week 11, the week of the Vikings game, for Lock to return to practice.

“But I think the key thing is conversation with the coaches,” he told KOA. “They’re with him every day. They’re seeing how he’s handling what we’re doing offensively. And like we said, there is a big jump coming from the system that he was in to the system that we’re running now, and the fact that there’s a lot more verbiage in the plays that we call, a lot more things that we do at the line of scrimmage. That adjustment is the biggest thing — to be able to get him in a situation.

“Now, obviously, we would ask different things of him than we would ask of Joe [Flacco], just because of the difference in experience and where he’s been. But I think most of my information comes from where the coaches think he is, and that’s what I’ll rely on. We can watch him in practice and see how he does, but I think it all comes down to how he’s mentally adapting on the offensive side.”

And what is the best way to get a player mentally up to speed?

Practice.

“He needs practice,” Fangio said. “We have a plan to when we want to start that, and we’ll move forward with that.”

Fangio couldn’t be more on point. Lock needs practice. Developing players need practice.

And the more practice, the better. But until that comes, Lock’s development will remain in a holding pattern.