One of the spiciest sports debates engulfing the twitter-verse right now with hot takes surrounds Broncos starting quarterback Drew Lock and the hype he’s received this summer.
Jeff Legwold kicked things off by taking Lock 15th overall in ESPN’s NFL re-draft that featured every player currently in the league.
Then, Fox Sports’ Colin Cowherd added to the hype by stating Lock would be this year’s second-year quarterback that pops, following the path of Carson Wentz, Patrick Mahomes, and Lamar Jackson.
Lock it in 🔒 pic.twitter.com/L12m17hvOu
— Colin Cowherd (@colincowherd) June 10, 2020
Cowherd was so bold, he even said that fans, “shouldn’t be surprised,” if Lock and the Broncos topple the Chiefs from their throne atop the AFC West.
That led to the question, is the hype surrounding the signal-caller too much or will he live up to it?
Pro Football Focus and their writers have made their stance on Cowherd’s comments crystal-clear.
“I mean, for me, [Lock]’s going to be more like in the bottom 5-to-10, at best, for quarterbacks,” PFF’s Kevin Cole said. “If you think about Lock, he was a second-round pick, so that doesn’t necessarily mean he’s going to have a lot of success. He has five games under his belt. He had a couple of good games but that’s really not enough to go by. So I’m not sure what it is about Lock that people seem to be really infatuated by.”
“The beat writer that took him [in ESPN’s re-draft] has been around him a lot,” Cole continued. “I mean, he is the beat writer for the Denver Broncos. But I think for Lock, he’s really going to be near the end and I probably even prefer most of the quarterbacks that came this year, at least the first-rounders, over Lock. So it’s really tough to give him that despite the young age and despite the tools that he has.”
On Thursday, PFF’s Timo Ridley shared a similar stance via Twitter:
What you see v what you should see
All of the better passers had worse 2nd years. 2nd year jump is mostly for passers w/ a (statistically) bad rookie season. pic.twitter.com/tpuRF0ZuMw
— Timo Riske (@PFF_Moo) June 11, 2020
Ridley brings up a good point, that quarterbacks who succeed in Year 1 often take a step back in Year 2, but it seems counter-intuitive that a rookie quarterback struggling would be preferable to one that performs well.
Unfortunately, we won’t know who’s actually right about Drew Lock until September at the earliest.