All season long, the supremely-talented, late Chris Wesseling and fellow NFL.com analysts Ali Bhanpuri, Tom Blair, Genarro Filice and Dan Parr have been ranking the NFL’s starting quarterbacks from best to worst.
To cap the end of the season, the latter four decided to rank all 59 quarterbacks who started at least one game in 2020, and Drew Lock landed at 33.
Of the four panelists, none ranked Lock higher than 32 or lower than 34. Lock’s rank across the four perfectly averages out to 33.
“It’s not exactly curtains yet for Lock, who still could have a shot to grow into a decent player, whether in Denver or, down the road, elsewhere,” Tom Blair wrote. “But it’s also hard to imagine the Broncos can’t find someone capable of bringing a higher floor and ceiling to the position in 2021.”
Quarterbacks that are notably ahead of Drew Lock include Cam Newton (average rank of 31.5), Mitchell Trubisky (29.75 avg.), Jimmy Garroppolo (29.25 avg.), Teddy Bridgewater (28.5 avg.), Tu’a Tagovailoa (27 avg.), Alex Smith (26.5 avg.), Taysom Hill (26.25 avg.), Andy Dalton (25.75 avg.), Daniel Jones (24.75 avg.), Jalen Hurts (24.25 avg.), Jared Goff (23.25 avg.), and Ryan Fitzpatrick (21.25).
Of those notable entries — and the rest of the quarterbacks ranked ahead of Denver’s quarterback — all were unanimously ranked above Lock, except Trubisky. Even then, Trubisky had 75 percent of the panel prefer him to Lock, and the only panelist that preferred Lock had him ranked 32 and Trubisky ranked 33.
And yes, that does mean all four of NFL.com’s panelists agree that Hill, Smith, and Dalton were each superior quarterbacks to Lock in 2020.
Notably below Lock are a lot of the quarterbacks suspected to be his competition this off-season. Quarterbacks like Gardner Minshew, Sam Darnold, and Nick Foles all find themself below the Broncos’ present signal-caller.