On the day the Denver Broncos announced they had hired Vic Fangio to be their new head coach, Denver sports media veteran Woody Paige dropped a bomb of his own.
Drew Lock at No. 10 to Broncos. Elway and Kubiak were very impressed when they saw him in November.
— Woody Paige (@woodypaige) January 9, 2019
John Elway and Gary Kubiak took a trip out to Columbia, MO earlier this year to watch Drew Lock live. They must have liked what they saw in Lock’s rousing 38-0 beat-down of conference rival Arkansas.
Paige’s tweet wasn’t the first time that we’ve heard John Elway and the Broncos connected to the Missouri standout either.
https://twitter.com/AllbrightNFL/status/1077417557898846208
Ever since “The Sherrif,” Peyton Manning retired, Elway has been in search of his next quarterback. After swinging and missing on Brock Osweiler, Trevor Siemian, Paxton Lynch, and now Case Keenum, it seems that Elway has one last shot to get it right.
Is Keenum the answer at quarterback for the Broncos? If not, we examined a whole host of possibilities, including the best choice, in drafting a QB.
Lock, the Missouri quarterback, definitely fits the mold of an Elway quarterback pick.
Like Paxton Lynch and Brock Osweiler, Lock is tall, coming in at 6’4″ and 225 lbs. He also also has an absolute cannon for an arm, the strongest in the class without a clear second place. Lock had a bumpy career at Missouri, very similar to that of rookie Josh Allen‘s.
His freshman season was atrocious. He completed under 50 percent of his passes, threw twice as many interceptions as touchdowns, and didn’t throw for more than 1,400 yards despite playing all 12 games.
Lock took a massive leap his sophomore season with the Tigers. On the way to improving his passer rating a whole 40 points, Lock improved his completion percentage by more than five percent, threw for over 1,000 yards more and flipped his touchdown:interception ratio from 1:2 to better than 2:1. This all came while nearly doubling his air yards per attempt, which typically runs counter to improving one’s completion percentage and touchdown:interception ratio.
Lock’s output reached its peak in his junior season when he threw for almost 4,000 yards and 44 touchdowns. Once again, while maintaining the number of interceptions thrown, and improving both his air yards per attempt and completion percentage.
His success didn’t come without its share of flaws though. Scouts like NFL.com’s Daniel Jeremiah and CBS’s Chris Trapasso noted Lock’s poor accuracy and often questionable decision making. This led to the junior returning for his senior season to work on himself as a prospect.
His senior season saw Lock take another big step, completing over 60 percent of his passes for the first time in his college career. That may not sound like much, but that’s a mark last year’s seventh overall pick Josh Allen was never able to reach.
With Lock’s steady improvement, and Justin Herbert‘s decision to return to Oregon, the Missouris stud has inserted himself right into the race to be the second quarterback off the board come April.
Lock’s off-the-charts physical traits have even earned him some Patrick Mahomes comparisons. Personally, I won’t be buying Drew Lock stock anytime soon. He is the most recent in a series of hyper-raw and athletic quarterbacks. They only hit about 50 percent of the time, but when they do, they hit.
For every Mahomes or Carson Wentz that has all the perfect work ethic and intangibles to pair with their talent, making them an MVP candidate very early in their NFL careers, there’s a Paxton Lynch or Jay Cutler who has all the physical traits, but none of the intangibles. Time will tell which one lock will be, I will bet on the latter.