Drew Lock is fighting for his starting job in the Denver Broncos’ final four games.
After their loss to the Chiefs on Sunday night, the Denver Broncos sit at 4-8 with their playoff hopes pretty much snuffed. At best, the Broncos can finish at 8-8 in the 2020 NFL season and they’d have to hope for epic collapses from multiple playoff teams in order to have a shot. Stranger things have happened, but it feels unlikely that the Broncos will be partaking in the playoffs.
If Denver misses out on the postseason again this year, it’ll be their fifth straight season not making the playoffs with their last appearance coming in the 2015 season when they won Super Bowl 50. After winning the Super Bowl, Peyton Manning rode off into the sunset and the Broncos have struggled to find someone to replace him at quarterback ever since.
The latest attempt at replacing Manning is 2019 second-round pick Drew Lock, who lived and died by the deep ball during his college years with Missouri. Lock hasn’t quite mastered the deep ball in the NFL and has thrown 13 picks in nine starts this year (compared to nine touchdown passes).
Drew Lock has cost the Denver Broncos a few wins in 2020.
The two interceptions that Lock threw against the Chiefs on Sunday — a game in which Denver lost by six points — came on the Broncos’ first drive of the game where they were moving the ball well and on the final drive of the game, which sealed the game for Kansas City. They were two costly interceptions and Lock ended the night tossing just 151 yards, two touchdowns, and the two interceptions. The touchdowns were the first two he had thrown against Kansas City (it was his third time facing them).
Part of why the Broncos took Lock in the draft last year was because of his arm and that’s ironically what’s cost the Broncos several games this year. Lock’s first pick came on a badly thrown deep ball that went right into Tyrann Mathieu’s arms. The Broncos provided Lock with a wide array of weapons this offseason and he’s struggling to get the ball to said weapons (Jerry Jeudy had one catch for five yards on Sunday).
Lock has certainly regressed after looking really good in the final five games of 2019 (the only five he started that year) but something to keep in mind here is that he’s only played in 14 total games as a pro quarterback. The Broncos might not want to give up on him just yet but with the Chiefs not skipping a beat with Patrick Mahomes, the Chargers seemingly landing their next quarterback in Justin Herbert, and the Raiders holding steady with Derek Carr, that might be enough to force John Elway’s hand.
Denver has a good enough defense that’s kept them in games this year (they held Kansas City to 22 points and just 12 points in the first half) but Lock is the reason they’re not pulling off some of these tight wins. He played well against Miami and helped bring them back against the Chargers, but he has to start limiting the turnovers.
With Matthew Stafford and maybe even Dak Prescott hitting the free-agent market this offseason, Elway very well might turn his attention to one of those two guys. Both of those guys would be an upgrade over Lock and would be able to hit the weapons down the field. It might not be fair to give up on Lock so soon into his career, but that’s sadly the nature of the NFL now. Quarterbacks are expected to come in and win right away and Lock hasn’t done that despite having a lot of weapons around him.
Denver won’t have a high draft pick so if they do decide to replace Lock, it’ll likely be in free agency. Drew Lock will have these final four games to defend his throne and keep his job in 2021 and beyond. If he doesn’t play well, he might be yet another miss at quarterback for John Elway and the Denver Broncos.