Drew Lock struggling to seize reins as Broncos quarterback

But here’s the catch: Though they may resemble Elway in size, strength and athleticism, they don’t play or produce like the two-time Super Bowl MVP.

Not one bit.

Elway took over as Denver’s general manager and president of football operations in January of 2011, but has yet to find a suitable long-term successor in 10 years on the job. Peyton Manning signed with the Broncos as a free agent in 2015 and played four years, winning Super Bowl 50 despite a dip in his production.

His draft picks haven’t been as successful.

Brock Osweiler, a second-round pick in 2012, started 11 games for Denver and was out of the NFL by the age of 29. Paxton Lynch, a first-round pick in 2016, started four games for the Broncos and was done at 25.

Drew Lock, a second-round pick in 2019, will conclude his first year as Denver’s starter Sunday against the Raiders and is ranked 36th by Pro Football Focus among 39 qualified quarterbacks.

But the Broncos are optimistic that he can maximize the physical tools that he and Elway share and become the franchise quarterback that Denver desires.

Publicly optimistic, anyway.

“I think he’s continued to show his talent. He’s capable of making very good throws. He’s done that throughout the season,” Broncos coach Vic Fangio said.

A work in progress

At 6-4 and 228 pounds, Lock has the requisite measurables and athleticism and was a four-year starter at Missouri, where he’d set several school records and emerged as a tantalizing pro prospect. His former offensive coordinator, Josh Heupel, noted that Lock was “young in his quarterback development” when they began working together at Missouri in 2016.

“But certainly just his size, frame, felt like he was going to develop (into a NFL player),” said Heupel, once the Heisman Trophy runner-up at Oklahoma and now the head coach at Central Florida. “The ball just naturally pops out of his hands. … He’s got a special arm. A special skill set there. Those are the things you notice right away.”

Nuances of the position like protections and defensive alignments didn’t come quite as naturally to Lock, Heupel said, in part because he was also a standout high-school basketball player who didn’t devote all his time to football until college.

But “he progressed really quickly in all of those things,” Heupel said, thus becoming the eventual No. 42 pick in 2019 despite a college completion percentage of 56.9 and record of 21-25.

Lock injured his thumb during the preseason before his rookie year and was on injured reserve while another veteran stopgap, Joe Flacco, manned the position. He was activated at the end of November and started the final five games of the season, posting a 4-1 record, 1,020 passing yards, seven touchdowns and three interceptions.

Pro Football Focus analyst Sam Monson wasn’t sold, though, on Lock’s play last season and ranked him among the worst prospective starters in the NFL before the 2020 campaign.

“I get why there was some optimism surrounding him. … There was a flicker of excitement from a guy who could actually make those big-time throws,” Monson said.

But Lock’s erratic play concerned Monson. “We were kind of scared away,” he said. “This is a guy who was inconsistent as a prospect. Inconsistent in those five games.”

The play and production

Lock is 4-8 during his first full year as Denver’s starter. The production — or lack thereof — says plenty.

He’s tied for the league lead in interceptions with 15, this despite missing three games for various reasons. He’s last among qualified quarterbacks in completion percentage (57.0) and second-to-highest in interception percentage (3.7) and second-to-lowest in passer rating (72.5).

He’s second-to-last in on-target throw percentage (69.6), ahead of only Dwayne Haskins, who was waived last week by the Washington Football Team.

He was 23 of 47 for 257 yards, one touchdown and a season-high four interceptions on Nov. 15 in a 37-12 loss to the Raiders, posting a passer rating of 37.3 — his second lowest this season.

Monson said Lock’s issues stem from a tendency to the force the ball down the field instead of settling for shorter, safer completions while under duress. But “it doesn’t feel like something that should be a terminal problem. … It should be something that’s fixable” with proper coaching and development, Monson said.

Lock told reporters this week that he feels he has a “solid foundation” and an understanding of what needs to improve during the offseason.

He plans to “see where my tendencies are, where my incompletions are, my bad plays and my picks. Was there something consistent with all the picks? Where were my incompletions?”

Whatever the issues are, he needs to rectify them soon.

The Broncos have surrounded Lock with talented personnel, such as rookie wide receiver Jerry Jeudy and second-year tight end Noah Fant, both first-round picks with dynamic ability. They have two productive running backs in Melvin Gordon and Phillip Lindsay, and a defense ranked No. 6 by PFF.

“Throwing the ball-wise, he makes a lot of crazy throws that’s like, ‘Wow.’ I definitely think he’s got what it takes,” Gordon said of his second-year quarterback. “I think (mentally) is where he just needs to get it, and when he gets that he’s going to excel like crazy.”

The Broncos need Lock to do that. “I feel like we have window with this team,” Gordon said, “and he is the piece that’s going to make or break us.”

Contact reporter Sam Gordon at sgordon@reviewjournal.com. Follow @BySamGordon on Twitter.