Kirby Lee-USA TODAY Sports
Drew Lock's Mom Imparted a Powerful Message That Helped him Through his 10-Week Exile
Perhaps the Denver Broncos would be wise to hold a thank-you banquet for the mothers of the players. Last year, the big story was how Phillip Lindsay’s mom convinced him to choose the Broncos over any other team after he tumbled completely out of the draft.
The story in 2019 that has emerged was how Drew Lock’s mom Laura played a big part in making sure he was ready for his big moment over the final five weeks of the season.
Lock suffered a thumb sprain on his throwing hand in the Broncos' third preseason game. Denver placed him on injured reserve to open the regular season and it would have been easy for Lock to slack off at that point and view this as a redshirt season.
Plenty of young players have fallen into that trap before. Lock was even viewed as a project quarterback that would need a season or two before being ready. All the signs pointed towards a kid who, even if he did see the field, would not be ready to go.
Instead, what we saw when he debuted in Week 13 was a player where the moment was not too big for him. Clearly, he had used his 10-week exile to improve his game and learn what it means to be a pro. And there's a big reason why.
Lock credits two people for helping to remind him to use the time on IR to better himself. His boss, GM John Elway, told him, “Don’t take this as a vacation year."
Lock said that mandate stuck with him throughout his time away from the field. The other was his mom, who sent him a quote from Winston Churchill to help him through training camp.
Lock taped the quote to his bathroom mirror so he wouldn't miss it day-to-day, but after he suffered that sprained thumb, the message took on a whole different meaning.
''Really, it ended up speaking to me in a different way,'' Lock said.
Looking back now over all that has transpired over the past few months, especially in December, really goes to show just how impressive Lock’s work ethic is and what it could mean moving forward. He put in the work to make sure when that special moment arrived, he was ready. In just a five-week span, he made even some of his biggest skeptics into believers that he should be the starter in 2020.
In Lock’s short time with the Broncos, it's easy to see that this kid gets what it will take to be a quality starting quarterback in the NFL. Over the last few years, about the only compliments that have come out about the young quarterbacks the Broncos had previously trotted out there was that they were either athletic or tall. Not exactly the great glowing review one would hope to hear.
With Lock, it has been less about his big arm and more about his work away from the field. Dalton Risner, his roommate during OTAs and fellow 2019 draftee, talked recently about Lock staying up late to work on play-calls and memorize the playbook.
“I move in with Drew for OTAs and I want to earn a spot, so I’m studying," Risner said. "I’ll just be real with you guys: Drew studied later than me every night. He would go into his bathroom and write plays up on the mirror and repeat them to himself at all hours of the night. He would go record something on his phone, put it in his headphones, and go and walk and act like he’s getting told the play from the offensive coach walking around the living room saying plays out loud. For a while I’m like, 'is this dude talking to himself? What’s going on?' That’s just kind of a little tidbit story that shows who Drew Lock is.”
There are anecdotes of him spending countless hours in the virtual reality room going through each Broncos practice so that if his number did get called off of IR, practice wouldn’t be a completely foreign concept. Lock spent this past offseason watching film on quarterbacks like Matt Ryan to see how they use their feet on any given play call.
It was easy to see over these final five games that his footwork is vastly improved from college. It's still not perfect by any means, but the fact that he is improving on an area of weakness is encouraging.
None of these things guarantee that Lock will be successful in the end. He is far from a finished product. What they do show is a kid that understands having a strong arm and being athletic is not enough to be great in this league.
Lock's teammates do not gravitate towards him because he's tall or athletic or because he has a big arm, but rather because they see the work he puts in day-in and day-out to try to be the greatest quarterback he can be. Players are drawn to peers that they believe in.
This did not happen with Trevor Siemian or Paxton Lynch. Lock has won over the entire organization to the point that even Elway was willing to admit quarterback is not something they are searching for in 2020.
For the first offseason since Peyton Manning left town, the Broncos know who the starter is going to be on day one of the offseason. They can now make plans on how to build around the young quarterback and see whether his game can jump to the next level.
The Broncos have the cap space and draft capital to truly turn this franchise around, but as with most teams, they are only as good as their quarterback.
What does give me reason to believe that Lock can and will be better in 2020 is more what he said after the season was over. He talked about the fact that he will be spending most of the offseason in Denver. This is a big deal in that he understands this offseason is not a vacation for the next six months, but a time for him to focus in and improve all the more.
Lock also spoke of getting his wide receivers together at least a couple of times this offseason so that they do not walk into training camp looking completely lost. Past Broncos QBs have done this, like Case Keenum and even Mark Sanchez. In a vacuum, that one decision to organize with teammates during the offseason is not that big of a deal.
But when looking at the entire picture it reveals a kid who gets it. The biggest comment that Lock made that has stuck with me is the fact that he is planning on talking to both Manning and Elway to glean what he should be doing this offseason to better himself.
The great ones always look for those opportunities to improve no matter how many years they have been in the league. Lock's desire to learn from the greats who have gone before him is just another checkmark in the box of him progressing towards maybe being the QB solution for this team and the answer to the question that has been on every Broncos fan's mind since Manning left the building.
Again, none of these decisions by Lock guarantee that he is destined for greatness. There are plenty of players that have come into the league, worked hard, said and did all the right things, and still failed.
There is a reason that over half the league is still trying to figure out who their starting quarterback is heading into 2020. It's rare to see the intangibles and tangibles all line up with a quarterback, on top of having a coaching staff that knows how to groom a one towards success.
This offseason could be the most important of Lock’s career. He has the opportunity to prove to the Broncos and the entire NFL that he is here to stay for a long time. I, for one, believe he will put in the work to prove just that.
Follow Carl on Twitter @CarlDumlerMHH and @MileHighHuddle.
