Five Nathaniel Hackett Quotes that Hint at Drew Lock Being Broncos' Upgrade at QB in 2022

The worst-kept secret in the NFL is that the Denver Broncos are gearing up to go all-in on acquiring MVP quarterback Aaron Rodgers from the Green Bay Packers. The Broncos' No. 1 pursuit in 2022 is to upgrade the quarterback position.

There is more than one way to upgrade a position, though. Sure, a team can look for outside talent that ostensibly represents a clear upgrade over the personnel currently on-roster.

Such an endeavor can come through the trade market, free agency, or the NFL draft. It's likely the Broncos will pursue all three avenues in search of improvement at quarterback.

Another way a team can upgrade the quarterback position is by hiring the right coaches to bring out the best in the talent already on-roster. In other words, the Broncos could have already upgraded at quarterback by hiring Nathaniel Hackett as head coach because of the impact on Drew Lock.

I'll explain why, but first, I've got to set the stage.

Through the Ringer

Entering the fourth and final year on his contract, Lock has been through the Mile High ringer. He started five games as a rookie, winning four of them, and entered Year 2 with hopes about as high as they could be.

Alas, just about everything angled against Lock in 2020 starting with the firing of offensive coordinator Rich Scangarello and QBs coach T.C. McCartney, a duo that obviously knew how to get the most out of Lock and protect him within the scheme.

Vic Fangio hired Pat Shurmur to replace Scangarello, and that couldn't have been a worse fit for Lock. It was a terrible harbinger of things to come.

Long story short, 2020 was a disaster for Lock. The blame was pointed almost solely, and unfairly, in his direction.

Fangio, seeing his boss John Elway step down as GM at season's end, saw the writing on the wall when George Paton was hired to succeed him in the front office. 2021 would be a do-or-die campaign for Fangio as head coach.

And so, Fangio did what anyone with a coaching-not-to-lose mindset would do and looked for a more proven veteran to supplant Lock surreptitiously. Upon Teddy Bridgewater's arrival, Fangio pitted Lock against him and sold it in the press as an 'even-Steven, 50/50' open competition.

In retrospect, despite Lock showing improvement in camp and blowing the doors down in his one and only preseason start, Bridgewater taking his job was always fait accompli. And so, Lock's development and what was best for the Broncos long-term was scrapped in the interest of expediency and what was best for Fangio in the short-term.

Lock started the final three games of the 2021 campaign after Bridgewater suffered a second concussion, losing all three. However, Lock was exceedingly safe with the football, seemingly focused entirely on not turning it over.

The mandate to not turn it over absolutely limited Lock's potential over that three-game stretch. He quite diligently followed his coaches' directive but still found ways to push the ball downfield at a far greater clip than Bridgewater. That much was palpable.

But Lock's conservatism did nothing to save Fangio or Shurmur, as both were fired at season's end. And if anything, it only further muted any momentum the young QB might have built up at the tail-end of a wasted Year 3.

Out with the old, in with the new. Perhaps Hackett is the answer to un-Locking (see what I did there?) Drew's potential.

I'm bullish on the idea. Distilling it down to five points, here are a few things Hackett has said since taking the Broncos job that hints at Lock being this team's upgrade at QB, if, indeed, Denver turns to him as a starter in 2022 for any reason whatsoever.

1. Players Becoming the System

As the antitheses to Shurmur's round-peg, square-hole philosophy, Hackett believes in structuring his playbook around the strengths of his personnel, not the other way around. Shocker. Hackett believes in identifying what his players do best, and leaning into it.

"As a coach, you deliver a system, and you teach a system to the players," Hackett said during his hello presser. "My favorite thing is when the players become the system and the players own the system and it’s theirs."

Imagine what a Broncos offense might look like, and how Lock might perform, in a system designed by the coaches to glean the very best from the players. Lock hasn't glimpsed such a scenario as a pro since his rookie year.

2. Having his QB's Back

At the first opportunity to do so, Fangio and Shurmur literally and figuratively turned their back on Lock. Neither could hardly be bothered to say a positive word edgewise about him whenever a microphone was thrust in their face.

Hackett, however, has an entirely different outlook. Talk is cheap, but what Hackett told NBC Sports' Peter King is good news for Lock.

"I’ve been with a lot of different quarterbacks, and they always know I’ll put them in position to excel, and I’ll always have their backs," Hackett told King.

The last coach to have Lock's back hasn't been employed by the Broncos since 2019. When Scangarello was shown the door, so too was any coaching support system for Lock.

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3. Shots Downfield

Shurmur's dink-and-dunk offense was anathema to Lock's natural disposition as a self-styled 'gunslinger'. However, Hackett's offensive approach, while it starts with the outside-zone rushing attack, ends with taking shots downfield, another aspect that out of the gates caters to Lock's strong suits.

"I think the starting point is outside zone," Hackett said. "Outside zone on offense is what you want to do, and you want to base that off of play-pass. You want to make the defense cover the entire field. You want to take shots down the field. Let’s all face it, that’s what the people in the stands love—they love those bombs down the field."

Whether it's Lock or another QB under center for Denver this year, rest assured that the offense will no longer resemble the snoozefest that it has for the better part of the past six years. Lock wants to chuck it downfield. If given the chance, Hackett will try to maximize Lock's odds of connecting on those shots with his unique Xs and Os coaching acumen.

4. Genuine Energy and Excitement

Lock is a high-energy dude. He's laid back and very loose but he's also amped when the juices start flowing.

So is Hackett. From a pure personality perspective, Hackett and Lock should hit it off right out of the gates.

Both have a Favre-ian enthusiasm for football and both like to have fun on the job. But Hackett's focus as a leader is to bring genuine energy and excitement to every corner of UCHealth Training Center and that bodes well for a guy like Lock. It'll be like manna from heaven to Lock after wandering the pedantic Shurmur doldrums for two years straight.

“I think it’s big. It has to be that genuine juice—that genuine energy. It has to be who you are," Hackett said during his first Broncos presser. "[It has to] Vibrate through the whole facility—everyone has to feel it. It’s not just one person, you don’t just save it up for your star player. It has to be with anybody and everybody. It’s something that is so important—this whole generation and world is changing. I call it that ‘YouTube’ generation world. Meetings are different from when I first started—trying to keep people’s attention and inspire them and get them excited. As a coach, you have to have that excitement and energy to find different ways to approach them and get them fired up to learn and get better each day.”

The Broncos have a young roster. Hackett's approach to connecting with the players, and coaching them from there, is exactly what it'll take to reach these young dudes in the 'YouTube' age.

5. The 'Can't Stop Me' Mentality

Hackett understands that when it comes to putting a QB in the best position to succeed, and protecting them, there are multiple ways to skin that cat. To Hackett, that mandate stretches beyond assembling a good offensive line.

“When you’re developing a quarterback, I think all quarterbacks need to have success," Hackett said. "You need to be sure that you’re protecting them and whenever you’re dealing with a young quarterback you want to be sure, and even with an older quarterback, you want to be sure you’re always protecting them. You do that with both protection with the offensive line and running the football. I think that’s kind of the best way to be able to always make sure that they’re having success and able to have clean pockets... The offense is going to be here for a long time so you bring somebody in and develop them, and they can get the reps. They can get the understanding of one play because when you start calculating the analytical data on one play, the different things that can happen in each one throughout all the different coverages. There are so many different things that can happen in one play for a quarterback so I think it’s always working with them, always teaching them, and letting them get a comfort level so they can go out there and play and have that ‘can’t stop me mentality’. I always talk about that. That’s what you want that quarterback to have when he gets out there.”

Again, imagine Lock under the wing of a coach who earnestly wants to instill in him a 'can't stop me' mentality. We don't know what the limits to that could be.

Bottom Line

Lock's tools and tangible traits have never been questioned. He's exceedingly talented. The questions about Lock as an NFL quarterback have always revolved around the intangibles.

What better coach to help reach Lock on an intellectual, emotional, and perhaps even spiritual level than Hackett? If the Broncos swing and miss on Rodgers, and don't find a QB in the 2022 draft class worthy of a first-round pick, the odds are in Lock's favor to be Hackett's starter in Year 1.

If that's how the Football Gods will it, I can't help but foresee good things on the horizon for Lock and an upgrade at quarterback for the Broncos — even if it comes from the most unlikely and unexpected source.

Follow Chad on Twitter @ChadNJensen.

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