John Elway said to be high on quarterback Drew Lock

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Missouri quarterback Drew Lock helped himself at the Senior Bowl, enough that the general consensus now seems to be that he’s a first-round pick. But which team will take him?

It could be the Broncos: G.M. John Elway is smitten with Lock, according to the Denver Post, which calls that the worst-kept secret at the Senior Bowl.

Elway’s interest in Lock didn’t start at the Senior Bowl. Elway attended the Arkansas-Missouri game in November, when Lock had an excellent game, passing for two touchdowns, running for two more and leading Missouri to a 38-0 win.

The Broncos have the 10th overall pick in the draft. If they like Lock as much as it appears, that could be his landing spot.

52 responses to “John Elway said to be high on quarterback Drew Lock

  1. Well if anyone has an eye for NFL quarterbacks its Elway. His record speaks for itself.

  2. This Redskins fan was hoping they’d get him at 15, but the typical move for Washington would be to overpay a washed up Joe Flacco or Ryan Tannehill, and ELway’s going to grab him at 10 anyway, so What The Heck

  3. I have seen zero college games this past year so I’m as qualified to give my opinion as anyone on ESPN. That said, I don’t want anyone that came from a spread offence. Take the best guy in a pro-style offence and don’t fall in love with anyone in their underwear at the combine. Look at the tape. The all 22 don’t lie.

  4. Elway’s record on choosing QB’s is not a strong one, as has been pointed out. You might put Case Keenum in there as well? Keenum didn’t have the best situation in Denver, and did some good things, but overall, as the starting QB there, played like a quality backup.

  5. Pull the trigger, John. I don’t know much about Lock but we need to draft a guy and catch up with the rest of the league. There’s a lot of young guns out there who all got their rookie growing pains out of the way already. I hate drafting for need, but we are admittedly desperate. The only issue is that the Giants and Jaguars are picking ahead of Denver who both also need a QB. Ugh, we’re going to have to trade up and lose draft capital if we want to grab him.

  6. Who would have thought that one of the greatest quarterbacks ever would have so much trouble drafting a QB. Peyton really built this guy’s reputation.

  7. Might need to trade up to get ahead of Miami…Buffalo should be willing to trade down and is now accepting calls from Miami and Denver

  8. This guy will have now picked his 5th QB and I believe his 4th head coach. That is unprecedented in the NFL. He is an atrocious evaluator. If you can’t evalute the position you excelled at, how can you convince us you can evaluate other positions? All of these “appointed” GMs, that never worked in scouting but were give ln top jobs, how much success have they had? Matt Miller, John Lynch, John Elway….

  9. Sapience says:
    January 29, 2019 at 9:11 am
    I have seen zero college games this past year so I’m as qualified to give my opinion as anyone on ESPN. That said, I don’t want anyone that came from a spread offence. Take the best guy in a pro-style offence and don’t fall in love with anyone in their underwear at the combine. Look at the tape. The all 22 don’t lie.
    ———–

    Hate spread systems with a passion, myself. Most of those guys don’t translate at all, and the rest take forever to do so. There’s just not much in the way of audibles, reads post-snap, or any of what you have to do at the NFL level. Pro style QBs are preferable. Just those who can move and have uncanny arm talent are required today. Mahomes is an outlier from the spread system in college, because he can… move and has uncanny arm talent.

  10. Yeah, no success under Elway. Five division titles, two conference championships, and a Super Bowl win in eight years. He built a record breaking offense and an all time defense within a couple of years of each other. They have won 64% of their games since he took over as GM. He replaced Fox (who took them to a super bowl) with Kubiak (who won a super bowl, and quit because of his health) So really, he whiffed on one coach. He deserves a chance to rebuild the team after a championship run. He also killed the draft last year, this team has some quality young talent.

  11. For as good as Elway was as a QB he is pretty horrendous at scouting them.

    Tebow, Lynch, Keenum…

    You might want to get your facts straight, Elway did not Draft Tebow, he was not even with the Broncos when they took him, also a lot of teams wanted Lynch. QB’s bust all the time.

  12. jodave5 says:
    January 29, 2019 at 9:14 am

    What college team doesn’t run the spread offense, other than the military academies?
    ———-

    Georgia Tech and Wofford.

  13. I would Hate to see Drew Lock play for the Broncos. He is from Missouri and played for Mizzou. Would be an ugly site to see him in blue and orange.

  14. SWFLPC.INC says:
    January 29, 2019 at 8:55 am
    He was also high on Brock Ossweiller. And then he was high on Trevor Seimian. And then he was high on Paxton Lynch.

    ————-

    He hated Trevor and never gave him a real chance. Was always trying to shove the flavor of the month down the throat of the team only to have that guy completely embarrass himself with his inability to play. Trevor is no different than Case Keenum, a guy who isn’t great but is serviceable and can win you games if you put the right pieces around him. In other words, because he’s not shiney he’s grossly underrated by teams who have no concept that just because you don’t have the best car doesn’t mean your car won’t take you far.

  15. I’m from Missouri and I have watched Drew his entire career from lighting it up in high school, to lighting up in the Nike camps, to lighting it up at Mizzou. He played in the spread under Josh Hypeuel and put up video game type numbers against SEC defenses. He had a decent first half against Alabama but the OLine was destroyed in the 2nd half. In his Sr year they brought in Derrick Dooley to bring in more of a pro-style offense and his numbers were a bit down. Not because he sucked but because he was asked to do something different. He had to learn to go through progressions, call out protections etc. And he became pretty good at it over the course of the season.

    There were some problems though. His feet were all over the place and often threw unbalanced. He at times would lock on to one receiver and force throws causing turnovers. But the biggest issue was the talent around him was subpar. The two major threats he had at WR and TE was basically hurt either the entire seasons at the WR position and half the season at the TE position. If he can sit a year behind a Case Kenneum or someone and learn how to be a pro I think Broncos or another team will finally have their franchise Qb. Make no mistake about it, the kid is a gun slinger and is unafraid.

  16. PugTheDog says:
    January 29, 2019 at 8:47 am
    “For as good as Elway was as a QB he is pretty horrendous at scouting them.

    Tebow, Lynch, Keenum…”

    Tebow was drafted by McDaniels before Elway was hired. Keenum‘s 2 yr contract shows he is nothing more than a stop gap. But yes, Lynch was a terrible pick. It’s clear that he panicked after Osweiler left.

  17. If not for the presence of Jon Gruden, Elway would be the worst GM in the AFCW (if not the entire AFC).

  18. Detroit & Buffalo are now the beneficiaries for any/all teams that may want Lock. Great move by Elway if this is a smokescreen, dumb move if he actually had any desire to draft the kid.

  19. SWFLPC.INC says:
    January 29, 2019 at 8:55 am
    He was also high on Brock Ossweiller. And then he was high on Trevor Seimian. And then he was high on Paxton Lynch.

    ———

    Maybe he’s just high?

  20. If I were Elway, I’d make sure Lock doesn’t play video games like Paxton Lynch and actually can memorize a playbook before I drafted him.

    Also, make sure he’s not the crying type…

  21. If it’s true, it would be like like the incompetent buffoon Elway to show his cards…

  22. PugTheDog says:
    January 29, 2019 at 8:47 am
    For as good as Elway was as a QB he is pretty horrendous at scouting them.

    Tebow, Lynch, Keenum…

    For the last time, Elway was not with the Broncos when they drafted Tebow. That was McDaniel’s plan. The first thing Elway did was get rid of Tebow. Yeesh, get it right, super-fan.

  23. funnyelway says:
    January 29, 2019 at 10:04 am
    jodave5 says:
    January 29, 2019 at 9:14 am

    What college team doesn’t run the spread offense, other than the military academies?
    ———-

    FSU DIDN’T until Taggart arrived SMH. Jameis to this day racked up the most points all time through the pro style.

  24. A lot of harsh judgement of Elway, as though picking HCs and QBs is super easy. Osweiler probably would’ve been fine if he’d stayed in Denver, he knew the offense. Simien was OK, Keenum is entirely competent.

    Lynch? Whatever. He was a first-round talent. Someone else would’ve taken him if Denver hadn’t – and no QBs are a sure thing. I’m not a Denver fan, but the snide, know-it-all comments get a bit tiring.

    Establishing and/or maintaining any kind of success in the NFL is extremely difficult. Elway did a great job getting Manning and building a winning team around him. You lose that piece of the puzzle – you know, just a HoF QB – and, as we can see, it’s not a simple matter of “next man up”.

  25. Mr. Wright 212 says:

    January 29, 2019 at 9:57 am

    Hate spread systems with a passion, myself. Most of those guys don’t translate at all, and the rest take forever to do so. There’s just not much in the way of audibles, reads post-snap, or any of what you have to do at the NFL level. Pro style QBs are preferable. Just those who can move and have uncanny arm talent are required today. Mahomes is an outlier from the spread system in college, because he can… move and has uncanny arm talent.

    __________________

    When Drew Brees was in college he his offense ran a lot of spread concepts so did Alex Smith, Phillip Rivers and Ben Roethlisberger. Other quarterbacks recently that came from a spread offense is DeShaun Watson, Jimmy Garoppolo, Baker Mayfield, Jared Goff, Patrick Mahomes, Cam Newton. Also with the NFL now leaning to more spread concepts and running their primary offense out of the shotgun, the negative stigma against spread quarterbacks is dying out.

  26. Rivers played in a pro style offense. I am a Florida State Seminole. I was there.

    Brees played run and shoot, but it was still pro style. Roethlisberger did play some spread, but it wasn’t 70 passes a game like these one-read-and-go systems these guys run nowadays.

    And outside of a few outliers, the rest of those guys mentioned are either unproven or have never learned how to read a defense and pass with accuracy.

  27. Mizzou alum here. Watched quite a few Missouri games over the last 2 years. Positives:: good size, good arm strength, can make all the throws, smart and coachable. Negatives:: did not perform well against top competition, needs to improve consistency and accuracy. Thought he would be an early 2nd rd pick, but QBs always seem to rise as we get closer to the draft.

  28. For as good as Elway was as a QB he is pretty horrendous at scouting them.

    Tebow, Lynch, Keenum.
    _________________
    Tebow was drafted by Josh McDaniels. Elway did not work for the Broncos at this time. Upon his hire by Denver, one of the first things Elway did was to trade Tebow to the Jets.

  29. Watching Lock in college…

    ….he has a lot of potential, for sure. he can make all of the throws, particularly excelling at out routes and throws to the sidelines. He has leadership value. He’s run a pro-style offense, taken snaps under center, and has had good production.

    He has also had a lot of trouble at times reading defenses. If a defense changes coverage from its presnap look, he can get confused and panic. He predetermines throws a lot, which is good for timing routes but is bad if a defense is not in the right coverage. He’s going to have to have good coaching and playcalling to have a chance to develop experience in reading pro defenses.

    People use the words “developmental prospect” all the time, but Lock is a pretty good fit for that term in some regard, because he actually has a chance to succeed. He will need NFL level adjusting to his game, particularly in reading coverages and being a better game manager.

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