The Eagles have shown the Broncos the folly of a QB competition
Apr 26, 2021, 6:17 AM
Last week, Nick Sirianni caused people in Denver to snicker. The Eagles head coach told the Philadelphia media that Jalen Hurts wasn’t his team’s starting quarterback heading into next season. He was keeping the competition open heading into training camp.
That was laughable in the Mile High City because of who else is on Philly’s depth chart. Hurts is joined at QB by Joe Flacco, a 36-year-old signal caller who proved he was no longer in his prime during a forgettable eight games with Denver in 2019.
Everyone in Broncos Country knows that going with Flacco would be a mistake. He’s a known commodity, one with a very low ceiling. Playing the young QB with plenty of upside is the smart way to go.
For some reason, however, few want to apply the same logic to Denver’s quarterback situation. Over and over again this offseason, people have been advocating for the Broncos to bring in competition for Drew Lock. They argue that the Broncos need to bring in their version of Flacco to push their version of Hurts.
It would be an equally foolish plan. It would be wrought with the same limited upside. Yet it has become essentially a forgone conclusion that it’ll happen in Denver.
It would be a big mistake. For all sorts of reasons.
That’s not to say that Lock is the right guy. He still has a lot to prove and has to up his game in almost everyone possible way. Whether or not he can become a legit NFL starter is still a major question.
So upgrading from Lock would be fine. But it has to be a significant step up to make sense.
Matthew Stafford? Deshaun Watson? Carson Wentz? Sure, those veterans would’ve been no-brainers.
Trevor Lawrence? Zach Wilson? Justin Fields? Trey Lance? No doubt those rookies would elevate play at quarterback in the long run.
But short of those options, there isn’t a QB that makes more sense in Denver for the 2021 season than Lock. The remaining options would be as foolish as Flacco in Philly.
The name gaining the most traction of late to vie for the job in the Mile High City is Teddy Bridgewater. The Panthers want to move on from him, just one year after giving him a $63-million contract, so he theoretically could be had for cheap, with Carolina picking up a big portion fo the tab this season.
That shouldn’t be seen as an opportunity. It should be a red flag.
If the Panthers would rather try to undergo a career reclamation project with Sam Darnold that ensure another year from Bridgewater, while paying to have the veteran leave town, that should tell the Broncos all they need to know. He clearly isn’t a viable option, short-term or long-term.
Would he be better in 2021 than Lock? Maybe. But what’s the point?
With Bridgewater, the Broncos might win eight or nine games. They might compete for the No. 7 seed in the AFC. But they wouldn’t be a legit contender. And they wouldn’t be building toward anything important. They wouldn’t be on a path that realistically had a championship as the destination.
That result would simply put them in no man’s land. It might be enough of an improvement to save Vic Fangio’s job, but it’s highly debatable if that’d be a good thing or not. And it would put them in the late-teens to early 20s in next year’s draft, making it even harder to find a QB of the future.
If the Broncos don’t land one of the top quarterbacks in this year’s class, they should just go with Lock again. And if they do that, they’d be doing the 24-year-old a disservice by making him compete for the job.
He already missed out out camp reps as a rookie because Fangio and Company insisted on veteran Kevin Hogan being No. 2 on the depth chart early on. Splitting them again would be another waste of time.
Lock also missed roughly 75 percent of his rookie year because the Broncos foolishly placed him on Injured Reserve with a bad thumb. That prevented him from practicing for most of the season, costing him valuable on-field time.
He’s also had to play for two different offensive coordinators. And the second time around, he had no offseason to learn the new system due to COVID.
Those aren’t excuses. They’re just the reality.
It’s time the Broncos stopped making things difficult for the kid. If he’s the choice, give him the best chance to succeed.
If it does finally click for Lock, Denver is set for years to come. If he flirts with .500, at least it’s a step on an upward trajectory; it’s something to build upon. And if he flops, the Broncos can move on next year with another top-10 pick.
So if George Paton doesn’t draft a QB on Thursday, he should learn from what happened last week in Philly. We were laughing at Flacco, just like Panthers fans would be chuckling at Bridgewater being a viable option.
Go young. One way or another. It’s time to stop the bridge-to-nowhere QBs.
