Clayton: Drew Lock takes the lead over Teddy Bridgwater in QB battle

Following the Broncos 33-6 blowout victory over Minnesota, head coach Vic Fangio stayed with his daily comments. He said the quarterback position is even-steven.

Most people, including myself, don’t believe that. Drew Lock has taken the lead over Teddy Bridgewater. Lock was great on Saturday. Lock was five for seven for 151 yards and two touchdowns. He had an 80-yard touchdown pass to K.J. Hamler.

Teddy Bridgewater looked like what you expected. He was seven of eight for 74 yards and a touchdown. Bridgewater was efficient. Lock was dynamic. Lock, Justin Fields (Chicago) and Nathan Peterman (Las Vegas) had maybe the two best days in the first full week of preseason games.

The big advancement for Lock is that the Broncos used a little bit more of play-action passes. With a good running game, this phase of the offense was more effective. And that’s a good thing.

Naturally, Bridgewater can do that, as well. But we saw Lock, who has more upside than Bridgewater, look like the quarterback they drafted and hoped to improve as the starter.

The plan this year was to bring in a quarterback to compete against Lock and make him preform better. That has happened.

Lock did well in the joint practices with the Vikings. He’s done well in training camp. For the critics who complain about the Broncos not drafting Fields, the Broncos could be a better team if Lock and Bridgewater play to this level.

The Vikings game was a great one for the Broncos. Javonte Williams looked terrific at running back. Patrick Surtain had a pick-six and enhanced his chances of getting into the starting lineup at cornerback. Lloyd Cushenberry looked very good and should end up with the starting job at center.

You don’t want to go overboard about the preseason opener because so many games had so many backups in the lineup and so few starters on the field. The Vikings held out 33 players, the second most in the league. The Broncos sat 26 players. League-wide, teams didn’t play 522 players, an average of 17.4 per team.

But Denver could only face who was on the field on Saturday. And it was a great start to 2021 for Drew Lock and the Broncos.