Fangio Tries to Explain 'What Everybody has Missed' on the Drew Lock Front
The Denver Broncos are rolling into their Week 9 matchup vs. the Cleveland Browns without a single quarterback on the roster who's even played one regular-season NFL snap.
Joe Flacco has been placed on season-ending injured reserve with a herniated disc in his neck. You would think such a development would signal loud and clear that it's Drew Lock time in the Mile High City.
Not so fast. The Broncos have dragged their heels in how they've (mis)managed their rookie signal-caller, who's been languishing on IR since the 2019 regular season began. Lock suffered a sprained right thumb in the preseason, prompting the team's IR decision but according to him, the thumb is not only good to go, it has been for a while now.
Lock himself revealed on Wednesday that he was cleared physically by the team medical staff "a couple weeks ago". Per NFL IR rules, Lock could have begun practicing as soon as Week 7, with an eye towards being activated in Week 9, after the first eight games of the season were in the books.
But the Broncos have mystified both fans and media alike in their lack of urgency to get Lock even on the practice field. And now, with Flacco done for the season, it's safe to say fans are champing at the bit and impatient with the mixed signals and contradictions the Broncos have been promulgating.
Head coach Vic Fangio, perhaps a man caught in the middle, tried his best on Friday to explain why the team didn't immediately greenlight Lock to practice when they realized the severity of Flacco's injury on Monday.
“One of the biggest things that everybody has missed with the Drew situation is that if we had practiced him this week, that’s one week," Fangio said. "Next week is a bye week and that counts as a second week, even though we’re not practicing. That’s part of the decision. If we would have practiced him this week, he’d get nothing in his second week.”
Fangio is referring to the NFL's three-week IR/practice rule. When an IR player practices for the first time, after he's sat out for at least six weeks, by league rule, the team has three weeks to decide whether or not to activate him to the 53-man roster.
Fangio is saying that within that three-week scope, because Lock's second week of practice would be a bye, the Broncos would thus be wasting the week because the team won't be practicing during the bye. If that's a real consideration, why did the team choose to begin practicing WR Tim Patrick this week, who's also been on IR alongside Lock? Shouldn't the same logic apply to Patrick?
In this case, what's good for the goose isn't good for the gander, apparently. Teams can designate only two IR players each season to return to the active roster.
But the only reason that three-week window is there is so that teams have a chance to see a formerly-injured player practice for three weeks before making a final decision on activating him, but considering that Lock is fully healthy, what Earthly reason would the team have to even doubt that once he started practicing, he wouldn't end up on the 53-man roster as a matter of course?
Lock is the team's second-round QB, tapped as "the future" by GM John Elway himself. In the wake of a 2-6 start, these last eight games represent a crucial opportunity for Lock to go through the traditional trial-and-error learning curve without the typical regular-season stakes.
The Broncos are missing the opportunity to get Lock this crucial experience in a football environment where the win/loss considerations are literally inconsequential. The L.A. Rams started rookie Jared Goff in seven games in 2016 and he lost them all.
The next year, though, he took a quantum leap forward. Teaming Goff up with head coach Sean McVay was a big reason why but the lumps Goff took as a rookie, those live-bullet reps, also exposed him to the speed of the NFL game and to pro defenses. If you were to ask Goff, he'd tell you those seven games in which he went 0-7 as a starter were invaluable.
That's what the Broncos are missing with Drew Lock. The Broncos will host the Browns on Sunday before entering their Week 10 bye. Circle Week 11 as the date-range the Broncos plan to start the clock on Lock.
Trying to explain the inexplicable to our great readers is frankly making me feel like a crazy person. But that's the territory the Broncos' roster decisions have led me of late.
Follow Chad on Twitter @ChadNJensen and @MileHighHuddle.